A New Eden

He stood mesmerised by the sunlight flashing on the blue-green lake. The water's restless movement reminded him of the cockroaches he'd uncovered in some leaf mould a while back: their bronze backs glistening as they clambered over each other, barbed legs wriggling, antennae quivering.

Their unrelenting motion had captivated him. Only when their smell grew too pungent did he retreat. The lake water, undulating and shimmering like fire, had the same captivating effect. His insides squirmed. He was desperate to hold this vision, to recreate its energy.

As for the cockroaches, being disturbed had been a shock. For millennia, signalling danger had become unnecessary. Their pheromones proclaimed good news only: food sources hereabouts! no predators in sight! let's mate again!

Ever since the nuclear fallout, the roaches had encountered nothing but corpses; the remains, that is, of all the creatures that hadn't been instantly vaporised. Human bodies were the most abundant find, barring their inedible detritus. The metal and plastic junk was something only the Earth could handle, eventually.

Cockroaches had been clearing up after man ever since the first hominid attempted bipedalism. They'd accrued over 300 million years' experience. Perhaps they deserved to inherit the earth. Under their watch, it was certainly a cleaner, brighter place.

The roaches had thought the planet theirs alone until that bonobo had unexpectedly exposed them to the light. Little did they know that, in this heavily forested region of the Congo, radiation levels had been at their lowest, allowing some great apes to escape annihilation.

Now, countless millennia after the meltdown, the bonobos had found themselves several rungs up the evolutionary ladder. The troupe was already conversing with hand and vocal signals and, although not yet producing Shakespearean soliloquies on typewriters, in other ways its artistry was thriving.

The young male, entranced by the sparkling water, had experimented with plants, berries, soils, and crushed rocks to reproduce the colours of the landscape on rocky outcrops. He'd even tried grinding the bodies of cockroaches, hoping their exquisite bronze might furnish a similarly burnished pigment.

After the troupe had discovered how to make fire, he'd made smoky sketches, too, then discovered that fire could also harden the clay he'd been shaping. Unfortunately, in his enthusiasm, he'd set alight a great swathe of jungle.

The roaches, of course, understood none of this. They knew only that their pheromones, now signalling danger, were working overtime. And, while there were no longer humans around to anthropomorphise such signs, Gaia herself shared their concerns. "Uh-oh, here we go again!" the roaches seemed to be saying.

Dr David Rudd, 70+, an emeritus professor of literature, wrote academic prose for 40 years before letting his imagination run loose in publications like Altered Reality, Bewildering Stories, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, The Blotter, Corner Bar Magazine, Jerry Jazz Musician, Literally Stories, and Scribble.

Find more by David Rudd in the Author Index.

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