It’s strange how quickly some relationships develop. Claude and I had only met about three weeks ago. He was scurrying across the workshop, carrying some edible titbits: he later explained – the ‘elevenses’ for the crew. And me? Well I was a recent transferee from another part of the factory, an involuntary refugee, moved as part of a reorganisation of the workshop floor.
But we quickly bonded, finding common ground in our love of flying, our svelte, dark uniforms that we wore ‘on the wing’, meal preferences and humour. We quickly realised that we were also neighbours, living only a few crevices apart. How had we never crossed paths before?
We lived in the wonderfully aromatic darkness of the workshop’s cellar, with plenty of space to fulfill an adventurous existence. Above us, when the light was strong, the Big Ones trod; backwards and forwards, their never-ending movements raining dusty motes down across our space. We didn’t mind, as the vibrations often brought down edible scrapes.
Our style of humour, some might say ‘gutter-humour’ brought both of us near to tears. A whispered scenario, usually coming from Claude’s over-active imagination, would see us corralled in some dark corner, hushed discussions, giggling and a final agreement on an approach to our latest foray. It sometimes involved interaction with those above –these were far more dangerous escapades. But most times, we just did things to annoy our brethren.
There was a popular light-time resting hole that many of the crew liked to use. Claude, again, came up with a plan. Above the entrance to the space was a paper box. He and I secretly worked on that box for several days, nibbling and excavating one side of the box. We unbalanced it, and while the crew were at rest, we managed to send the box down across the entrance, trapping our colleagues. We thought it a hilarious joke, while angry, hungry and thirsty friends finally chewed their way out at the end of the dark time.
There was this huge jar of sweet sticky stuff, sometimes left open on the counter at the back of the crib room above. In the quiet of the night, Claude and I would crawl through the cracks in the floor above, then launch ourselves up and onto that jar. Care was needed to avoid the semi-hard blobs on the neck of the container – Claude once got his wings caught on the jar’s neck and spent an uncomfortable and anxious night attached. By nibbling the edges of the sticky stuff, I was eventually able to free him, just as the morning light arrived.
Another upstairs foray, again heading for the jar. This time our timing was bad. We had just launched ourselves when a Big One started yelling, a wad of paper swatted furiously. A lucky blow caught Claude and knocked him for a six. As I flew into the darkness, I had a fleeting glimpse of Claude impaled, needled and the Big One heard to curse “Bloody cockroaches.”