Bed Bug Island

Eight months now. I’ve been stuck and isolated on this barren mattress (though not entirely alone) in the middle of what Paul has been calling the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” There are nineteen of us left after our owner and host threw us into the dumpster, and now we’re here, surfing on the gentle currents of the Pacific Ocean.

Most humans assume we’re idiots, vampiric parasites because of our diminutive size and penchant for sucking blood. The one thing those evolved apes have never considered is that maybe we are (and we are) reincarnated from past-lived hominids. I know this because I remember my most recent life as a garbage man in Connecticut. I entered this life after a tragic (and admittedly very avoidable) accident involving my overzealous ass trying to fix my truck’s malfunctioning garbage compactor. I fell in and… well, needless to say I’m a very different shape.

“Sucked any good fish lately?” Gareth guffawed as he walked behind me.

I hate his sense of humor, if you can even call what constitutes the mechanics of his mind a “sense” of “humor.” He’s just a mouthy idiot. Now Gloria– there’s a learned and sophisticated bug. But she lives on the nicer side of the mattress and would never go for me.

“Shut up, Gareth,” I replied coolly. He knows we haven’t sucked any blood since that flying fish landed on our mattress four months ago. They say we can only survive up to a year at most without feeding, but I truly question the science behind that because a life of constant starvation feels more like a sick preview of death.

“FISH AHOY!” Gareth yelled. I didn’t pay him any heed until Santos, who used to be a professional fisherman started whooping and hollering.

“Yes!” he screamed excitedly, “Looks like a sargassum!” he added as the carcass of a bright yellow fish drifted past tires, plastic bottles, and a trove of nude magazines toward our mattress.

“Aren’t they poisonous?” Paul asked. He read a lot of books in his human life. I predict he would be bespectacled if bed bugs wore glasses.

“To humans, maybe,” Santos replied, “But I don’t even care if it kills me! Aren’t you starving?”

Gloria poked her head out of her foam home-burrow, along with her boyfriends whom I forgot to mention were another reason I didn’t have a shot with her. They were alpha bugs, not too smart, but they were big guys (all things considered).

We all started clambering down the edge of the mattress we called home to suck the blood out of this mindless, dead fish. Gareth was the last to dig in since he spent almost a minute saying grace. Only one of our own slipped and fell into the water. He drowned to death, but no one really liked him, so it’s alright. His name was Fred or Ned. I don’t know. He wasn’t that interesting.

All in all, it was a good day.