The Centipede
- Apr 29, 2020
- 3 min read
by C. Cimmone
It was his last birthday we shared together: him, the two kids, and me. I picked up pizza on my way home from work. I stopped at the market for his green iced cake and a birthday card that simply read, “Happy Birthday to My Husband.”
He enjoyed the frilly lines of the birthday card, and gave himself an extra dose of insulin after the birthday candles were blown out. I gathered the babies and he opened the front door. The day was still warm, but offered its assistance of cool evening air. His truck rested in the drive and we all smiled — even him.
We crossed the drive with careless steps until he mumbled, “There’s a centipede…”
There, between the tire and the pavement, waited a thick, red centipede. He sat wedged almost as if he were completely aware of his dangerous positioning — intentionally thwarting us with his sheer bravery.
“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” he said. The kids were astonished; the baby almost gasped into a cry when the red, pointy spindles began to twitch and grind. The centipede took a snake’s path, winding with ferocious determination towards us.
I held the baby tighter and the toddler screamed. He and I were confused by the creature, who offered no shame for its path.
“Get something and kill it!” I requested. He reached into the bed of the truck and presented his father’s hammer, never returned from its use.
Smash! He cracked the hammer onto the pavement, crushing the center of the large centipede.
I had never seen him kill anything — he was never a hunter and he didn’t store fishing rods in the back of our garage. He was quiet and still as he watched the centipede twitch and gnash its spindles against the black pavement.
The baby cried and I pushed us all along and back into the house. I settled the baby and the toddler crept around the floor searching for wooden blocks and an abandoned pacifier.
“It’s been a few hours. Why don’t you go to the driveway and see if it’s still out there?”
“Why?” he responded. “I hit him once and that’s enough. He will die eventually.”
“I know, but I hate that he’s out there suffering. You should put him out of his misery.”
Without pause or resistance, he gathered himself up and went out to devastate the foot-long centipede. I waited by the front door, afraid the villain had regained strength and found his way into the garage with a significant agenda. The breaking of the hammer against the pavement made me feel safe and I sighed with great relief.
“Well, this is a birthday we will never forget,” I mentioned. He nodded.
“I’ve never seen anything so evil before in my life. It was as if it came out of nowhere — almost like it was waiting for you. Or even waiting for us.” He nodded.
That was the last birthday he had with his own soul. One year later he was pulled by the root of all things evil — the spindles of substance gathered him and carried him away. His ashes sit on a shelf in an unmarked ceramic grave.
I think sometimes about that centipede and why he came toward us instead of running back into the brush.
Perhaps he was an anomaly to the season; or perhaps, he was the devil himself.
C. Cimmone is an editor-at-large for trampset. She also reads for Marías at Sampaguitas.
