Mukade

It finally happened. I always knew it would, but somehow, I never thought it would be quite like it was.

Let me start from the beginning.

It was a sweltering, humid day in August as we strolled through the Shinjuku district of Tokyo. As walked, we chatted casually with Justin’s predecessor, a friendly guy who had spent the last two years living in the house we would inhabit in only two days. The three of us sat down at a little cast metal-esque table with our cold Starbucks drinks, the condensation that was dripping off the side of the thin plastic cups wetting our clothes.

He was telling us what to expect, where to find groceries, who our neighbours were. After telling us all he could think of regarding our imminent situation, he asked if we had any questions.

I had to ask. I had to know.

“Cockroaches?” he repeated, “I’ve never seen a roach. Just your standard bugs… and the centipedes.”

The centipedes.

We have centipedes in Canada. How bad could it be? 

He proceeded to tell us about them. They purportedly travel in pairs, so if you see one, you can expect to see another one shortly after. Don’t squish them, or they’ll release pheromones that will attract more of their kind. Use Windex or something like it to kill them, then sweep them up. Oh, and, they’re poisonous.

“I’ve only seen two in the house,” he continued, “if you spread insecticide around the outside of the house they should stay away.”

I believed him.

I asked how big they were. I was starting to realise these weren’t your garden variety centipedes.

“The first one,” he said stretching his thumb and finger about two inches apart, “was about this big. The other I found crawling on my leg during the night. I thought it was just the sheets brushing against my skin, but when I looked…” he indicated with his two index fingers a space of about six inches.

Last summer, we spread centipede poison all around our house. According to our informant, what it didn’t repel, it would kill on contact. I found several centipedes in our house that summer, none of them dead. Each incident of discovery was followed by a night of little sleep and visions of centipedes crawling under my blankets.

Over time, my fears slowly abated. I was relieved to note that the only centipedes I’d seen had been about two inches long. I began to suspect the storyteller had been exaggerating at my expense. I started to ask my Japanese friends about these alleged giant centipedes. They did exist in Japan, my husband’s internet research confirmed this. But our area, northerly and high in the mountains, is surely a location too harsh for the existence of such creatures. As I quizzed people about it, I couldn’t get a straight answer, or any answer really. Only sheepish smiles. It was enough to satisfy me that hyperbole had been at work in the story of my nightmares.     

Until about three weeks ago.

We were taking a night stroll. Ironically, though it was bedtime, we weren’t sleepy. As we passed under one of our village’s three street lights, we saw it. A body black like the night, legs red like blood. It squiggled its way along the road, and I realised that the giant centipedes of Yasuoka were not a myth. I despondently told Justin I was done walking. We went back to the house to a restless night’s sleep.

I came to terms with what I had seen. It was, after all, not as big as I had thought. Its body was only about a centimeter in width, and its legs just a little longer than that. I could learn to live with that. Not to mention, this was only the first I'd seen in almost a year of living here. The likelihood of seeing another was probably slim to none.

Two weeks later, I would feel differently.

It had rained for about two days straight. The sun had finally come out in the late afternoon, and Justin had just got home from work. It was shaping up to be a beautiful Friday evening. I sat on our front steps, chatting with my husband who was seated on the step above me. We were gazing at the mountain, green and gold in the almost-setting sun. I sat leaning on one hand with the other petting my dog when I suddenly felt it: the feather-like brush of a hundred little legs grazing across my skin.

I knew in an instant what it was. I screamed, and jumped up. Turning around, I saw my fears were not false, for there crawling across our front step was a beast of disgusting proportions. Its black body was like that of a miniature serpent, with legs like broken red toothpicks. I screamed again.

Then, I screamed once more. Just for good measure.

It didn’t take Justin long to see what was causing my hysterics, and running into the house to find something with which to kill it he called, “keep an eye on it!” Classic. (see “La Cucaracha”)

I tried to maintain a visual as involuntary shrieks continued to periodically escape my lips. My dog stood at a distance watching me, looking very concerned and confused.

I lost sight of it in the mess of mint weed next to the house.

Justin emerged with some kitchen degreaser. I pointed to the last area I saw it, and he located the centipede. He attacked with his spray bottle, and soon all that was visible was a pile of white foam.

He ran for the watering can and washed away the foam, convinced the vile thing was dead. It wasn’t.

Round two ensued. Finally, Justin was satisfied that it was dead. He once again washed it with the watering can, to get a better look at it. I decided he could examine it without my assistance and made a break for the shelter of the house.

That one was a little harder to get over. Two days later I was beginning to once again feel my peace return, when, while sitting at the kitchen table, I turned around in my chair to look for something and saw... well, I suppose you already know what I saw. Crawling along the ceiling. 

In. The. House.

I jumped up and pointed mutely. I realised I hadn’t screamed yet, and thinking that it would motivate my husband to action, decided it would be a good time to invoke the battle cry. Justin likewise jumped up, ran to the bathroom and returned with a bottle of bathroom cleaner, an unknown spray chemical that’s been in the house since we moved in, and the trusty degreaser. He handed me the first two as he went to work. By the time I was able to contribute my bathroom cleaner to the fray, the centipede was already dead. 

“But which would you rather have,” one of our Japanese friends asked cheerfully, aware of my other phobias, “centipedes... or cockroaches?!” Her attempt at helping me come to terms with my lot was laudable.

But this week, I found a cockroach in my kitchen. 

Goodness gracious.