The Cockroaches of Stay More Read Online Free PDF

and the sounds of the symphony.
    Some of the girls in this double processional tapped their abdomens to the ground to keep a beat for the others to march to; all of them held their heads high and swung their sniffwhips rhythmically to and fro in the air, and their tailprongs from side to side. Their numbers made them into one giant centipede, nay, a millipede, and the authority that towers in numbers frightened off any predator as well as any harmless creature that might stand in the path of this great undulating chain of femininity. Crickets and katydids alike leapt frantically out of their way, and nightcrawlers plowed off the road and into the median strip with cries of “MAYDAY!” and “THIRTY? THREE!” and “BLOOD BOX!” A great warty toad, Bufo americanus , who ordinarily would have made a meal out of several of these girls at one lick, westered of heart failure. Some of the girls giggled at the sight of his hammy legs in the air, still kicking in west.
    The night, and the air, and the music, not to mention the calendar, conspired to make each of these virginal roosterroaches broadcast her own personal perfume, until the downdrifting dew was thoroughly saturated with pheromones, irresistibly sensual, and the mingling of these vampish vapors seeped into every lair of Carlott and hole of Holy House, and even as far away as Parthenon, and all the male roosterroaches banged their heads against the walls of their hiding places in an effort to give themselves the willpower to keep their tergal glands from leaking all their affy-dizzy. For these maidens were only teasing with their powerful pheromones; they did not mean business; they were not ready for mating…yet. The long double chain wound and wound around the hollers and hummocks of the little village.
    In certain isolated coves of the Ozark Mountains, up until the most recent times, the folk (both humanfolk and roosterroachfolk) still celebrated, particularly in May as the earth began to grow, what can only be called Cerealia, rites in honor of Ceres, the godhead above the god of Roman Man, or rather goddesshead: Mother Earth herself, protectress of all the fruits of the earth and from whom the sacred word “cereal” comes. The young of Man had often conducted their “play-party” as a form of Cerealia, and the roosterroaches, following Man in all things, did likewise.
    This double file of promenading females sashayed up and down the Roamin Road almost as far as Parthenon, almost within sight of the Woman, a substitute for Ceres, who sat on the porch of Parthenon, in Her rocking cheer, not Mother Earth but a sort of Earth Mother although She had never had any children herself. From within Parthenon, through the open screen door behind Her, came the sounds of Her stereo, but it was not the source of the Purple Symphony, and indeed She probably could not hear the latter, even with Her stereo off. Nor could She see the hundreds of roosterroaches turning their train around in Her dooryard.
    As the double file of maidens came prancing back down the Roamin Road, one of the females exclaimed, “The Lord-a-Joshuway! Why, Tish Dingletoon, if there aint yore pappy tryin to ketch holt of the end of our train!”
    Tish Dingletoon turned her head at this exclamation and swung her sniffwhips to try to detect the distant tail of the roosterroachipede, where Jack Dingletoon was staggering along in pursuit, seeking to imitate the sway of the girls’ sniffwhips with his own, and doing an awful job of copying their prance and posture.
    Jack’s head was tilted back and he was singing in cadence to the march: “Hi yoop! I aint no Dingletoon no more! By cracky, I’m a pure dee pure blood Ingledew now, and a squire to boot!”
    All the girls tittered, giggled, and pointed, except Tish, in whom a slow heat rose.
    “He’s had too much Chism’s Dew, is all he has,” she said hastily, “and he don’t know what he’s sayin.”
    One of her companions giggled and said, “Bet he