The Gold Bug
When they went to bed, Alec was long tossing and turning on the sofa. The sofa creaked.
"What the fuck are you doing there, idiot?" Olga couldn't bear it any longer. Her stomach was aching, because they had eaten a whole can of jam. An entire can of jam, with bread. "I can't sleep!"
Alec grew quiet.
"Olga? You sleeping?" he whispered five minutes later.
"Fuck you," said Olga. "You won't let me sleep."
"Did you hear that?"
"What? One o'clock..."
"There, behind the wall. Someone is crunching."
"Go to sleep, you bastard."
"Olga, please, listen!"
"I don't hear anything. Maybe it's a tree branch rubbing against the wall. Sleep."
Alec grew quiet again. Olga could hear him breathing. It was very dark in the room where they were sleeping, because grandma had closed all the blinds on the windows, and only a small part of the ceiling was lit but the moonlight. Olga closed her eyes and imagined what her mother was doing now together with her boy-friend Timopheus Ivanovich. They had probably drunk all the champagne already, and were now naked stirring in bed. Mother would spread her legs and Timopheus Ivanovich would lie upon her, and she would howl, as if she had a headache. Olga heard this howl so many times that now she easily imagined it.
"Olga, do you believe in dead people?" asked Alec.
Timopheus Ivanovich stopped in his ameba-like dance and looked at Olga, biting his lip.
"Will you ever sleep, idiot!" Olga shouted in whisper. "I'll kick your ass."
Silence. Olga freed her legs from the eiderdown which was too warm. Timopheus Ivanovich took a deep breath and started to push himself into mother, and mother started to howl again, started to cry from some unknown pain. Soon Olga realized that it was Alec crying together with mother.
She stood up and came up to him. Alec was lying on the sofa, rolling himself into a ball, and crying quietly.
"Why are you crying, you moron?" asked Olga in a friendly manner. She sat on the edge of his bed and hugged his shoulders.
"Olga..." Alec turned to her and buried his hit wet face in her leg. "Have you ever heard of the gold bug?"
"Of what?"
"Of the bug... gold bug. It even glows in the dark."
"What nonsense, who told you this?"
"I saw him with my own eyes. I saw him."
"Where?"
"Here. At grandma's place. In her room. A month ago, when we stayed here."
"It was a dream."
"No it wasn't."
"There are no gold bugs in the world. It was just a reflection of a torch in a glass, or something else..."
"It was creeping, Olga, it was creeping, and then it got into grandma's mouth!"
"Oh my god!"
"I say, Olga, he lives there! Grandma has gold teeth, and the gold bug lives there, too."
"Impossible. A gold bug, living inside our grandma? Bullshit."
"I saw him getting into her mouth."
"I'm telling you: it was just a dream."
"I dream every night, and I'm not saying it all is true. I saw it with my own eyes. I went to the toilet, and the door to grandma's room was open. And I saw something glowing in the dark. I came closer. And it saw sitting on grandma's belly. Very big, five times bigger than any other bug. And its feelers were also gold, they were moving..."
"Crap."
"Crap yourself! It you saw him, you'd yell! And when it got into grandma's mouth, with feelers..."
"Enough," said Olga, rising to her feet.
"Oh no, Olga, it's crunching there, behind the wall! What if it comes here? You'll fall asleep and it'll get into your mouth!"
"You're a fool, Alec. You're already grown-up, and still believes in such crap. Nothing is crunching." Olga suddenly heard a quiet crunching. But it wasn't horrible; it was funny. "C'mon, get up, you idiot. Let's take a look at the gold bug."
"Aren't you scared?"
"Scared of what? Of a bug? What will it do to us?"
"Well... I dunno. It might also fly. You know, there are bugs that can fly."
"Get up, you bastard. And put on your slippers."
Timopheus Ivanovich covered mother's face with a sheet, so that she stopped howling, it was so that time when Olga spied. Her head was of no use to him. The howl grew quieter, and remained only the heavy pushes into the old sofa, mother's wheezing and the whistle of Timopheus Ivanovich: such was his habit, he liked whistling.
Olga and Alec passed by the kitchen and then by the entrance door. From the kitchen there came the sound of the clock, it was much lighter there, for the window was covered with light lace blinds. The door to grandma's room was open, and Olga heard the snoring of the old lady. They had to walk very carefully, because the floor could creak. Olga wondered, why even the hall floor in old flats was parquet. In the fissions of the parquet, there lived the bugs that came from the neighbors.
It was very dark in the room. Olga stopped in the hall, from where she would see grandma's bed and strained her eyes. "It's impossible to see the gold bug without light, even if it is there," she thought. Alec also looked there, clutching her hand and her gown. Olga grew pale. The bed was empty.
There was only the eiderdown and the pillow. It was evident that grandma had got up. She was snoring somewhere else, behind the door. Olga didn't feel like entering the room, but she realized that if she turned back, it would be even more scary. She was shivering. Pulling herself together, she entered the room, with Alec behind her. She saw something in the dark, and when she stepped forward, she recognized what it was.
Grandma was in the middle of the room. She wasn't standing on the floor, she was hanging in the air, and her arms and legs resembled a baby doll's. She looked like an ugly rusty tortoise. Her gold teeth were glowing in her mouth, surrounding some other, magic being. Some think dark substance entered Olga's head, she stumbled and fell on the carpet, like a ewe stunned by an axe. Alec made an awkward step, and also fell on the floor, and his face burst with a quiet, wet sound. Jerking, Alec's body fell upon Olga's back, pouring the thick bloody mess from his torn head all over the girl's sleeping gown.
It looked like fish with sauce.
Original Author: Ilia Masodov.