Slug Day

I stumbled into my apartment just as the clock-hand struck 3:00 in the morning. The pale glow of the moon peaked through the trees surrounding my garden, playing off the windowpanes by my door. A sudden heat grabbed me. I began stripping away layers as sweat dripped from my forehead to the tip of my nose to the floor. I could not help by throw the door wide open and yodel at the top of my tender lungs as a tepid breeze rushed past my gaunt and malnourished form. My nipple hairs danced in the breeze. The miasma of inebriation clouded my vision. I thrashed back and forth in my drunken blindness trying to locate the fridge door.

Success! My clammy fingers wrapped around the cool black plastic of the handle. I pulled with all my might, exposing a slender gap from which arctic breezes escaped. I shrieked in excitement as my naughty little fingers slid into the fridge, palpating the shadow-covered forms within. The cool touch of the food caused me to salivate. “I must feed!” I hollered, though nobody was home to hear me. I grabbed a selection of ingredients from the somber icy void of the fridge and began hurriedly throwing them into the pan which had been preheating on my stove for the past week. Small droplets of grease danced about, periodically grazing my exposed stomach, causing me to grow quite excited! At last, my meal was complete. I stumbled to my chair and began shoveling my sustenance into my mouth before my posterior had even contacted the seat.

I felt an unholy presence in the room. I froze for a moment as the half-chewed food in my mouth cooled to lukewarm. I gazed about, seeking the source of my discomfort. Sensing nothing laterally, I moved my gaze down to the floor. My bowl dropped from my grasp, shattering into innumerous fragments on the tiles. My toe was mere inches from the approaching trajectory of a slug! Dear reader, you cannot imagine the fear I felt as it undulated slowly across the floor—no doubt with sinister intent!

I screamed, spraying my now room-temperature meal across the eggshell colored walls of my apartment. The intruder must have slipped in through the gaping void of doorway during my yodel. I jumped as high as I could, slamming my scalp into the ceiling before falling into the fetal position in my chair.

I sat huddled, with my feet up on the chair, staring into the vacuity of my own demise as the slug circled the legs of the chair. Fear! Fear is what I felt. Immense and all-consuming dread flowed through my body, causing my hairs to stand up on end. I strained my arms, reaching across the precipice between my chair and the table towards my computer. I snatched the device, pulling it into my awaiting lap. Google. How to remove slug from home? The little rainbow wheel began spinning. A moment later the screen froze. The site would not load! I screamed to the high heavens, flinging my laptop from my grasp through the window, sending razor-sharp shards of glass flying across the room. Bits of glass adhered to the slug, bestowing it with a gruesome carapace. “No!” I shrieked and sobbed as the now armored slug began circling anew, veering closer and closer to the chair with each splorch of its horrid form. Glass traveled from its body into its grotesque slime-trail, forming an impassable gauntlet across which I dared not pass. I looked around at my options. Spying my bed across the room, a hairbrained scheme entered my mind. I leapt!

I connected with the bed, and quickly threw the covers around myself, burrito style. I peered through the gap in the sheets, locating the slug in my periphery. “Out of the frying pan and into the briar,” I misquoted as I plotted my next move.

A cup! Yes, a cup! The solution was there all along. I leap once again from my perch, bounding across the room towards the kitchen. I grabbed my finest glass, a perfect tapered specimen, hand-carved by obese dwarfs in Zurich, Switzerland.

I entered stealth mode, dumping a bottle of canola oil over my awaiting body. I slid onto my back with two pencils sticking out of my mouth to emulate antennae. I locomoted wistfully across the floor, pushing off from the wall with my delicate little feetsies to propel my greased form towards my target. I whistled traditional slug songs to convince it that I was an ally.

The moment arrived. I was nearly touching the slug. Its horrible eyes swayed too and fro as it slowly inched along its wretched path. I reached to my weapon. The rippled edges of the cup connected with my greasy fingertips. I paused. The silence could be cut with a dull, rusted spork. Wham! The cup landed on the ground. I leapt to my feet to see my prisoner circling within the confines of the gossamer panopticon. Never in my life had I trapped such a deadly prey within my own domicile!

As I waited, the slug felt around the edge of the cup, looking for an escape. “C’mon you son of a bitch,” I screamed, veins bulging on my forehead. My sticky prisoner began to climb the walls of the cup. “Yes! Yes!” I yelled, a maniacal look in my clouded eyes. Blood rushed from my decrepit heart through my veins, embalming me with an unholy energy. At last, the slug nestled itself on the roof of its vitreous prison. The moment arrived. I lept up on my feet. “Ha!” I was a human all along, you fowl beast! The slug looked me in the eyes with what I can only describe as confusion. I rapidly flipped the cup upright, trapping the slug. I turned again towards my open door. Whoooosh! I launched the cup into the abysmal twilight, never to be seen again. Every dog has his day.