The Chronicles — Episode 2: The Council of Elders

A work of fiction. Any resemblance to real generational debates, real cockroaches, or real living-room electronics is — well — probably unavoidable.

When Maela was a nymph, the refrigerator was new.

She tells the younglings this often, usually when they roll their eyes at her. In my time, she begins, the great white box had only just arrived. We thought the humans had brought a god into the kitchen — humming, cold, untouchable. The elders said: do not approach. We said: but it has crumbs underneath. We approached.

The young ones do not roll their eyes when she says this. They are too tired.

1. The Discovery

It started with Pip. Pip, who was barely six weeks out of the ootheca, who had no business wandering past the dishwasher line by herself. Pip, who came home one morning in a state of breathless excitement, antennae quivering.

“It’s warm,” she said. “I felt it on my antennae from across the rug. And it glows. And no human has ever opened it.”

This — to a cockroach community whose entire culture is built around the principle that every safe place is a place humans have already forgotten — was a serious claim.

Pip had discovered the entertainment unit. Behind the television. Behind the small black router with the blue blinking light. Behind the speaker that occasionally, mysteriously, said Alexa.

“It’s not even a kitchen,” said Dash, when Pip described it to him. Dash was a Young One — meaning he was eight months old and full of opinions. “It’s a room. A whole room. We’ve been crammed under the fridge our whole lives. There’s space there.”

By the next evening, three Young Ones had migrated. By the end of the week, twelve.

By the time Elder Cerci heard about it, there were forty.

2. The Council Convenes

The Council of Elders gathered behind the spice cabinet. This is where all important Council business is conducted, because it is dark, the airflow is good, and the smell of cardamom is calming.

There were nine elders present, including Maela, who had to be carried in because her back leg had been stiff since the Great Vacuuming of ‘24.

“Forty,” said Elder Cerci, very quietly. “Forty of our own have left.”

“They have not left,” said Captain Antenn, who was the youngest of the elders and therefore inclined to be diplomatic. “They have explored.”

“We do not send scouts,” said Maela quietly, from her dust cushion. “We never have. We send wanderers. The young ones drift, and if they find something good, they stay, and the scent of their staying calls the rest of us. That is how this kitchen was built. That is how every kitchen has been built.”

“They are living behind a router,” said Elder Cerci. “A device that emits signals. We do not know what those signals do. We do not know what they do to the babies.”

“They emit warmth,” said Captain Antenn carefully. “Which is, technically —”

“And what about the speaker?” snapped Elder Cerci. “It talks. Periodically. With no warning. Into the dark.”

“It says Alexa,” said Captain Antenn.

“Exactly,” said Elder Cerci.

The other elders murmured. The kitchen had been their world for as long as memory carried. Fridges were known. Stoves were known. Dishwashers — terrifying but predictable. The new spaces were not known. The Council had not yet finished classifying televisions.

“We have to bring them back,” said Elder Cerci.

“Or,” said Maela, from her cushion of dust in the corner, “we could ask them what they have found.”

3. The Walk Across the Hallway

It is a long way from the spice cabinet to the entertainment unit. For a cockroach, the journey takes the better part of a night. You must cross the hallway — exposed terrain, with humans potentially passing overhead at any moment — and navigate the canyon between the fridge cable and the dishwasher pipe.

Maela insisted on making the journey herself.

“You cannot,” said Elder Cerci. “Your leg.”

“My leg has carried me through three kitchens,” said Maela. “It will carry me across one hallway.”

She set off at dusk. Captain Antenn went with her, partly out of respect, partly because he was worried she would simply lie down somewhere and refuse to get up.

They reached the entertainment unit at 3:14 AM. The router’s blue light was, indeed, gently glowing. Behind it, the warmth was — Maela noticed this immediately — extraordinary.

Dash was waiting for them.

“Elder Maela,” he said, and dipped his antennae respectfully.

“Show me,” said Maela.

4. What Maela Saw

She saw a colony.

The aggregation scent was unmistakable before she even rounded the corner — thick, complex, layered with the markings of dozens. Not a wild encampment, not a temporary squat — a colony. Pip had organised the younger ones into watches. The warm zone behind the router had been carefully divided: nesting spaces on the left, storage on the right, a designated waste perimeter at the back. Two scouts were monitoring the humans’ nightly approach pattern through the gap behind the TV.

It was tidier than the area behind the fridge.

Maela took this in for a long time. Then she said: “When I was your age, we did not have refrigerators. The elders told us they were unsafe. The signals, they said. The cold. The hum. We do not know what it does to the babies.”

“And what did you do?” asked Pip.

“We moved in anyway,” said Maela. “And the next generation forgot it had ever been new.”

5. The Compromise

The Council reconvened a week later, this time with Dash and Pip in attendance.

There was no vote. There rarely is, in cockroach society. Instead there was a long discussion, during which Elder Cerci asked many sharp questions about the speaker, and Dash answered every single one with the patient seriousness of a young cockroach who has prepared.

It was eventually agreed:

• The colony would split into two settlements — Old Kitchen and New Room.
• A standing exchange would run between them, with weekly transfer of nymphs both ways. No-one was to grow up knowing only one settlement.
• The Council would expand to include two representatives from the New Room.
• Pip, despite being six weeks old, was given the title of Junior Cartographer.

“And the speaker,” said Elder Cerci, fixing Dash with a look. “What about the speaker.”

“We are studying it,” said Dash. “If it becomes a problem, we will report.”

“You will report promptly.”

“Yes, Elder.”

Maela, in her corner, was already asleep.

Epilogue

Six months later, a delegation from a neighbouring building — a colony from Flat 5C — visited Flat 4B to see what all the fuss was about. They had heard that the cockroaches of 4B had successfully integrated electronics.

Pip, now Junior Cartographer and looking very serious, gave them the tour.

“This was the original site,” she said, gesturing at the space behind the fridge. “Our heritage.”

“And this,” she said, leading them down the hallway and into the entertainment unit, “is where we live now.”

In the corner of the router’s warm zone, Maela was holding court with two young nymphs from 5C, telling them about the Great Vacuuming of ‘24.

The young ones were not rolling their eyes.

Related episodes: The Chronicles — Episode 1: The Great Kitchen Cleanse · Types of Cockroaches in Indian Homes · How Cockroaches Survived 300+ Million Years