RIP Columbus the Silverfish

This is a very sad, very gross story and not for the faint of heart.

Over the futon hangs my favorite abstract print. I bought it from Target several months ago - in February, incidentally the same day I bought my tires.

I've been having an off week, and I was sitting in my apartment, facing the futon, and I noticed a small white blob on my favorite print, which has a black matte around it. Disturbed, I peered closer.

The white blob had six legs. And two very long antennae.

Gross. A Silverfish.

When I was six, my father lied to me and told me that a Silverfish was an Earwig. Then, he told me that they could crawl into your ears and lay eggs in your brain that eventually hatched and crawled out in all different directions. I'm pretty sure this was actually some kind of Twilight Zone episode, but when you are six and you worship Pappy it matters not. You remain scarred for life.

I tapped my favorite abstract print. Tap.Tap.Tap.

The Silverfish twitched, his six legs scuttled furiously, yet his body did not move at all. My internal freak-out-o-meter moved from slightly disturbed to extremely anxious.

I removed my favorite abstract print from the wall and inspected it carefully - I figured there was a way to make all involved in this scenario happy without much hassle. I could open the print and let the little bugger out and we could both go our separate our ways.

Nope. The print had a paper backing that was glued down all the way around the entire freaking back of the print. Everywhere!

Now I'm starting to wonder. How long has this Silverfish been living in my favorite abstract print? Was he factory sealed? Did I pay more for 'live' art?

The more I agonized over this horrible situation, the more I couldn't decide who to feel more sorry for - me, for having a disgusting fucking bug in my favorite piece of art, or the bug, for being trapped permanently inside a two dimensional space. Sudeenly, it occurred to me that the bug's world was flat and I dubbed him Columbus.

It also morbidly occurred to me that Columbus was going to die a slow and horrible death if I didn't get him out of there, and judging from the looks of things, pretty darn quick.

I banged on my picture and tried to shake Columbus around, but to no avail. He was well on his way to Buggy-Squishdom. I tapped the picture on the ground loud enough to get back at those below me who listen to their loud movies and bizarre Indian music.

I started to rip off the paper backing to see if I could save him that way and found ANOTHER layer of matte underneath the paper backing and realized I couldn't get him out without totally ruining my picture. It is conceivable that he was an egg that was laid there some time ago as it can take up to two months for a Silverfish egg to hatch. Unlikely, but possible.

And then, something horrendous happened. In trying to free him and playing with the backing of the picture, there was this horrible moment when Columbus's body suddenly got twice as large and kind of arched and spasmed in this really strange and grotesque way.

At first I wasn't even sure what had happened.

Then, to be certain, I tapped the glass a few times.

His legs no longer moved.

His antennae no longer twitched.

Columbus had died no less than ten minutes after I had discovered his world was flat.

I felt wretched and sick to my stomach.

Now I have a dead bug in my favorite abstract print. A bug that will, as someone aptly pointed out, dry up and fall to the bottom of said painting within a few months.

But there will always be a bug-juice stain where Columbus met his end on my black matte.

What I want to know is how that bug got inside my picture?

More importantly, what was he eating?

After careful research it turns out, he was probably eating my fricken piece of art!!

Foods preferred: Silverfish and firebrats will eat any of the foods humans eat and also starch, glue, paste, sizing in fabrics...

Augh.