This is my contribution to the world of hilariously pretentious art: Marvin Under Glass. (I am certain Marvin’s great great grandfather served as the muse to Kafka.)

I am quite terrified of insects – only recently having accepted that Lady Bugs don’t bite and inject you with a venomous substance driving you to Mad Lady Disease when you least expect it.

Borne of that fear is ‘Marvin Under Glass’. I can’t kill insects in the normal way (swatting or stamping) – this affliction being so bad that I once ran all over our apartment with a can of Easy Off oven cleaner, wearing oven mitts, chasing down a moth. I needed to kill it and I thought suffocation was the best venue. When she died, I used an approximate 2,716 tissues to scoop her up, while still wearing my mitts. I then threw her off the balcony.

If I were into killing people, I’d have come up with at least 58 different gases and toxins that wouldn’t force me to either see or hear the sound of Death.

Back to Marvin. Marvin and I were alone in the apartment and I had no idea he was even home because that is just how sly Marvin really is. I hear he’s always been that way, and so I accept this reality.

Anyway. I was crossing over from the kitchen to the television room when Marvin decided to run past me at top speed. His hundreds of legs can really move, and considering he was quite nearly the colour of the carpet, I mistook him for a ripple in the carpet itself until I stopped walking and took a closer look at which point my gag reflexes kicked in.

I screamed repeatedly and then calmly walked into the kitchen, put down my bowl of Frosted Flakes and took out the only glass mug baba has. I approached Marvin very carefully and more quietly popped the glass mug over top of him.

Rumour is that Marvin’s family is sneaky and so I decided to add another layer of pressure to the original glass mug so that Marvin’s family wouldn’t come over, raise the original mug and allow him to flee.

I was particularly scared that he managed to bring in a glass cutter with him and so I sat by guarding him until baba came home, at which point I stood on top of the chair and asked him to please kill Marvin.

Additionally, I wrote for baba and taped to the front door a Newsletter On: The Circumstances Which Led to Marvin Under Glass, and would you please kill him already.

My father stared at me as though I should have been the one beneath glass. But he still killed Marvin, of whom all that’s left is this memory.