> It's said that Peter the Great once fainted away at the sight of a cockroach ... an anecdote recorded in sober history and in The Secret Annals of Cockroaches. > > It's also said (according to this learned tome) that cockroaches are the avatars of once famous men, and conversely; and that the one, in fact, which caused Peter to collapse was Coriolanus. > > Peter, a quondam cockroach himself, recognized Coriolanus despite his new guise, and remembered when he had been brutally squashed beneath Coriolanus' massive ass when that warrior unknowingly sat down upon him, causing Peter, in recollection, to pass out from shock. > > Coriolanus subsequently became a dray-horse, and suffered the ignominy and horror of the knacker's yard. Later, more happily, he became an immigrant wash-up man at a luxe New York City bar, and married an angelic Italian girl from Moreno. Peter became Stalin, when his attitude changed and he began to regard men as mostly cockroaches. > > Not all cockroaches, however, says our learned tome, transmigrate successfully. Many, indeed, remain cockroaches, although having formerly been great men.
-- Collected in the "Reports" section of Forbidden to Grow Old (Coach House Press, 1989)