A Tin Can

This happened to me quite recently, literally less than a day ago. My mother and her coworkers went on vacation to the Black Sea, so I was left alone for a few days. After ten hours at the computer, I suddenly felt like snacking. I didn't feel like messing around with scrambled eggs, potatoes, and grains, so I decided to just eat a can of preserves. We have a cabinet like that on our balcony—my grandmother used to store her pickles in it, but now it's just full of canned food. So, I rummaged around and found a couple of cans of pineapple in champagne, a bottle of tomato sauce, some pâté, and saury. The pâté goes best spread on bread, so I decided to go with the saury. The can was just ordinary, and there was no rust on it. I even checked the packaging date to avoid food poisoning—it was packaged last year.

 I set the jar on the table, took a corkscrew, and poked a hole in the lid along the edge, and that's when the fun began. As I was opening it, I got some juice leaking out from under the lid on my thumb. After circling the opener, I turned to the sink to wash my finger. It didn't take me very long to wash it—less than a minute. But when I turned around, the lid was open. Bent right back. And at the same time, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something black scurry under the kitchen cabinet on the floor. Some might say you opened the jar yourself and just forgot, but the lid is a tight fit—you need a spoon, a knife, or something equally narrow to open it. And my opener won't fit—it has a corkscrew. Plus, there were clear oil stains on the tablecloth and floor, leading toward the cabinet.

What crawled out of there? Something so powerful that it bent the lid and walked off the table on its own, and so quickly? I've seen all sorts of TV shows where insects and worms get into jars, but how could a WORM bend the lid of a can of food?

Last night, I woke up feeling like something was crawling across my face. I can't stay calm in my apartment; I keep looking at the floor, running my hands through my hair, my neck, and looking at the ceiling. Every moment, I expect the creature from the jar to pounce on me. My only hope is that IT no longer lives in my room. That it's gone outside.