things that go buzz in the night

There's a whining in my ear. I'm rolling over and the sheets are hot and sticky despite the cold outside. Not cold enough apparently, because she's still here, biting, bitching, spreading contagion. A little bit of death floating near. I wake into the gloaming and feel the burning hickeys she's left on my arms and neck.

A fucking mosquito.

Or should I say, the same fucking mosquito. She's been here for a week, buzzing along, sucking as she can, avoiding my sleepy swats, circling back to snatch some blood from whatever is exposed. I huddle under the covers, heat steaming off me, sending out signals she can't resist. A toe sticks out and she's there. An arm and she's on it. Once I wake to scratch or swing, it's too late.

The daily bleed, only this time, at night.



I don't get her in the dark. I don't get anything but welts, which, after a childhood spent in Florida swamps, disappear quickly, leaving no physical evidence, only a scratchy reminder that she was there.

Why a she? Because it's only the bitches that bite. The boys are left to sit at home, suckle on some flower or generally be benign. It's the women who run this camp, who bring the pain and whatever disease may be in reach. On surf trips in Indonesia, when dark fell you had to be covered up and cautious. The lore is that they can't go more than 100m, so if you're far enough offshore or away from the infected, you'll be safe. The mosquito doesn't breed the disease, they only spread it, and they're damn good at it. You've seen the picture books for kids, asking what the deadliest creature is, the lion, the crocodile, the shark, or the little bug. It's the little bug. Millions killed every year, mountains of malaria, dengue, encephalitis, yellow fever...an epidemic in under an ounce. And you will know them by their sound, that high pitched drone that causes a visceral reaction, a reflex jerk and duck and hide when you realize the net/tent/screen has been breached. The little fucker is in now and after me.

So I sit up and hunt. Clumsy claps at the faint speck wafting in front of my blurry eyes. She never seems to be moving that quickly and yet I can't catch up. The stinging on my arms and neck fades and I start to make deals with myself. I've been bitten. There's nobody sick with dengue in the east village. I can sleep. The bites will go away. I drift off under the covers, in my thin cocoon.

The whining starts again. The dance continues. A night with tortured snatches of sleep, arms rubbed raw and in the dawn, nothing, no corpse to crow over, just the knowledge that she'll return, the insect vampire, more real and deadly than any Stoker story.

This goes on for a week, and then a miracle occurs. I'm in the shower, hosing off the night, preparing to face a sleep deprived day, when I see the bitch cowering in the corner. Maybe she's come in for a drink, or maybe she just likes the damp. Either way, she's sated from all my blood and slow to react. I spread her guts across the wall with a snapping slap of my left hand. That's more my blood than hers, and I watch it trickle off my palm, the shower sending her in pieces down the drain. It feels good to kill your enemy, morally defensible. I dry off and go downstairs, check to see that every window is closed and punch the computer to find the forecast. Whither the frost? The best thing about the oncoming winter: no mosquitos. A tiny, thin point, like her dagger, but at this moment, a happy one.