Me against the mosquito

If at all there were to exist a silver lining somewhere between the destruction of all the greenery in the vicinity of your childhood home and the erection of ugly concrete structures that obstruct the view of the sunrise from your terrace, it has got to be the fact that the abovementioned destruction also leads to a decrease in the local mosquito population. This was the reason why I, after having returned from a night of revelry, dared to sleep with my balcony door open in order to let the cool night breeze inside which I hoped, would act as a sleeping aid.

No sooner had I placed my head upon the pillow and turned the light out than I heard the long-forgotten but ever-too-familiar siren of death at my ear; namely, the low monotonous hum of a mosquito. Now I don't know about you, but I hate mosquitoes humming at my ear due to the following two reasons; firstly, because mosquitoes drink your blood which is a good enough reason in itself, and secondly, when the damn thing is at your ear, you are not sure whether it is merely going to engage in the relatively pedestrian ritual of feasting on your bodily fluids or embark on the more enterprising mission of finding out what lies inside your auditory canal.

Since I am so finicky about things fucking around in my ear, I immediately got up and turned on the light. Actually, I had a two-fold objective in doing so : to capture and destroy the mosquito and also to locate the origin of that irritating knock knock sound that seemed to be emanating from somewhere outside the house.

So I got up from my bed, opened the balcony door and peered out into the darkness. The knocking sound seemed to be coming from a neighbour's garden. Cool, I thought, the neighbours are either being haunted or robbed, I thought. Mission accomplished, I was about to return back inside because it was actually quite nippy outside, when I spotted our cat sleeping on a neighbour's scooter seat. A different neighbour, not the one about to wake up in a pool of his own blood in the morning. Since I'm a bit of an asshole at 4:00 in the morning, I psssted at the cat. She immediately woke up and looked up in my direction. "Just wanted to say goodnight, sweetheart", I hissed at her. She bared a fang at me. I went back inside.

So back I went to carry out my main mission. I sat on the bed. The mosquito drew near. I waited till I could see the whites of its eyes and then just as I was about to swat at it, it cunningly flew in the direction of my black jacket that was lying on my suitcase and disappeared, melting into the blackness of its surroundings. Hmm, interesting twist to the situation, I said to myself. Harsher measures would be needed.

So I sat on my bed in a meditative pose reminiscent of that great sage in Hindu mythology (google the fucker if you feel like it) who engaged in similar meditation and so closely resembled a log of wood due to his inertness that vines and snakes crawled into his anus and out of his nostrils, thinking he was just part of the natural landscape. Thusly was I sitting on the bed for a prolonged duration of time with nothing happening, till I realized that evolution had probably trained the mosquito only to try and attack a human engaged in repose. So I then lay down on the bed and waited.

Sure enough, the old familiar drone reappeared at my ear. After I gauged the proximity of the damn thing to be close enough to venture a swat, I did so. Slapped myself silly, throwing my glasses off my nose and into oblivion. Note to self : Do not swat mosquitoes on your ear while wearing glasses. But glory be to the Lord, I discovered that I had also slaughtered the mosquito in the process. Turning the light off, I went back to sleep.

Buzz.

Fuck.