The Mosquito
I hear something buzzing. Maybe it's just my imagination.
1:25 A.M.
zzrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
The buzz didn't wake me. What woke me was the reflexive whack of my own hand across my left ear.
I switched on the light.
"There's a mosquito in the bedroom," I announced. My wife opened her eyes, looked at me and then pulled the sheet over her head. She fell asleep again.
I lay on my back listening. Did I dream it? Was the buzz just a distant motorcycle? Was it a CIA nano drone-bot spying on us? An unidentified alien flying surveillance device?
I got up, put on my glasses and looked around. I saw nothing. I thought the bedside light would attract the mosquito. Then I realized that mosquitoes are not moths. Light doesn't attract them. Blood attracts mosquitoes. That and breathing and exhaled carbon dioxide.
I scanned the walls: nothing. I looked at the bed sheet covering my wife's face: nothing. I studied the ceiling: nothing. Maybe it had landed on the blinds. I rattled the blinds. Nothing. I tried to startle the mosquito from its hiding place by tapping the rocking chair in the corner, shaking the clothing dressers. I turned on the closet and hallway lights. Nothing. Frustrated, I tapped and shook everything a little harder. My wife woke up again, pulled back the sheet, stared at me, pulled the sheet back over her head.
Our Seattle mosquitoes are not the B-52 strategic bomber sized ones that you find in Alaska and in Maine. Ours are small, high-tech stealth mosquitoes. But they leave behind massively inflamed, extremely itchy and long-lasting anaphylactic welts as a memento of their visitations.
Seattle never had mosquitoes. Now it does. In times past, no one bothered with screens on the windows in Seattle. Now we do. Not long ago, we didn't need air conditioning. Now we do.
The mosquitoes are a reminder that times have changed. The world has changed. There's a vicious parasite somewhere in our bedroom that wants to put the bite on me. There are vicious parasites outside and everywhere that want to put the bite on me. These are parasitic times.
From Wall Street to Madison Avenue to the state capitol to city hall to Washington D.C. to the news media to social media, from low tech to high tech, we are plagued with parasites. Every day, parasites send me waves of spam emails phishing for personal and financial data, setting sneaky traps for the unwary, laying snares for the greedy and tripwires for the naive and unsuspecting. Every day, I receive messages from people I don't know and from people I do know, but who I know didn't send them. Every day, telemarketers and robo-callers try to sell me what I don't want and what I don't need. Every day, it seems, I am slammed with another "user fee" or “surcharge” for what used to be included in the basic service, another scam, another enclosure and privatization of the Commons, another barrage of political and economic propaganda, another tsunami of false or misleading "medical reports" and studies that tell me to "Do This!" or "Avoid That!" even though yesterday "the studies" told me to "Avoid This!" and "Do That!" Our minds and bodies are preyed on. We are the host, so to speak, and everyone is feeding off of us. It's a parasitocracy - rule by and for the parasites.
I can't squish those parasites, much as I might like to. I can squish a mosquito, however, and that will give a small sense of self-destiny.
If I can find it.
It's been tens of minutes since I awoke. I don't hear anything. I don't see anything. Maybe I did dream it.
Suddenly, something flits around the side of my face!
zzrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
I extend and clap my hands together hard. I look at the floor. I look at my palms. Nothing.
My wife pulls the sheet from her face. "Did you get it?"
"No."
She pulls the sheet back over her.
Now I know I wasn't dreaming. I rather wish I had been. Now it's just Me and It. I've been up for at least half an hour. I don't see It. Everything is quiet again.
I inspect and rattle the blinds and the furniture again. I flap a blanket in the air to create a disturbance that might cause the bug to fly, like a beater rousting up wild game in the forest. This is a big game hunt. Both the mosquito and I are the hunters; both the mosquito and I are the hunted.
Forty-five minutes have passed. It's now well past 2 A.M. Nothing. The parasites are winning. I know that if I give up and try to sleep, I won't sleep. I will lie wide-awake listening for that distinctive buzz. I cannot beat the bigger parasites in our lives. I can at least beat a mosquito.
Then I see something. On the back of my wife's nightstand. Something small is perched vertically in the shadow between the wall and the wood. I get closer to see better. It is a mosquito. I can tell that it is looking at me as I am looking at it. Man versus Beast. Good versus Evil. Us versus all the parasites of our 21st Century world. The mosquito is grinning at me. It's taunting me!
The hand is quicker than the eye, or, at least, quicker than the mosquito. I get a jolt of adrenalin and stoutly shove the dresser against the wall. Bang! The nightlight nearly falls off. My wife wakes up. "Did you get it."
I pull back the nightstand and look. No trace of squish. "No." It must have escaped faster than I could crush it.
My wife re-cocoons herself under the sheets.
But there it is again. I spot it sitting on the top of the radio alarm clock, spying on us. The mosquito is smirking. It's long, thin legs look ready to leap to the attack again!
I slam my open palm down on the clock-radio. WHAM! The radio comes on at top volume and then falls on the floor.
My wife wakes up. "Did you get it?"
I look at my hand. Yes! Victory! I read its future in my palm: where the "life line" and the "fate line" intersect, the mosquito is a small mash of legs and wings. It isn't smirking anymore. Now I am. One small splat of mosquito; one giant step for Mankind. Even we who are not heroes need a small triumph now and then. Even if it is only a triumph over the tiniest of parasites.
I take off my glasses, turn off the lights and get back into bed. It's almost 2:30 A.M.
But I am wide awake. There are many, many parasites out there in the world. What if it had friends, collaborators, conspirators, a political party of viciously partisan mosquitos? What if there was more than one mosquito? Maybe two or three or a dozen? The world out there is full of Them.
I lay there in the dark with my eyes wide open, alert. Maybe I hear buzzing. Maybe it's just my imagination. Or a motorcycle in the distance or a plane flying far away. Or a CIA nano drone-bot taking pictures. Or an unidentified alien flying surveillance device.
Or it could be another mosquito.