the hunted

I am being hunted.

By a mosquito.

And he’s hot on my trail.

I have the bites to prove it.

There’s nothing quite like a mosquito in a room to send people into an absolute tizzy–something about itchy bumps that make us weak humans panic.

Maybe a mosquito bite draws up too many repressed chicken pox memories; possibly a mosquito is a buzzing reminder of how incapable we are of fighting back–we can’t give a rebuttal bite, after all; or could it be the mosquito’s lack of trackability?

We can’t fight something we can’t see. So we end up futilely boxing with the empty air, in hopes our hand will miraculously collide with the pest, causing it to fall to the ground, dead.

No guilt there.

That is one insect, arguably, no human feels any remorse over murdering.

One down. There will always be more where he came from.