Bloodlust
I don’t know why it’s taken them so long, or why their sudden appearance surprises me. Mosquitoes have discovered there’s a large tasty mammal living in my apartment and have begun dropping by for a post-coital snack. Why can’t they just have a cigarette like everybody else?
When I first moved-in, I was distressed that there was no screen door for the kitchen. I toyed with the idea of just installing one but with none on the other 20 units, I wondered if they’re not allowed. I decided to see how things go without one.
I’ve grown quite accustomed to leaving my kitchen door open. During the day it admits light, breeze, flies and the occassional yellow jacket. Those that don’t find their own way out buzz against a window screen until I get up to let them out. They generally seem shocked and relived that I don’t swat or gas them instead.
Others I find later, expired, lying on the windowsill or the floor. The carcasses in the window I leave as a warning to others, Not this way! and I sweep up those on the floor.
I did have to negotiate a settlement with a pack of yellow jackets the other day. They discovered the pork chops I’d left out to thaw. They buzzed around afterwards in a sort of confused Who Moved My Cheese? quest. I reminded them that I’d graciously let them have some, even after I’d realized they’d found my undefended dinner, and that I was perfectly willing to roll up this week’s issue of City if they didn’t move along. They did.
I’ve been known to take a shower or even nap during the day forgetting to close the door first. Not that I’m any more vulnerable to intruders of the human persuasion at those times, but it keeps up appearances.
I’ve not awakened in the morning to find the kitchen door open but once I’d already had the lights outs out and was all snuggled in under the covers when I couldn’t remember if I’d closed the door before retiring. I hadn’t.
I’ve come see the absence of a screen door as something of a luxury. I get a clear view without it and there’s nothing to impede my wanderings in and out. No springs or latches snatching at my clothes, no greasy cylinder blackening my skin, nothing swatting me in the ass as I fumble with the deadbolt.
Just standing or leaning in the doorway has a certain comfort. One foot inside, the other out. I can set my coffee on the kitchen counter and flick over the railing all without moving.
By night, my kitchen door admits light from the security lights across the alley which shines up on the kitchen ceiling making it glow like a skylight. The breeze by this time is barely an occasional puff and you could spend hours arguing whether or not it was worth it to catch every last bit of it. And never admits anything but light and breeze after dark, until two nights ago.
Monday night as I was turning out the lights I spied a mosquito on the living room wall next to the radiator. Stunned, I swung, missed, and lost sight of it. In the morning it was next to the bathroom mirror. Sensing danger, it flew off leaving me clapping at it madly until I remembered clapping at a mosquito is generally an ineffective method of bringing about its demise.
This morning I awoke scratching at my shin. Upon investigation, sure enough, a mosquito bite just millimeters from a vein. Damn. Bursting mosquitoes is something I’ve not done since childhood.
Later, sitting on the pot, I saw it, engorged, resting on the bathroom floor. With great stealth I reached for the hand towel, twisted it into rat tail, carefully lined up the shot and snapped.
After a most satisfying THWAP, nothing. No blood on the floor, no crushed carcass in the towel, no buzzing insect. Unless I’d accidently accellerated it into another dimension, a complete miss.
Tonight, the score is mammal 2, mosquitoes 0. The first I let alight on my knee and begin probing around. Its attention temporarily shifted from survival defense to meal, it was easy pickings. The second, miraculously, succumbed to reflexive clap. Mid-air one moment, flattened remains on the palm the next.
I’ll have to remember to close my kitchen door earlier in the evenings from now on.
