There’s An Intruder In My House, And I Need To Do Something

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I know this might sound crazy but my home has been under invasion for weeks now. My body bears the wounds and evidence of my home’s unwelcome visitors. I woke up the other night, ears metaphorically pricked up, hyperaware of all sounds in the house.

I knew I could hear it. I wasn’t imagining things.

A mosquito.

I’ve woken up multiple times to a mosquito buzzing in front of my face. It knows I can’t see it, knows I’m at my most vulnerable during sleep. That’s when it makes its cowardly attack. Only in the morning do I realize what has happened when I wake up already scratching some area of exposed skin. Or maybe I wake up from the itch but, by that time, the mosquito has already sequestered itself somewhere in the house where I can’t find it and end its parasitic existence.

“They’re getting in somewhere,” I told my dad. Not just mosquitos but flies too. Flies I am not so abhorrent of. They seem to be the dumber but less malicious cousin of the mosquito. But mosquitos I despise. Even the way they look makes me sick. They’re so weak and fragile with their spindly legs and barely-there bodies. How can they inflict so much suffering upon their victims?

“They might have already been in the house. Or maybe you let them in when you open the door.”

I was appalled at this suggestion; that I might somehow be partly responsible for my own misery.

The next time I opened the front door, I was vigilant of letting any flying insects through. But instead of seeing a mosquito or fly come through, I spotted a lizard hanging out above the doorframe.

“Eat them, pal,” I instructed. We seemed to be on the same page.

Today, I cornered one in the bathroom. I closed the bathroom door and turned on the light. I’d been rudely woken up from my nap by this mosquito and wanted blood on my hands, even if it was my own.

Against pristine white tile, I flattened the mosquito until it was a red and black Rorschach test.

I’ve found the window ledge where these flying insects seem to go to die. Two flies and a mosquito lie, dehydrated and crispy, in their graveyard. Seeing them on their backs with their legs turned up, devoid of any dignity, gives me a sickening thrill.

Don’t worry, I’m taking care of it. I’ve researched a list of ways to trap mosquitoes. Most of all, I am looking forward to my inverted yeast and brown sugar bottle trap.

This can’t go on.