Buzzings

I could not sleep. A mosquito’s intermittent singing was drilling my ears; it was worse than the chronic pain of my shoulders that doesn’t allow me to lie on the side. I was slapping everywhere in the dark, hoping luck would make my hand and the annoying bug concur in space and time.

I stood up, turned on the light, and went back to bed, hunting, waiting for it to come back.

Minutes passed and did not know how many because I fell asleep, but, why would it let me sleep? It would stop being a mosquito if it did.

Its obnoxious song woke me up; it played a game of echo inside my ear. I clapped to celebrate its concert but failed. As if by magic, the silence of the night came back. It was nowhere, puff!

Moving the drapes where it could camouflage or looking at the walls, searching for a suspicious spot, did not help. Maybe it left the bedroom. I could rest if that thing could fly quietly until I’m asleep; I don’t mind paying the price with a little of blood as long as the process happens in silence.

Once more, I turned off the light and lay down. I covered all my skin to make it harder for the damn bug. Before five minutes, the insect with an earbud-impersonation-complex came back.

I made a swift movement, and to increase my chances of success, added the blanket as part of my trap. Once trapped, I would crush it against the mattress.

After this act of violence, with my killer instincts sharpened by the lack of sleep, I made it shut up. Maybe forever. I illuminated the area of the murder with my mobile. There it was, inert.

Happy with my triumph, I closed my eyes.

Unbelievable! Another one! It didn’t even wait a minute to torment me. Once more the hunting. The story repeated itself at least twice more. It reminded me of professional wrestling when one guy asks for his partner to enter the ring, or as if they were queueing for their chance to bite me.

At some point, my body gave up and went to sleep.

I dreamed of many things that would be quickly forgotten just by waking up. Only a deafening buzzing remained in my memory. It was more like a loud choir of buzzing. Difficult to say whether the reality crossed over my unconscious imagination or if everything was merely oneiric.

The sunlight woke me up. Even though I hardly slept, I felt recovered. I was pain-free and remembered the dream. In it, the buzzing sound was made by a cloud of mosquitos covering my whole body. However, they couldn’t bite me as I was fully covered and wearing my pajama pants with a long sleeves shirt. All they could do was bite my face, but I checked and didn’t feel any bumpy or itchy souvenir.

I got up quickly once I realized it was late; I had to be somewhere else soon. As I passed the doorway of the bedroom, I remembered I had run out of toothpaste the night before, so I turned around to get a new tube. It was then I became still as a statue. I shut my eyes, squeezing them. After a few seconds, my eyelids parted, and let the image in.

There was something on my bed, fully covered. My heart galloped, but I thought it was just a dream about being awake. I calmed down and threw the toothpaste tube to the who or the what; nothing moved. I approached. The blood was visually mixed with the color and patterns of the sheets. The bloody stain completely framed what seemed to be a body, and the blanket, originally unicolor beige, turned into a red cheetah pattern. All at once, I uncovered the lump.

It was me. The face’s skin seemed to be in direct contact with the bones, covered with hundreds of mosquitos’ bites. I dared to pull the fabric from the arms, legs, and abdomen. It was a skeleton in a gray skin suit that seemed to have a rash. Even the valley between ribs was visible. The drainage had been slow and steady.

Again, the surrounding buzzing sound. Flashes of memory burst at me. First, about the mosquitos I had killed before falling asleep, then those of the previous day, the ones I ever poisoned with sprays, and so on until the first one I accidentally crushed when I was still a baby. Then I understood. All those mosquitos over my body ceased their existence because of me and they gathered for revenge. Their spectra broke through all the layers of fabric which were to protect me, and, lacking an abdomen to limit the blood storage capacity, they just continued sucking until nothing was left and the fluid spread on the bedding clothing.

Now I just want to wake up, but I can’t. Hopefully, my body will be found before it stinks. Damn mosquitos!