My Intelligent Mosquitoes.

Stephen W. Ayers

You want the plain and simple truth? I hate mosquitoes.

I think everyone does, but I hate them more. I know I do.

I have spent countless sleepless nights hunting them after one has made that creepy, high pitched noise by my ear as it zeroes in on a meal to be sucked out of me.

And then the itching starts, enough to drive one mad.

I believe that they are on the same level as terrorists: When I kill one another steps up to the plate, to carry on the task of driving me mad.

Where the hell are they coming from, and how do they know when one is dead? And who informs the next in line to step forward and take up the noble cause of driving me insane from sleep loss? I mean, these guys are intelligent, and yet they keep on committing suicide, for I catch them in the end. I am relentless. I will kill them no matter how long it takes. I have no other option.

It is them or me.

But there are major problems with the daily hunt. For starters, where are they when I get home in the evening? I do a detailed grid search but I have as yet to discover even one during my first search. I suspect that they have developed serious chameleon-like qualities and can turn white and invisible against the white walls.

WTF! How do they know when to hide? And where on earth do they hide? Do they watch in shifts? Are they collecting statistics on my movements, hours of work, weekend habits? There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that my mosquito squadron are a very intelligent species, and their intelligence services rival that of the famous Mossad and CIA. And yet it seems they commit suicide ‘by Stephen’ willingly. So, are they geniuses or idiots, you might wonder?

What is their primary target in their short, ‘pre-squish life’? It does not seem to be to take a ‘full board’ meal attitude to my body, since they are usually hunted down fairly soon after having their fill of my blood. They know that, and I know that. Perhaps they are of the ‘Kamikaze’ persuasion, and they choose their last meal to be from my blood bank? Should I be honored by this?

Oh, hold your horses a second, tonights’ ‘sucker’ just brazenly flew under my chin, so, gotta go on a hunt…….back with you readers soon I hope.

No luck yet, the little bastard got away, but not for long.

Anyway, as I was telling you my dear readers. A couple of nights ago I had a few too many beers and did not remember to do the grid search upon arrival at home. I didn’t even notice the high pitch whine and only woke up when the tiny drill was extricated from my punctured arm. I slapped at it but missed. I turned on all the lights, grabbed the towel and went on the hunt.

You, dear readers, will not believe what happened next. I spotted the little bastard in full flight.

Questions rushed through my head. How on earth could I track one of these geniuses in mid flight, and if I could, where was he escaping to? Maybe I could track his flight path back to the squadron HQ and organise a devastating attack and wipe them out, thereby clearing the way for uninterrupted snoring.

Then I noticed something odd. The little bastard was flying erratically, to say the least. Wing trouble? Navigation went wrong? Then the answer dawned on me! He was drunk, way over the limit allowed for skyworthiness. He should never have taken off. He should have found a safe place out of sight and waited for the inevitable mosquito hangover to pass, radioed in his delay and gone into a deep sleep.

I followed him on his Zigzag flight path and saw he was lining up for an emergency landing on my desk. He bumped down rather hard and skidded to a full stop towards the end of the desk. Needless to say he did not get much time to congratulate himself on the successful landing as the towel came down hard and transformed the scene into a crime scene of ‘mosquito murder’

.

Then they got even more clever. As I was sitting working one evening at my desk, the little bloodsuckers organised a fly-by. I heard the high pitched whine of ‘overworked’ wings and looked to see what was going on. One daring member of the squadron roared by followed by an airborne banner that read “Turn off the lights, idiot!”. They were signalling me to go to bed and turn off the lights so they could come and eat me earlier than usual. I guess that their collective hunger was too great.

The banner was too heavy for him to go at any fast pace and he was swatted down easily, departing this world in the same way as his friends and co-pilots that dared to come before.

Pretty soon the weather will become too cold for bloodsucking missions, even indoors, and I will have the whole winter to sleep the sleep of the just.

Suddenly I awoke with a start, another high pitched whine by my ear, or was it?

I looked at the bedside clock and saw that it was 3 a.m.

And I realised that I had been dreaming!