Deadly Fight With A Mosquito..

Every creature has its uses, I am told. Even the mosquito does. But given the harm it causes, I tend to overlook its uses. The mosquito is not just deadly. It is a master-manipulator, a little beast that loves to play with its victims before going for the kill.

It enjoys power.
I will refer particularly to the situation of being trapped inside a mosquito net with a mosquito inside. Only one mosquito. Just as you have rested your head on the pillow, it whizzes past your ear. That does it.

You bolt up and try to locate the source of the sound with that horrible feeling rising inside you, telling you that it is not going to be easy. This is going to be one of those long-drawn battles, where victory looks an unlikely prospect and your opponent already has the advantage of position.

It is above you. You are at its mercy. As in other places, so inside the mosquito net. The mosquito can see you, but you cannot see it. It can watch every move of yours, but you can only guess where it is. But then it is not there. It plays you. It decides, you follow; and that is irreversible.

First, it makes you dance to its tune. Just as you think you have spotted it, a grey speck trembling slightly against the net, inviting you, provoking you, you dive, and it flits away. By that time you have missed your aim and your two palms have come together with a crash, and all you are left holding is a feeling of futility. Not with a bang but with a whimper. You are on your knees, it is 1 am, the mosquito is contemplating its next move - you are at your most vulnerable. Just then you hear the mosquito buzz below your ear and is gone again.

This continues. The mosquito buzzes, you dive and end up empty-handed, our existential crisis playing in a loop. But if you listen to something long enough, you get used to it. This is the mosquito's strategy no. 2. A few minutes of listening to the mosquito, and its drone can even seem intoxicating, like the rhetoric someone endlessly repeats on radio.

But maybe you make one last effort to rouse yourself and fight. You turn all the pillows, side-pillows and everything else on the bed upside down and work yourself up into a mad rage. There is a limit to the amount of anti-mosquito lotion you can use. There is a limit to the amount of anti-mosquito spray you can use. How much can you protect yourself? You do the ultimate thing: you get out of your war-zone and take the mosquito net off. Down, down with the system!

You shake the net and thrash it against the wardrobe and shake it again and slowly put it up again. Hanging the mosquito net in itself is one of the greatest forms of torture invented by man. One does not hang it up till the last moment, and takes it off only in the direst circumstances, and puts it up once more in a life-and-death situation.

This is the night of long knives and of slow despair, depending on the perspective: the mosquito's or yours.

Back again inside the net, you place your head on the pillow once more. Instantly you hear the mosquito buzz, over your head. You can take the mosquito net off its hooks, but not the mosquito within it.

You give up. This is the mosquito's third and final strategy: it has played you and drained you out. You lie back and wait for its lethal strike, for you can do nothing else.