My Mosquito Story

“HE WHO FOREVER tells you not to bother with small things has certainly never slept in a room with a mosquito.”

As my column at Searchlight comes to an end, I tried searching for an article I enjoyed writing during a 30/31 year span. I decided to use this one which might have been done between 1996 and 1998.

It is now 12:30 p.m., and after having tried to get to sleep for the past two hours I have had enough.

I am angry. In fact, my arms have become sore and tired from struggling against a nasty enemy that has perfected the art of guerilla warfare. I can now understand what the British had to go through, fighting the Garifuna/Kalinagos.

My opponent strikes and with a smile disappears, leaving me in agony and sheer frustration. Since I am not sure which of you or how many of you have been making my life miserable I have decided to address this letter to your kingdom.

Really, there is little else I can do at this point. I have in fact, reached the stage where I am preparing myself for war, so if it is war, you want it is war you will get. I am, at this miserable time thinking of little else but the arsenal that I intend to assemble. The different kinds of coils and mats and all the different names we give to them; you seem to have conquered. I have pulled out old slippers and am searching for some sort of mask that can also serve as a cover for my head.

Gas masks, perhaps, one of those used in Afghanistan!

This is serious business you see. These bloody terrorists! Why am I letting you into my secret? Perhaps it is because it really might not matter. I am sure that at the present moment those of you who are not on raiding or patrol duty are meeting in war sessions, planning your strategy carefully. How I wished you were bigger and had a body of sorts that can feel my anger and pain.

I must admit, however, that I need more practice, perhaps a workshop on the art of fighting mosquitoes. Tonight I practiced with only a small degree of success, lying with a slipper in either hand and bringing them down to bear at the slightest sound or at any fleeting glimpse of you. You hardly suffered. My slippers got the worse of the encounter.

Indeed, I have to locate one of my old, discarded pairs.

All of this depends on my arms not being too tired and not totally devastated by your bites. Having said so, I have regrettably to admit that I prefer your bites to your singing. Why do you think I am interested in your singing? It is disgusting and designed to bring out the worse in me, based on the number of expletives I have been using, some I was not even aware existed in my vocabulary.

Years ago, many moons, that is, during O’level Biology classes I was required to study your kingdom.

How dare you try to give yourself such importance?

I never bothered you then and cannot indeed remember much of what someone who seemed endeared to you was prepared to write.

But sad to say I now realize that you are a creature of some importance, designed or struggling vehemently to control the world, a world in which we are to be subjected to your songs and bites. What a day it will be when you begin to control our FM stations. The point I am getting at here is that I have to go back to do what I failed to do then. I have to get back to my biology books and try to learn your innermost secrets. But you are so smart and full of yourself that you would have ensured that all that was written then is now outdated.

I was also thinking of seeking help from my old friends at Vector Control, but how can I forget that the last time after their fogging venture, you came back at me with anger and full force, trying to put me under even more heavy manners. When you read this article you all will probably discuss it at your strategy sessions and have a nice laugh. As you are well aware, over the years I had been writing an annual piece about you. I missed last year so you are most likely reminding me and forcing me into action.

You see you are so full of yourself. By the way I have to ask why you are devoting so much of your energy to me. Why don’t you take it out on the politicians or even on the prisoners? Let me clarify something. I am not equating politicians with prisoners. Rather if you touch the politicians, I might be able to recruit them in the war.

When I think about you, I sometimes have to question nature’s plan for there is nothing that can convince me that you have any useful purpose among humankind and even in the animal kingdom. From whence have you come and what are you really all about?

As a friend of mine likes to quote, “He who forever tells you not to bother with small things has certainly never slept in a room with a mosquito”. How true, indeed! I must also raise with you your love of foreign or is it, new blood. Our visitors, especially returning Vincentians have a dreadful time with you. The terrible looking marks on their skin are adequate testimony.

You concentrate on sucking their blood, not on singing to them. I am sure that part of your problem is that you are trying to make up for your lack of size by ensuring that our lives are difficult. Shame on you!

Despite all I have said, let me plead with you and let you know that I sometimes get carried away. That is the impact you have on me. Don’t use what I have written as an excuse for launching any more forays.You really don’t have to demonstrate to me where power resides. I must explain too to my readers that my original intent was to do a piece on January 22, a year when it is no longer a public holiday. But sometimes other things force themselves on your agenda. When I wrote my last piece on the mosquito there were a couple readers who read every word very carefully, trying to figure out the symbolism of the mosquito and to find out what this struggle against the mosquito was supposed to mean. This is really nothing more than a dialogue with my friends in the mosquito kingdom. Did I say friends? Well, a little flattery isn’t bad at times. I prepare now to move back to bed dreading what this might mean. Then that is for another time.

• Dr Adrian Fraser is a social commentator and historian