Things take the time they take, wrote Mary Oliver. That’s what comes to my mind while I’m hopelessly trying to fall back asleep after a mosquito woke me by intermittently buzzing in and around my ear for I don’t know how long. I wave my hand to bug her off, she goes away for a while, I doze off, she returns, I wave again. And so on (no, I won’t write “Rinse, repeat”). Then I finally switch the light on to catch her in the act and take opportune measures -- which may involve a simple shouting in the air as reprimand, a contractual ‘cease and desist’, or a plain termination -- but she’s gone. I always get to this point and she’s always gone. I switch the light on two seconds after her last return, but she’s nowhere to be seen.
Claire -- that’s the name I gave her -- is off-season. Here’s where in the summertime you get assaulted, no matter how much repellent you put on your skin. A place amicably referred to as the factory of mosquitos by Yours Truly. But two-thirds of the way into the Fall, temperatures are starting to drop and it’s hard to see them around. Yet she’s here, and seems to be in no hurry to go into hibernation, or whatever mosquitoes do when meteorological conditions are no longer ideal. Claire comes out at night, I see no trace of her during the day. She’s been around in my bedroom for more than two weeks now -- a lifespan typical of females (males live ten days tops, I learned). Hence, I figured she must be a she.
Some nights she doesn’t come buzzing in my ear. Maybe she needs some time off every once in a while. Flying and buzzing and blood-sucking must be particularly exhausting. I’m gonna rest on this wall for a couple of days, I’m sure her thinking goes. But then one random night, as I’m graciously fading into non-existence, precariously hanging between reality and dream, she materializes in all her auditory grandeur. Her buzzing as delicate as a summer breeze, as annoying as a dentist’s drill. And the funny thing is, my skin has no bites the day after.
Perhaps she just wants to whisper something in my ear, like the secret of life or what’s going to happen in the future or who really built the pyramids. She might indeed be the repository of the most secret secrets. Or maybe she just needs to talk and get things off her chest, like how difficult bugs’ life is or some romantic shit she feels guilty about. Bugs do have a difficult life, in fact. Maybe she’s revealing to me that we ourselves are bugs in someone’s larger life.
Long ago, I met a biologist. Tall, with pale blue eyes, paper-white, freckled complexion, and short red hair, she moved with the grace of a flamingo. She told me that her job was to study the infinitesimal. The very little, the minuscule. I met her one evening at Andrea’s apartment, a hub for our circle of friends during college. We’d often spend the whole night there talking, telling jokes, smoking, and sometimes cooking when we’d get hungry. For a period, we taped our conversations. I’d do anything to play those cassettes and hear our voices and silly stories from back then again. Anyway, I don’t remember the biologist’s name, and I’m sure my words are not technically correct, but she told me that in a particle as small as a fraction of a grain of sand you can see a whole universe.
And I thought that maybe the universe as we know it is just a gigantic particle the size of a fraction of an even more gigantic grain of sand under someone’s humongous microscope. And that we are so infinitesimally small under that microscope. I told the biologist about this. She nodded her head slowly, a faint smile on her lips. Someone bursted into the room with a huge bowl of freshly made spaghetti aglio, olio, e peperoncino and everyone interrupted what they were doing or saying, and had some. She left abruptly and I never saw her again.
I’ve always struggled to find a role for mosquitoes in the ecosystem. But there must be one. Noah sure thought so when he let them onto the ark. I wonder whether Claire shows up tonight, and buzzes something into my ear. Maybe it’s one of her nights off, or maybe her time’s up. If she refrains from biting, could it be her way of conveying a message? And why precisely the instant I’m falling asleep, as if she knew exactly when that happens? As if she knew that, right there, my brain is in such a state of receptivity that it can effortlessly and unconsciously absorb information buzzed in mosquito language. Quid pro quo, my friend. I give you blood, you reveal something to me. Except she doesn’t want my blood. And I don’t understand mosquito language.
Sometimes writing unveils the weirdest connections. I’m not entirely sure why I decided to write about mosquitoes and Claire and a red-haired biologist from my past. Could it be something about the idea of a series of concentric universes, one containing the other like a Russian doll, from infinitesimal to infinity, and back? Could it be that in one of these universes, we’re bugs to a larger someone? And that we’re trying to convey a message to that larger someone, by flying and buzzing around their ear? And could that larger someone be writing a piece like this now, in their larger universe, about mosquitoes, lack of sleep, and the universe?
Things take the time they take. Or take no time at all.
If you liked this piece, I’d be truly grateful if you shared it.
And if you’re not yet a subscriber and just stumbled upon this page because someone shared it or by divine intervention, and you liked it, please do subscribe to receive my writing every week in your inbox.
This reminded me so much of an episode in Breaking Bad called "The Fly", where nothing, and everything, happens. I've always seen it as a risky move from the creators of the series, and now seeing something similar executed by you is amazing!
Long live the mosquitoes that sparks these thoughts 😂
I don’t know many writers who could extract such extended delight from a brief annoying moment.