Monday, August 13, 2007

Bugs

Hordes of ants line our ceiling in clumps of shivering black, arming for their next campaign, massing for their next attack. Their colony looks like potting soil, but writhing with horrible collective purpose over their lumpy white larve. We're pretty sure they weren't here this morning. Bim brings the vacuum to counter their invasion, but we don't get far before the power goes out. When the lights flicker back on, we suck up their whole encampment with glee, but this only seems to make them angrier. More and more swarm out of the ceiling and into the black hole doom of our great machine. Bim takes the ant-filled vacuum bag outside and pounds it happily with his fists. When we finally seem to have quelled the tide, we draw a line around the hole with special chalk, and again all around the walls of our room, just above our heads. Eventually we go to sleep putting our trust in the chemical magic of our yellowish ward. Science prevails.

Bug are everywhere. Huge spiders that spin webs that look large enough to capture small cats. Mosquitoes and wasps that dive bomb our heads and buzz sinisterly around our feet during class. We are assured that most are harmless, but we have heard stories. In the last few months, eight people were killed by the venom of tiny crawling beetles that glow like fireflies. The victims died within ten minutes. No one seems to know where this new threat came from, but demons are suspected.

1 comment:

Deena said...

Andrew, great blog! Happy to hear that you're fine in India. Take care and use the camera well.