night sounds
My apartment windows don't have any screens. My roommates like it this way. And so do I. It's prettier. We get unfiltered Brooklyn sunlight in every room. When tall, skinny neighbors come to visit, they can holler up at me and I can stick my head out my bedroom window and holler back. I have total freedom to lean out from the living room and glare my disgust at the latin music beating from the parked car on the corner. And one day, I really will have the courage to lean way out and yell, "Yo! Cheese Sandwich!" to the slow bodega clerk across the street so that my food will be ready for me when I get downstairs. We live only barely separated from the outside world. No screens, no air conditioners. When the neighborhood cats go into heat, we know it.
When I was little, my parents used to joke that I had sweet blood. I imagined my veins running rich with fruit juice, and felt special for all my bites. So my first summer in this apartment, snapping awake every night and slapping myself in the face to fend off the insects, I told myself the same story. At the end of the season, bleary eyed and puffy, I waited for the first chill and happily, shut my windows.
I dont generally kill insects. I've been known to talk to cockroaches: "I'm going to turn around and youre going to hide, ok?" Or call friends in the middle of the night: "The slugs are back. You have to come over and take them away."
But mosquitoes. A mosquito I will kill with pleasure, then wipe the blood off my palms, and go back to sleep with an easy heart. That's when I'll win. Other nights I'll never find her. She'll dodge and duck, remain invisible, taunt me, nibble at my eyelids, my fingertips. And then lean in close and sing her song of victory.
There's something terrible about the sound of a mosquito whispering in your ear. She'll tell you things you dont want to hear, fill you with dread and leave you furious and helpless in the dark. She'll make you turn on your light and think murderous thoughts that will follow you to your dreams. Then, even after she's died, she keeps her victory while you lie awake scratching and stewing over her last words until dawn, wishing you could have killed her before she said anything at all.
Three nights ago, a swift, bright mosquito arrived to avenge her sisters. Softly, softly, she descended to my ear, whispered, "who have you become?" bit me four times and left. Ooh I hated her! I tossed and turned and glared and fumed until I cried, until the sun cracked on my pillowcase. I thought about maturity ironing out my favorite qualities, about the person I'm turning into, unable to stop. I thought about my weakened capacity for joy, for love. The year slipping by in apathy. How I once told a friend that I preferred solitude to his company. And work. Work, work work, hardening me against everything.
The next morning, rife with self loathing, I went outside. And bought some screens. They're beautiful.
When I was little, my parents used to joke that I had sweet blood. I imagined my veins running rich with fruit juice, and felt special for all my bites. So my first summer in this apartment, snapping awake every night and slapping myself in the face to fend off the insects, I told myself the same story. At the end of the season, bleary eyed and puffy, I waited for the first chill and happily, shut my windows.
I dont generally kill insects. I've been known to talk to cockroaches: "I'm going to turn around and youre going to hide, ok?" Or call friends in the middle of the night: "The slugs are back. You have to come over and take them away."
But mosquitoes. A mosquito I will kill with pleasure, then wipe the blood off my palms, and go back to sleep with an easy heart. That's when I'll win. Other nights I'll never find her. She'll dodge and duck, remain invisible, taunt me, nibble at my eyelids, my fingertips. And then lean in close and sing her song of victory.
There's something terrible about the sound of a mosquito whispering in your ear. She'll tell you things you dont want to hear, fill you with dread and leave you furious and helpless in the dark. She'll make you turn on your light and think murderous thoughts that will follow you to your dreams. Then, even after she's died, she keeps her victory while you lie awake scratching and stewing over her last words until dawn, wishing you could have killed her before she said anything at all.
Three nights ago, a swift, bright mosquito arrived to avenge her sisters. Softly, softly, she descended to my ear, whispered, "who have you become?" bit me four times and left. Ooh I hated her! I tossed and turned and glared and fumed until I cried, until the sun cracked on my pillowcase. I thought about maturity ironing out my favorite qualities, about the person I'm turning into, unable to stop. I thought about my weakened capacity for joy, for love. The year slipping by in apathy. How I once told a friend that I preferred solitude to his company. And work. Work, work work, hardening me against everything.
The next morning, rife with self loathing, I went outside. And bought some screens. They're beautiful.
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