I try to help living things that may be in a dire predicament. From guiding wayward dogs, to a poor owl that crashed into our window a number of years ago, to hurrying a lowly slug along our walkway to remove it from the sun’s burning.

I feel some empathy for their plight. I also pick up snails that are in hazardous spots around our house – on the walkway or during those hot, dry days of summer where they have a chance of drying out.

I’ll deposit them in the bushes and out of harm’s way. I never met a snail I didn’t like. They’re quiet and don’t give you any guff. They just move along in a seemingly random trajectory. They know not where their path will take them. Something that is akin to our lives as humans, except we are sentient and we have a much better view of our surroundings.

We use that big brain we have to survey what’s in front of us to guide ourselves through the day. We usually see danger well in advance and can move along accordingly. The snail doesn‘t have our advantage.

Then we have the mosquito. And I’m sure we often wonder, as we are swatting the ones that nibble at us on a hot summer’s day, while mowing that lawn with the interminable grass, why does this segment of the insect species exist?

They’re relentless.

Finding the spots of bare skin through clothes and shifting limbs to remove that precious fluid we carry. We become a blur of whirring hands if they become too much and we have failed to coat ourselves with insect repellant.

On hot summer nights, there is muted joy as we hear them get zapped by a bug zapper. There is a certain bliss if we see them on windows and we can crush them.

We feel immense pleasure if we can slap them on our skin before they bite; proud that our reflexes are fast enough to take them out before they’ve inserted their proboscis. We are the ninja warrior in a forever battle. Yet the mosquito is battle hardened as its immense numbers overwhelm us like Genghis Khan’s Mongol army overwhelmed Asia. The mosquito is Khan unbridled.

Then as we sit on nighttime porches behind screens that keeps Kahn at bay, we are thankful that we have found a refuge in this fight.

And in this moment of reverie a lone housefly buzzes over our heads, flying in and out of sight, moving as we move.

It’s nuisance level almost on parr with the mosquito, but with less numbers and no bite. One of us moves quickly at it’s presence.

A fly swatter whisks through the air removing one housefly from the nighttime equation of pests, even as the continuous drone of mosquitos wait patiently beyond the screen; drawn by the carbon dioxide emitting from our bodies.

We will tread lightly on this night.

Bill Fiander,

Sydney

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