The skeeter hunt went on for ten minutes. Can't say it did any good 'cause it turned out there'd been dozens in hiding, biding their time 'til we were hunkered into our war surplus sleeping bags.
I figured there must have been some kind of powwow down in the heater vents where the mosquitoes decided to infiltrate our ranks one at a time. No matter how many I killed, a minute later there was another buzzing up and climbing in my ear.
Worst part was when it got dark. What I couldn't see was more than made up by what I could hear. I never thought anything so small could be that loud. Bet they could be heard all the way to Winnipeg.
Oddly enough, come morning my face was way more welted from my own slapping than from mosquito bites. And Emil slept through it all like a baby (outside of his snoring that is). Good thing he was driving 'cause about the only sleep I found came once the sun was up and we were back on the road.
Oh yeah, the terror. That was outside. And roaring. My uncle said it was nothing more than about a hundred billion mosquitoes trying to bust their way inside the car so they could suck us dry, eat our flesh and drain the marrow out of our bones. He said on his first trip to the far north the skeeters ate the paint right off his old Nash Rambler. Even the white on his white sidewalls was gone.
He asked if I ever heard of the ants down in South America that could gnaw their way through thousands of acres of rainforest. Bushes, trees, monkeys, dirt, everything. Or the clouds of locusts that'd scarfed down half the prairie back in the nineteenth century. 'Course I hadn't but said yes anyhow just to keep the conversation going.
"Well, let me tell you, they're nothing compared to what's outside the Nomad at this very moment. And it's fools like us that're stupid enough to be spending the night in the kitchen of death that gets them so riled up. They feel us, see us, maybe smell us. Who knows? I'm not sure exactly why but somehow or other it's all tied up with bug sex. There's a life lesson in there somewhere. Not sure where. I'll let you figure out that out by yourself. Also, should you feel the car rocking in the middle of the night, don't fret, it's just the skeeters trying to break in. In the meantime, sleep tight and don't let, well, you know the rest."
Laid there for a few minutes listening to the outside noises before falling asleep. Then drifted into the world of my thoughts. Night was the time when the barriers came down. In the dark there was no way for me to hide from myself. You see I'd been raised a Catholic and spent the last six years in parochial schools, guided to an appreciation of guilt by a handful of nuns. It'd been hard for me to play by the rules. Those rules being to not sin and should I sin, go to confession for absolution. Easy enough. But there were so many rules. And the odds on following each and every one of them was so slim as to be impossible. About the same as the odds of me going to confession. Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. Long story short, I worried a lot about going to hell. And eternity seemed a long time to be in any kind of pain. A real long time. I could say a lot more but won't. Just that sometimes in the dark, alone in my bed, I used to sweat bullets over nothing more consequential than my thoughts. But that night it helped to be sleeping beside my uncle. He seemed at peace with himself as a man. Maybe someday I would too.
Laid there for a few minutes listening to the outside noises before falling asleep. Then drifted into the world of my thoughts. Night was the time when the barriers came down. In the dark there was no way for me to hide from myself. You see I'd been raised a Catholic and spent the last six years in parochial schools, guided to an appreciation of guilt by a handful of nuns. It'd been hard for me to play by the rules. Those rules being to not sin and should I sin, go to confession for absolution. Easy enough. But there were so many rules. And the odds on following each and every one of them was so slim as to be impossible. About the same as the odds of me going to confession. Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. Long story short, I worried a lot about going to hell. And eternity seemed a long time to be in any kind of pain. A real long time. I could say a lot more but won't. Just that sometimes in the dark, alone in my bed, I used to sweat bullets over nothing more consequential than my thoughts. But that night it helped to be sleeping beside my uncle. He seemed at peace with himself as a man. Maybe someday I would too.
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