Short Story: Spiteful Prick
*I wrote this in 2018 and haven’t even bothered to edit it so bare with me*
The carpeted floor of the front room of my parent’s house was a treat for the bare soles of my feet. It was an ambiguous summer’s day; one that had seen sun and rain and cloud all in the same afternoon. The heat had maintained its hold on the air, which clung to clothes like damp breath. There was a deadness to it that had the effect of suffocating the sound of silence. The windows were open on the north and east facing walls which were made-up primarily of glass planes, causing the room to become a sun-trap during the mornings. Now, however, in the shade of the afternoon, it was the coolest room in the house, and was a much coveted oasis away from the heat of the outside world.
I took to the couch, which was a soft and needed resting place decorated with more cushions than one could possibly ever require. The relentless sun and garden work had taken a toll on me, and I felt the nap which I had planned for the next hour had been well and truly earned. As I landed down on the grey cushioning, I could feel a slight breeze flow in from the open windows and I could hear birds chirping what sounded like a happy conversation outside. There was energy on the air that is only felt on certain days during the Irish summer. In the distance someone was cutting lawn, and if I listened even further I could hear the sounds of cars driving away; it was a carefree sort of day in the sun.
Of course the air was also alive with the playful sounds of flying insects. The ability of flies, bees and wasps to seek out and find an open window in the summer months is something that will never cease to amaze me. Further to that, their inability to rediscover said window once they go through it is something that will never cease to confuse me.
Nestling into a slumber was interrupted abrasively by a familiar buzzing against the glass. A clear sign of a flying insect that had gotten itself inside but was now struggling to exit. My mind bounced randomly to how this was a nice metaphor for how we’d gotten into a situation with climate change; unable to get our way out of a situation we created. I noted to write that down later, knowing full well that I’d forget. Then the reverb of the glass disappeared and I could hear the buzzing out in the vast isolation of my parents’ front room. The buzzing was too crisp and sharp to be a housefly. The buzz had too much purpose and didn’t sound as erratic as the flight pattern of a fly normally would. The buzzing was also too urgent and pointed like the prick of a needle to be any sort of bee. They usually lazed along, often fat with pollen and not in any hurry. That only left us with one other option, the only option which would have me open my eyes and peer around to ensure my safety; there was a bastard wasp in the room.
I flicked my eyes around the place as I sat up to find the buzzing aggressor. My weariness of wasps was well rooted in my childhood, having been stung between the fingers on the pier of the seaside town of Ardmore as a boy. Ever since then, I had been actively at war with the no-good wannabe pollinators. They had been sent from the future to cause havoc and evoke panic anywhere they’d go, of that I as certain.
This particular wasp had found its way toward the ceiling, which at a cursory glance, may seem harmless. But it wasn’t harmless. It knew I was there and it circled around the centre light, planning its next move. I was on my feet in an instant, and had already picked up a book from the bookcase nearby, a heavy encyclopaedia for the letter L. I was just then making peace with the fact that I was about to take this wasp’s life. Although I never liked taking the life of my aerial visitors, in this moment I knew it was either it or me. In one smooth motion I swung the book at the wasp as it turned an invisible corner in my direction. A direct hit catapulted the bastard towards the TV stand where it fell quietly to a motionless position on the cream carpet below.
I approached my fallen foe to be doubly sure that it had died. Upon seeing its twitching body, with the legs slightly curled, I felt comfortable that I had won this particular battle. I left the body where it fell so that it could act as warning to any other would-be foes to steer clear of this battleground. I also just couldn’t have been bothered disposing of the insect’s carcass if I’m being completely honest.
I fell back towards the couch. The quick interaction had my heart beating an up-tempo rhythm and I knew it might take me slightly longer than anticipated to drift off into a light sleep. Nevertheless, I was happy to be switching off in a wasp-free environment. The couch was only a two-seater, meaning it wasn’t long enough for my six feet and two inch long body, so I curled my left leg in on itself, whilst keeping my right foot planted on the floor. It was a comfortable position, and one I’d fallen asleep in before, so I wasn’t bothered by the lack of space to stretch out in.
Soon after, I drifted along the edge of sleep, in a half-conscious delirium. The dreamscape of my fantasies bordered reality, and although I could still feel the room around me, and the carpet underfoot and the air flowing from the window, my mind was already bleeding into a surreal new universe deep within my psyche. This lucid in-between realm was one of my favourite places in human existence.
I was jolted back from the brink of sleep by a loud pain erupting from my right foot. At first I wasn’t sure if were part of the dream or part of the room. The pain was intense and pointed and felt as though my foot with explode if it didn’t cease soon.
I was miles away now from my half slumber. The oncoming dreamscapes dissipated as the pain took over my occipital and frontal lobes. I looked down past the edge of the couch to see what had brought such suffering to my foot.
The bastard wasp that I’d thought dead was squirming in agony next to my big toe. Having used its stinger, it would certainly die now. After being plucked from the sky by my book wielding hand, the wasp had lost consciousness and appeared to be dying to the untrained and inattentive. When it woke up on the carpet by the TV, with fatal injuries to its wings, rendering it unable to fly, it vowed revenge before it left this earthly plain.
In the ten minutes that followed, as I fell into sleep, the wasp traversed the carpeted plains of my parent’s front room, toiling away with its tiny legs along the rough terrain. Oh, the things it must have seen! It then found my bare foot and injected its biting sting between my big and second toes. Although it surely knew it would die if it used its sting, it still wanted me to know that it had won the day.
As I looked down at the dying wasp, squirming from the anguish of having its insides ripped from within itself, while my own foot throbbed from the pain caused by this wasp’s last and final act upon the stage of our world, I found a moment within me to respect this malicious insect. It may have been a bastard, but they level of hard-headed stubbornness it had just portrayed was remarkable, and I knew I’d always remember this spiteful prick.