On reflection

Why is it that nasty biting useless creatures seem always to prefer women? The Cat has returned home with a number, a seemingly vast and countless number, of unwelcome little friends. Not content with hanging out on her, they have decided that I am a tasty alternative. You should see the state of my legs. The bites have pretty much almost joined up, creating an itching angry ring just above my socks. I have wailed at the folks in the pet shop, at the vet, at my friends. One had the temerity to laugh and comment that, “well, that cat is a beachfront condominium for a flea.” Of course it was a he. The Boyfriend has not had a single bite through all of this. Not one. Not a single one. Argh! The injustice of it. To cap it all, the Cat has allergies. We have exhausted almost all of the fleaicide products on the market. She’s managed to tolerate the latest one and now thankfully seems to be flea-less. I have sprayed and powdered and vacuumed endlessly. If nothing else, the carpet is now extremely clean. The Cat deigns to walk across it again. She has taken to sniffing my hair. I do believe that she holds me responsible for importing the pestilence into the house. The injustice of it knows no bounds.

The flea is not the only one of God’s seemingly useless creatures that likes to treat me as a never-ending smorgasbord. On the very same trip that yielded the most impressive of the impressive doorways, we travelled further east and south into Croatia. To me, Croatia is both really very beautiful and very terrible, for a pestilence worse than the flea has made a home there. I should have been on alert as soon as I entered the hotel room. The wall behind the bed had been painted brown. There is really only one possible reason for that. The pestilence made itself known. When I awoke, my right leg had several large, swollen, hot, throbbing bites, where a creature of surpassing viciousness had dined in the night. The deterrent I had deployed had been totally ineffectual. Of course, the Boyfriend did not have a single bite. Not one. Not a single one. Argh! Only now did he truly understand my obsession with repellent and long sleeves. My leg swelled ominously. I felt feverish. I insisted that we track down and buy all possible mosquito counter-measures. The local supermarket was just a few minutes walk away. On entering, we were met with a whole aisle of anti-pestilence products. A whole aisle. It was a very small supermarket.

As a distraction from the bite debacle, the Boyfriend suggested that we take a boat trip out around the nearby islands. The sun shone, the sea was iridescent blue, dolphins cavorted; lunch was freshly caught fish grilled by the water’s edge. It was magical. The crystal clear water engendered a myriad of reflections. A dreaming afternoon was spent eating ice cream and watching the little fish dart about in the shallows. Memories of that afternoon became Ishka, its colour ways named for jewels, for on that day the water sparkled more even than diamonds.

And I reflected on my own (in)significance. We are all of us eventually somebody’s dinner – though I do think that they should have the good manners to wait until after I am dead.