The air is thick and still.

Black dots float across the sky as I walk home from work.

They have been swarming and biting for days.

The stagnant air, coupled with the soaking rains of the past few weeks, has caused their numbers to explode.

I feel a subtle stab and automatically lift my hand to the part of my neck where the sensation emanated. My index finger senses an intruder; a tiny, soft tuft that wasn’t there before … at least not that morning, when I slathered the manufacturer-prescribed amount of SPF moisturizer over my shower-dampened skin. When I looked down, I found a smudge of blood.

It will itch for a moment, and I won’t think of it again.

The mosquitoes, I muse, probably think I am fierce.

Or many just a big dumb oaf who lost a necessary fear of the slender pest amid non-stop news coverage of its more........

© The Saratogian