Dear you,
Mosquitoes always find their way to me. They periodically enter the house I live in. When I’m in any outdoor space with my ankles bare, they sink their tiny teeth into them.
Googling “why do mosquitoes prefer some people” and watching all the explainers has told me that, according to some studies, mosquitoes prefer people with type O blood. Others suggest a genetic predisposition to secrete an odor irresistible to mosquitoes. I suppose I ticked both boxes because the bugs can’t get enough of me. In a room of six people, I am always the first to be sniffed out. My siblings and parents sit in the garden, protected by nothing but an electric fan for their legs, and the bugs leave them alone.
When I see a mosquito, my kill instinct sets in immediately. I will drop everything to get them. Sometimes it is as easy as grabbing them in one hand and crushing them to death. Other times, it is too dark or they fly too fast and I must employ something more tactical. I pull my shorts up and take my socks off to expose my bare thighs and feet. I sit absolutely still. In less than a minute, we will have found one another. After they’ve landed, I wait two beats before landing a decisive blow. A mosquito is easiest to kill after it’s drawn a little blood. And I am the Niccolo Machiavelli of entomological warfare.
Since school went remote, my boyfriend’s flat in Malate has remained, for the most part, unoccupied. Sometimes I ask to stay for a few days or a few weeks. It’s closer to most of the studios and locations we shoot at and it’s practical to isolate from my family, whether for their safety or my sanity1. In exchange, I keep the place clean. I vacuum, I dust, I make sure the appliances don’t fall into disuse. That’s where I started cooking dishes that took hours upon hours. What’s the rush? The only person waiting is me.
When I had my accident, I couldn’t go to the flat for more than two months. By the time I finally returned, there was a cockroach problem. I bought enough poison to leave in every corner of the apartment. I found maybe 20 that had scurried in between the weaves of a rattan basket and promptly threw the basket into the sink to drown them under the tap. Every day for a week, I’d see one or two emerging from the cracks in the walls and smash them with my fist. There were spiders, too, but the home is an ecosystem. I spared the spiders because I knew they’d catch roaches and eat them. I saw the fruits of this often, webs in corners with one or two exoskeletons tangled in them.
A month later, the cockroaches had pretty much been exterminated, but I realized the spiders had multiplied. They caused me no harm but the cobwebs covered all the nooks and crannies of the flat. Was it time to eradicate them after they’d served what I’d determined to be their purpose?
I am the caretaker of places I’m allowed to live but will never own2. My parents’ house; my boyfriend’s flat; my body. I wash the dishes; I vacuum the cobwebs; I feed a thousand little hungers that may or may not contribute to my survival. I am here for the maintenance of all that lives here, even the creepy crawlies.
Some days my head is swarming with bees. Yesterday, in the middle of a panic attack, my dad walked past and I started hyperventilating louder. I took a sharp inhale and started to cry, but by then he was far out of earshot. You are such a narcissist, I said. You need your pain witnessed. And here I am again now, making you a witness to whatever new suffering I’ve discovered.
Writing this is part of the housekeeping, a ritual of extermination. For much of the last year, I have grown more prone to these attacks, insects buzzing under my skin for hours. I’ve tried every trick in the book to rid myself of them. Every morning, I write down my dreams. I do half an hour of yoga. I walk the dogs twice or thrice3. I try to watch a movie or work through my reading list. I take an afternoon nap, no shorter than 20 minutes and no longer than an hour. This is the minutiae of my survival, and it is hardly enough.
I can bare my thighs, my feet and every inch of my body and every secret in my heart, but the bugs keep creeping out—they’re part of the ecosystem. I am the caretaker of places I’m allowed to live but will never own.
Catching more flies,
Apa
There are no mosquitoes on the 29th floor.
I say things like, “Please never sell the flat. I’ll buy it,” even if amassing the wealth necessary to purchase property seems impossible. I will stay somewhere for a song, for the promise I will tidy my things before I leave. Ownership, for the most part, seems so untenable.
Two walks for Sherlock (morning and evening) and sometimes one walk for Nala (late afternoon).