12 going on 13.

Zapped my 12th mosquito – the fat one. Don’t wanna go into details, but this one was quite an experience. Now the 13th is flying around me, thinking that it’s hunting for its prey. Wait. I think there’s a 14th one.

GOTCHA!

A few years ago in Menteng, Jakarta, on my way back home I would pass this house where this middle-aged uncle lived. The sun would have been going down and this uncle would have been dragging his favourite chair out, putting it in front of his fence and sitting on it with a mosquito racket in his hand.

He would have been going clack tack tack tack tack tack, swaying his racket and doing his deed for nature; an over-achieving predator for those little bloodsuckers. Hello uncle, good evening, I would have said. Hello, he would have said, just got back from work? – excellent backhand – clack tack tack tack tack tack tack tack tack! I would have smiled, and said yes, uncle, and passed by. I wonder how often he cleaned his racket from mosquito remains.

Edo told me that Ken, when they were both young, used to put petrol down the gutter, and light a match. Swoofsh, the gutter would explode (not that hard), and millions of dead mosquitos would soullessly float on the water. And yes, I can see the reason why they use petrol, not oil. Oil would be more perpetual. Petrol would just swiftly evaporate.

Okay. Now. This 14th mosquito must be thinking he’s really smart. He keeps flying around my face. At some point, he thinks, this pathetic short girl with the electric racket will end up zapping her own face. Well, no, fatty mosquito dearest, I don’t think that’s gonna happen, ever.