THE BIGGEST MOSQUITO EVER!
A bunch of us was sitting around the fire in our campground. We’d had a good supper followed by some marshmallows on sharpened sticks. There were 7 of us all told. Some were guzzling beer, others just staring into the flames as they danced and shot the occasional burst of sparks skyward. A friend or two asked me how my right arm was doing, what with the white bandages wrapped around it from the wrist to the elbow.
“The doc said my arm will be all right” I replied. “I lost a fair amount of blood but, other than that, he expects it to heal up just fine.” We had one of those good buddy-to-buddy conversations going that evening with a lot of laughter and a lot of deep thoughts too. We were all being totally honest; nobody was lying. By and by the talk got around to the biggest mosquitos we ever encountered and many a good story followed. I kept quiet until prodded to speak.
“Well, I got a story to share but you probably won’t believe it. Some of you asked me how my arm was injured and so I’ll tell you now as it’s part of my mosquito story. You recall I got here a day ahead of everyone else to set up camp? That first evening I went to bed early because I was plumb tuckered out from setting up tents and gathering firewood. Before I went to sleep I always put a few of my special items to the left of me, including my prized jack-knife with the blade extended just in case. You never know what to expect in these woods.
“Anyway, I was lying on my cot asleep when something woke me. I was sleeping on my back with my arms at my side when something landed right on top of my right arm. I couldn’t get a real good look at it but thought maybe it was a praying mantis as it covered about a third of my arm. It wasn’t a praying mantis nor a squirrel, it wasn’t anything but the biggest goddamn mosquito in the world!
“I could see it was getting its sucker ready to start sucking my blood but it hadn’t started yet. I reckon it would suck up a pint or two so I only had a second to decide what to do. With my left hand and a stealthy motion, I got a good grip on my knife and started moving it across my body. I was intending to scrape this behemoth off in one swift motion, from elbow to wrist, but I got to thinking over the ways that could backfire.
“For one thing, scraping it off would leave it free to fly up in the air, hide, and helicopter back down in the middle of the night for another shot at my blood. Just then it got ready to bite and before I knew it—don’t know what came over me—I raised my left arm with the knife and made a fast stabbing motion downward. It went right through the center of that damn mosquito while the tip of the knife buried itself deep in the flesh of my arm!
“The mosquito was dead sure enough but my arm was bleeding pretty lively. I pulled the knife out and wiped it clean of bloody mosquito parts and then wrapped my arm in a towel. I drove myself to the hospital where they cleaned the wound and bandaged my arm—this bandage that you see here. I reckon the mosquito was maybe 12 inches or more across from wing-tip to wing-tip. I knew as soon as it happened that nobody but nobody was going to believe me so that’s why I kept quiet when you fellas started swapping mosquito tales. I done seen one so large it most likely would have froze your blood and made your hair curl! Myself I just feel lucky that my aim was true. If that behemoth of a mosquito had started sucking on me, I could have lost a quart of blood!”
I looked around at their faces. They had been listening intently. Now it was the moment of truth where each one got to vote saying whether they believed what they had heard was a “true story” or just another “tall tale.” A silence ensued. One by one each of my friends got up, put his hand on my shoulder, said “good night” and headed for his tent. No one voted at all. Well, I knew that I’d seen such a HUGE mosquito that the story that went with it would challenge their credulousness. I couldn’t expect no “yes” votes for the story I had just shared with them!
What I didn’t tell them was this: after I stopped the bleeding but before I got in the car to drive to the hospital, I picked up what was left of that gluttonous creature and put him in a shoe box, so large he touches all four sides, blood still dripping from its proboscis. I got it in the back seat of my car and tomorrow I’ll show it to them. Then we’ll see which way they will want to vote!
The insect being so huge I just had to give it a name, MANZILLA– the biggest mosquito who ever lived!
