The Last Day of My Life

It was the perfect day. My absolute best friend, Scarlett, and I were gaily zipping around the New Boston pond we called home, playfully dipping our feet in the beautiful stagnant waters and giggling as only female mosquitoes can.

"What a delightful day this is, Delicia!" Scarlett chimed in a high-pitched tone. She had a really cute monotonous voice, and never wavered from a perfect E-flat. Naturally, I was jealous of this talent (I was always wavering between an F and a G), but Scarlett was the soul of modesty. She never criticized me or boasted about her superior ability.

Scarlett's comment was very true. It was a gorgeous day. The sky was a brilliant azure, spotted with little clouds, wandering lonely and floating on high o'er vales and hills. The native birches and pines swayed gently in the warm breeze, and the tall grasses at the edge of the pond rustled softly. A few birds warbled off in the woods a little way, and a few frogs sat solemnly on their lily pads glistening in the sun, but even these rainclouds, to speak metaphorically, could not block out the sunshine of the day.

"Your comment was very true, Scarlett," I whined cheerfully. (As humans, you may not realize that it is entirely possible to whine cheerfully. I am told that happy whining is a very difficult feat for those of the homo sapiens species to accomplish, but we mosquitoes have long mastered the art.) "It remains true even now. Delightful is the perfect word to describe this day. Let us cavort."

The sounds of our laughter filling the air, we began to fly around the pond together. We chased each other through the rushes; we spiraled up around the trunks of the trees and pirouetted around the leaves. Suddenly, as we began to sail into one of those warm spring zephyrs that are just so much fun, Scarlett stopped dead in her flightpath. I nearly slammed into her, but thanks to my superb reflexes, for which I had long been known around the pond and even a couple yards into the forest, I missed her by a centimeter or so and hovered by her.

"Dearest Scarlett, what is the matter?"

"Do you smell that, Delicia?" Scarlett had a hungry glint in her eye, and as I sniffed the air I understood why. Carried along by the very breeze in which I had been so heedlessly playing was every girl's favorite scent: blood.

Incidentally, I will never understand why boys don't like the smell or taste of blood. I tried to get my friend Vladamir to try some once, but he seemed positively revolted. But this little observation has no real pertinence to the story at hand, and so I will leave it for better minds than my own to ponder.

Once we smelled that blood, Scarlett and I did not even to confer on our next plans. We both knew at once that we simply must follow the scent to its source. The instant we smelled that delicious fragrance we began to crave the ambrosia it represented, and mosquitoes never think twice about cravings. As the Great Culicidae once said, "To follow one's nose is to follow one's heart."

We flew into the wind at full speed, and it was not long before we passed through the forest and came out into some sort of human subdivision. There was a newly-paved cul-de-sac surrounded by fresh green grass. Big green metal boxes and partially completed sandy driveways dotted the sides of the road. Parked in the circle at the end was a gold van, and near it, digging passionately, were two men. Both wore jeans and workboots, but while one sported a white T-shirt, the other was decked in a blue polo. And while the white-shirted fellow had a bandanna on his head, the other was bare-headed, exposing his sandy hair to the northern sun.

"Goodness gracious, Delicia!" cried Scarlett, her melodious E-flat in a violent crescendo. "Look at those men! Aren't they handsome?"

"Yes, indeed, Scarlett," I returned, "and boy am I hungry!"

"Look at that younger one - the one without the beard. He's so tan! Do you think we could actually be so lucky as to have found a Floridian import?"

"I don't know... but he is tan. Oh, I can't wait to taste that sun-warmed liquor." I shuddered with anticipation. "For what are we waiting?"

Screaming madly with delight, Scarlett and I honed in on the youth with the bronzed complexion and sandy hair. I was flying so hard to get a taste of what promised to be a truly delectable treat that I could barely control myself. I was truly alive.

Suddenly, without warning, Scarlett once again halted abruptly, and it took every bit of my superb reflexes to avoid her this time. "Scarlett, darling, what's wrong this time?" I cried, my fleshly desire for indulgence deeply in conflict with the nobler virtues of my spirit.

"Look," whispered Scarlett, with uncanny vibrato, "look, dearest Delicia, at his hand!"

I looked, and I gasped. Covering the skin of this young man's hand was a yellow glove of leather. Instantly, my mind hearkened back to the days of my childhood (I think it was five days before, but it may have been only four; I have never had a good sense of time), when all of us fledgling mosquitoes would sit and bask in the wisdom of the Great Culicidae, history's greatest mosquito.

"Young skeeters," he used to say, "you are young and inexperienced. Beware of frogs, beware of dragonflies, and beware of birds; but most of all, beware of the Yellow Hand of Death."

Scarlett was very pale. "I'm frightened, Delicia," she said. "I don't think we should go any further."

I hesitated. Certainly, it was not every day that such a warning as that given by the Great Culicidae should be so applicable. This hand was certainly yellow, and it could be the hand of death foretold. Perhaps to attempt to eat from the banquet before me would be to irrationally tempt fate. Perhaps this was a golden opportunity for me to test my virtues of self-control, temperance, and restraint.

On the other hand, this was a feast like none I had ever seen! Every instinct in me cried, "Eat, drink, revel, be filled! Indulge yourself." (Curiously, this inner voice was low and deep, rather Darth Vader-esque; very unlike my high-pitched, nasal speaking voice.) How could I ignore my instincts? Everyone knows that mosquitoes are usually - though not invariably, I must allow - driven by instinct. I was not the exception to the rule, and so I turned to Scarlett with resolution in my heart.

"Dear friend," I crooned, keeping mainly to the lower note of my range, "I cannot ignore my God-given desire to be filled. The blood of this dashing young lad is calling to me, figuratively speaking, and I must obey. I will exercise the utmost of caution. I will look constantly at the Hand as I drink from the arm, and I will keep my reflexes ready. You know how good my reflexes are, Scarlett."

Scarlett, of course, could not deny that I had terrific reflexes, so she timidly agreed to join me. We buzzed down together to the tan, muscular arm that was so attractive and lighted on it with mosquitoey stealth. True to my word, I kept my eyes focused on the Yellow Hand and prepared to drink.

I cannot even begin to describe the pleasure that coursed through my entire body as I pierced the vein of that noble soul. The richness, the sweetness, the positive delectableness of that blood took my breath away. I closed my eyes out of sheer pleasure, but quickly opened them again as I remembered my promise of vigilance. I looked at the Hand, but it had not moved.

A completely unexpected - and indecently loud - whine from Scarlett startled me. "Look out, Delicia!" she intoned. "There's another hand!"

My eyes darted upward with a catlike swiftness, and I quickly beheld just how true Scarlett's warning was. Hovering a couple feet above my head was an enormous human appendage, this one also clothed in yellow leather. This was a crisis. My very life was in danger! Who could say but that I would nevermore see my dear pond, nevermore drink from its peaceful waters, and nevermore cavort above its lily pads? But I was the mosquito with the champion reflexes from the area. Mere human dexterity was no match for my insectival agility. The hand had not yet begun its descent; I would just pull my mouth out of the arm - like so - and....

Smack.