The Last Supper

The night before I left for home, in those last wee hours of the darkness, the mosquitoes of Beijing feasted on my body and blood one last time before we parted ways. No one knows the hour I'd return again, not even me. That had a certain blasphemous ring to it. I'm sorry. But I digress. It wasn't just one last sumptuous for the gang of mosquitoes, there was a show as well. The Itchy & Scratchy Show. Which kept me up for most of the night, so that I was only really asleep for three hours tops. That, however, was time aplenty for them to partake of my blood.

Here are some of the damage:


Three on the right forearm.

And three on the left back arm.

Plus one to the right elbow, one to the left forearm (they're symmetrical, you see), one on the back of each hand, five on the fingers, and three on the palms. And just so the legs don't feel left out, one on each thigh. These were not just mosquitoes at work, they must have been operating in conjunction with some other bugs. I mean, who bites the palms of the hands?! Oh, and these were not normal insects we were dealing with, in case you couldn't figure out by the twenty-one bites in three hours, but they're special action movie terrorist bugs. Because they either flew in through the window at nine floors high, or came in through the air ducts of the air conditioning that never worked (hence the plethora of bugs), either way, very cunning of the bugs. And either way, I've been in miserable itching pain for the past three days.


In other news, the old and infested hotel-dormitory that I stayed at the last night was my cousin's place (I got the place to myself because she was gone for the weekend, which meant that I alone suffered through the bugs) and she had the tiniest roll of toilet paper I'd ever seen. It was adorable. And soft. And made me feel like I was wiping with gauze bandages.