Ah, summer days! That pleasant warmth that during the rest of the year not uses to be, and even in town can arrive to be suffocating, but there, in the wooden cottage, by the lake, in the middle of the forest where I used to go every year when I was a child, truly made my mind craved that feeling of joy that I could only remember from then. That’s why, this year I decided to go back to that place, I needed to disconnect from my routine and going back there could fully recharge my energies, I was sure about that.
Although my expectations that the place might have changed radically after so many years were well founded after the great development of the surrounding cities, I was pleasantly surprised by finding the place just as I remembered it in my mind. The forest was still as lush as ever, even obscuring some areas, giving them a relatively gloomy air, but, all in all, it was a beautiful place, that worth visiting.
The only thing that had changed, in fact, was something that I couldn’t expect: A huge quantity of mosquitoes had found in the surrounding of the lake their home. At the beginning I thought that it was something I could stand, but little by little, the strain feeling was getting bigger and bigger. The constant bites, with their consequent welts all over my body, the itching all time due to the same thing, and having to watch out for excessive scratching to avoid abrading my skin until it starts bleeding, ended up making the whole trip more tedious than I had originally thought it would be. Those damned bugs kept turning the trip into a nightmare for me.
All in all, I enjoyed the trip immensely, and managed to recharge my batteries for at least, another year. The fishing in the lake during the day was incredible, the forest trails were still easily passable, and each and every one of the beautiful places I remembered from my childhood were still there, and by visiting them, all the annoyances caused by the insufferable bugs paled.
Unfortunately for me, that staying, despite being relatively long, in terms of days, seemed to be extremely short, because when I enjoyed being there, pending absolutely nothing but relaxing and having fun, it had to come to an end. I had to go back work once again and restart my daily routine of hustle and bustle and stress.
However, as the days went by, I began to become aware that something was working strangely. First, I felt a lot of tingling in my chest, but not as if it was going numb, but rather, as if it was coming from inside myself. That tingling soon turned into discomfort, pain and finally, shortness of breath. “Damned mosquitoes” I thought to myself.
Faced with the possibility of having contracted a transmissible disease from insect bites, I decided to visit the doctor and have a complete check-up, including blood tests, urine tests and ultimately, torso x-rays to dispel any doubts about my condition.
The results were not long in coming, it’s an advantage of private health care, and in a couple of hours, the doctor had in his hands the sheets with the results of the tests. Taking the first sheet, he gave a brief reading and with a half frown on his face, he simply said: “According to this, everything is fine”, as he turned from one page to another. The readings were at normal levels, and when he came to the x-ray, he took it just for check that everything was in order there too. But his pale face alarmed me.
Well, it turns out that mosquitoes often have predators that nest nearby in order to catch them. Probably on one of those nights I spent there, a spider snuck into my mouth, and when I took a deep breath, made its way into my windpipe, from there it gained access to my right lung, which it decided would be a good place to build its nest.