The Hornet

Spiders.
Worms.
Birds.
Masks.
Hornets.
Fire.

Phobias. These thin, tender spots where you mind once bruised, and never completely healed. A lucky few do not, cannot know the feeling. Happy fearless ones… I am not one of you. My panic button has wings. It's in the list: I hate hornets.

Lately, they started to get into my room and inspect the ceiling, looking for something I hope they'll never find, lest they tell their hornet friends and swarm in.
It starts with the noise. I won't mistake that one noise for anything else. It doesn't buzz, it rumbles. To me it's an alarm, carrying the promise of panic and the looming threat of an explosion of pain.
My hands, my legs, my shoulders… my face. I don't want any of it to be injected with fever inducing neurotoxin.
As soon as it gets in, my eyes escape my control and follow the arabesque of the little winged needle.
Until it escapes from my sights.
I, then, can hear it without knowing where it really is.

It's nowhere, and for that precise reason, it's everywhere.

Is that a tingle I feel on my hand? My leg? The back of my neck?
Or is the hornet in the process of repeatedly stabbing me, spreading its poison in my veins?

The noise stopped.
Has it landed? Where?

On me? On my pillow? Under my blanket? Just near enough to sting me if I move the wrong way?

I see it again. It appeared from nowhere. I swear, I swear it's looking right into my eyes. It's too close. Way too close.
I know, I have to stay calm, not move. That's easy, I'm frozen in fear.

Does it feel it, my blinding fear?
Insects have different senses from us, they can see a broader spectrum of light, smell a broader spectrum of smells… Even if I don't move, will it see me as the terror-glowing, panic-smelling lump of dread I feel myself to be?
I know it's a predator. And like the predator it is, I know it can read it, smudged all over my body: STING ME.

It recedes to a corner of the room… I rush for the door. Two meters of confusion and adrenalin.
I'm safe.
For now.

I come back to my senses.
It's over.

Two weeks ago, I felt a bug crawling on the back my bald skull.
Reflex. I flicked it off.
I couldn't identify it until it landed on the floor.
A red hornet.

Phobia.


The Hornet by Danny Hefer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.