And what now? Hazy evenings with multilayered sunsets, warm grass-sweeping breezes, cows slowly winding through green pastures as frolicking birds sing in the still treetops? No. I’ll tell you what happens now – Mozzies. Thousands, if not millions of the little buggers swarming around your sweat filled hair, flying kamikaze style right into the centre of your iris. Swarming into your mouth with every deep inhale, causing moments of sheer panic as your left eye is flooded and temporarily blinded by a semi living six legged beast. Flapping arms, paranoid neck slaps and insects stuck to your skin drowning in sweat, is what happens now.
The Babylonian Talmud (Gittin 56b), asserts that the Roman Emperor Titus was punished by God for having destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem. What did God do? I hear you ask. Simple, He got a mosquito to fly up his nose. The mosquito picked at Titus's brain, buzzing ceaselessly, driving him crazy and eventually caused his death. What if one of these buggers decides to climb on up inside your nose while, innocently enough, you're enjoying a so-called ‘leisurely spring evening run’? The results could be catastrophic. According to Islamic legends Nimrod was punished by Allah with a Mozzie. A mosquito entered his head and the humming sound disturbed him so much that he ordered one of his guards to hit his head with a stick. Need I say more? Well ok, According to the “Mosquitoes” chapter in Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, by Lafcadio Hearn, mosquitoes are seen as reincarnations of the dead, condemned by the errors of their former lives to the condition of Jiki-ketsu-gaki, or "blood-drinking pretas".
Bah! I say to sun drenched long runs, flowering hedgerows, shimmering waters and carefree evenings. Be gone the beautiful smell of cut grass and bbq’s and to hell with clouds of The Condemned battling for a place up your nostrils. Shut the curtains, batton down the hatches and get ready to hibernate - the Summer is coming.
