Mosquito

My brother was killed in a war. And like all wars, the toll of casualties never took an individual into consideration. It is easy to device strategies and weight every grain of salt if you are trapped in a war which involves specimen of your species and specimens of seemingly harmless weapons that animate themselves to strike upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger. What if that was not the case? What if you were meant to be just another casualty in this war?

This creature had a strange habit of changing his outer shell to a black coloured one ^{[See translator's note #1]}. For some reason, it used to render him happy, or so I presumed. What this bloke didn't have a clue about was the fact that it used to drive me mad, it used to drive my brother mad and his cousins and nephews, too and even the queen. For some reason it created an effect of hypnosis which came only second to that created by inhaling diluted prallethrin. Contrary to popular belief, prallethrin doesn't kill you. It only gets you a bit high, much like a poor man's version of chasing the dragon.

So there was this guy, swiftly changing his skin and turning black. Everybody was driven nuts. And more so, my half witted brother, ZBZG. That perpetual moron always acted on his impulse and this time he couldn't help himself drifting towards this skin shifter. ZZBZ, his best friend and a quarter witted guy, also joined him. To tell you the truth, I was enjoying the scene like a distant spectator. I watched in amusement as ZBZG and ZZBZ unrolled their tubes and punched the needle through his black skin. These fraction wits were enjoying themselves and paid less attention to the skin shifter. The skin shifter grew aware of their presence. He turned his head and with one blow struck ZBZG dead. I couldn't believe my eyes. ZBZG was no more. ZZBZ sensed the second blow coming and moved himself out of his way. I didn't care about ZZBZ. There he was, my brother, lying dead. His natural flapping frequency 15 cents above A# of 7th octave silenced forever.

ZBZG's body slowly detached itself from the beast and fell to the ground while the skin shifter walked away. With a heavy heart, I drifted myself closer to my brother to pay my last dues. ZZBZ didn't come close. He was too disturbed to see the blood mixed with some red colored food ZBZG had managed to extract from the skin shifter.

I wanted to kill him, kill him badly. But attacking a skin shifter was not so easy. It is easy to kill a skin shifters where they are rare and our race can outnumber them. We do hear it from our distant relatives that they had managed to kill a skin shifter but such news comes once in every hundredth generation. And I knew, killing him alone would require a great deal of courage, a whole lot of intelligence and some help from another species. I knew just the right guy.

A communication problem always existed. These long tailed, moustache wielding, sharp nosed creatures were not from our community but were threatened by these skin shifters. We were united by a common enemy and just for the sake, he let me have his red fluid for food for I knew that this creature carried the finest germs in the entire world. All I had to do now was to suck the skin shifter's fluid out of his body and let the germs do the job. With great preparation, I flew into his castle. To my amazement, for the first time I saw the skin shifter without his skin on his bed. He was not alone. I saw a second skin shifter with him and possibly a female of his species. His black and her red skin lay on a wooden furniture.

I was about to approach them when this strange orange glowing light made me dizzy and was getting me high. I wondered, orange never got me high. It was always black. When suddenly a revelation hit my head like a lightning. That orange light was emitting prallethrin. I was loosing focus but the vision of my brother dying and a distant sound of his sweet 15 cents above the A# of the 7th octave kept me flying. I unrolled my proboscis in the air and struck him, making sure that the assorted collection of germs from the other creature's fluid gets into him. For some reason, he had no clue I was there. Maybe he was too busy playing some stupid game with the other skin shifter ^{[See translator's note #2]}.

I could not hold any longer. The prallethrin was making me dizzy and I fell off his body.

Few weeks have passed. The skin shifter bloke was dead. I heard them say that it was some strange variant of plague. I don't care. I took my revenge. However, I must mention that I had stomach troubles for a week, strengthening itself with recurring events of indigestion. That skin shifter was surely junk food.


Translator's Notes:

1. I didn't know that black coloured clothing attracted mosquitoes. Now that I am aware, I'll do my designing works on white and light coloured stuff.
2. You've heard it before but just for the record and as a public service announcement, "Do not have unprotected sex. Use a mosquito net for safety".