Jumanji

I've either started smelling or there's something in my room fauna find very attractive. While my wing-mates routinely deal with insects the likes of wasps and ants-with-wings-things, and are usually found flaunting insect bites all around their necks, my room is another story altogether. I do not find my room in any sort of attack by creatures as small as that. In fact, with only an allout pluggy to my defence I have slept topless all these nights (with the window wide open) ending up with exactly one scar till now, that too of the minute kind. And even that's on its way out now.

But like I said creatures as small as that rarely bother entering my room. Its the big ones that really like me.

Last week I found supergiant tiger-striped grasshopper in my room. As alert as grasshoppers always are, the smallest disturbance near my bed was enough for it to jump and land on my keyboard, nicely to my notice. At this point I'd like to say insects never frighten me, and in fact I'm a hired wasp-killer for one of my friends. But when something as ugly as a small grasshopper and as huge as your palm lands on the keyboard, bravery takes a backseat.

Anyhow, after a short 1 second episode of fearful cries, I gathered myself and my weaponry - a notebook and a floater, and as I readied myself to rush this intruder to its next life, the brave grasshopper decided he was not gonna die an insect-stuck-in-a-room-squished-by-a-newspaper's death. He saved his honour and in one giant leap for grasshopperkind, jumped out the window. I'm not sure whether grasshoppers can fly, but if they can't our friend here died a martyr's death. May his soul rest in peace.

Another day, more specifically yesterday, while I was casually going through my old clothes archive (dump) looking for the least smelly pair of shorts for the night, I was greeted by nothing short of a huge bat, lazily sprawling over my sweat-drenched vest from the afternoon, with its wings spread for maximum comfort. There was no screaming sequence this time, and although it took only a slight tug to make him go on its way out the window, this incident has got me wondering what more species I've yet to encounter. I have had regular confrontations with pigeons, moths and lizards in the past but nothing as horrendously horrendous as this ever happened. For all I know it could have been Dracula in disguise, covering my vest with a spell behind my back. That scar on my neck could well be to his credit.

I am very very scared.