This article is machine-translated and may contain errors. Please refer to the original Chinese version if anything is unclear.
On June 4, 2026, at 14:36:28, when that mosquito landed, I was sweating. Not that post-exercise, clean sweat, the kind that sticks to your skin and can’t tell if it’s hot or something else. The curtains were undrawn, and with a gust of wind it entered the room, anchored itself to the only living thing in the room, and moored itself at the small of my right arm. I didn’t move, knowing that if I moved just a little, it would run away. So I held my breath and watched as it took hold on my skin and adjusted its posture like a serious thug ready to stab me. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. I stare at it, and a thought pops into my head - I can’t believe I’m fucking expecting it to stab in. Like a junkie expecting a needle. To it it’s just a meal, a necessity to stay alive. To me … I couldn’t tell. Maybe it wanted to make sure it still had blood, was still hot, and was still a living thing. Summer is too long, heat wave after heat wave, people stay inside for a long time, will begin to wonder if they have evaporated. It looked for a vein for a while. The nurses had to look for it for a while when I had my infusion, too, with a little dislike, as if it were my fault. The mosquito didn’t dislike me, it just worked quietly. Then I slapped it. It was quite loud, louder than I expected. I looked at the palm of my hand and it wasn’t red. It hadn’t had a chance to drink before I sent it away. I pinched its body between my thumb and forefinger and held it to my fingertips for a closer look. It was light, lighter than a thought. Six legs, one wing broken, tentacles bent. I don’t know why I looked at it so closely, maybe to find out how it differed from the ones I’d killed before. There was no difference. It was just an ordinary mosquito, the difference was only that it was swatted to death by my own hand, not by an electric mosquito swatter, not by mosquito coils, it was my hand, my strength, my choice. This incident makes me somehow feel a little what - not guilt, is … solemn? I ruffled it with my lighter, and it shrank in the fire for a moment, and then it was gone, not even much smoke left, just a little burnt odor that mingled into the already messy summer air. I looked at the black mass of let’s-call-it-ashes and thought that it had been done quite well, quite formally, quite with a beginning and an end.