Trouble Down Pit

This weekend I was outside in this thing people call ‘fresh air’. It was all very odd. I’m not sure I approve; however, it did give me the chance to do a bit of sketching, so those will be the comics this week. I hope you like them!

I also got to empathise with Captain Ahab. It was a dark and (not) stormy night in the darkest Dutch countryside. My partner and I were sleeping in a lonely B&B when the mournful cry of the mosquito came to my ear. Actually, it was the victorious cry of a mosquito that has just fed off the blood in my shoulder.

Hoping the beast was satiated, I tried to go back to sleep… Only to be woken once more by it’s banshee wail against my ear.

I’m going to skip forward a bit, but it was the kind of hunt that makes Moby Dick look retro. My partner and I had torches shining around the room, we stalked the walls, looking for the tell-tale shadow of a squatting vampiric insect… Fleeting glimpses and rushes of action punctuated moments of calm.

As madness descended and the hours trickled past, we would try for fitful sleep, only to be tormented once again.

Then, at around 4:30am, the great beast made a mistake! It took a swoop at us, but settled onto the bedclothes… With a dash of my hand, it was gone.

The victory was sweet, and yet left a chasm in my soul: who was I now that my nemesis had been vanquished?

“That’s not the one,” my partner said.

“What?” I replied.

“That’s not the one that got you. There was no blood in it.”

Dear reader, this anguished soul felt many emotions: joy that the hunt could continue, and also despair. Who knows what lurks in the soul of us all in such moments?

My nemesis still lurks in that room. We managed to sleep about three hours, finally getting back to sleep with the duvet over our ears to muffle the sound of the mosquito that kept on circling, circling, CIRCLING.

I also now have a bite on my forehead too.