Creatures, Everywhere

Yesterday, Jenn and I needed to take the bus up to Ostional to pull some rim sherds from last year’s artefact collection. I got on the bus first, since Jenn wanted to stop at the bakery, and managed to claim two seats. It was hot on the bus, a sickly combination of low air circulation and lots of bodies.

As I ran my fingers back through my hair, I felt something hard and roundish caught between a few locks. Thinking it was a bunch of plant debris, I just pulled it out. When I looked at what I had, I saw a beetle between my fingers, who, freed from its trap, promptly flew off and hid between the seat and the wall.

Last night, I’m sitting in front of my room, chatting with Jenn and a girl we met from the UK, Lauren, when I see this mouse frantically running along the wall, past several rooms. I’m still staring at it when it dives under my door. I spring up, open the door to see it run under my bed. It must have crawled up into the box-spring, since I couldn’t find it, and said part of my bed has a lot of chewed holes in it. It wasn’t that big of a deal though, I figured if he doesn’t bother me, I won’t bother him. Earlier today however, when I returned to my room after breakfast, I found a half-eaten kernel of corn on my bed, right by my notebook.

This morning, I’m sitting in the open-air kitchen at the hostel, happily enjoying my cup of yogurt. I’m thinking to myself the yogurt doesn’t taste as good as I remember it, but that it’s still good all the same, when I see something move out of the corner of my eye. I look down to see a scorpion crawling around on my lap. I screamed before grabbing a knife and flinging him off of me. I know it wouldn’t have killed me to be stung by a scorpion here, but it would have hurt. Yes, I could have been one of those people who leans back during a conversation about scorpions and says, “Yeah, I was stung by a scorpion once. No big deal.” and end it with a sniff of indifference, but that’s a story I don’t really need in my repertoire.