I've learned how to sleep in the heat now, something that I never could do in the five years I lived in Dallas. Air conditioning is such a double edged sword, it offers precious relief from the intensity and discomfort of the sticky heat, but in turn you never actually acclimate to your environment. I don't think I would be able to appreciate the absolutely intoxicatingly delicious feeling of cool sea water If I didn't have these wickedly hot nights as counterpoint.
There is one element of this new environment that I find myself in that I do not know If i can ever become accustomed to. The God Damned Flies. As I write this there about twelve of them infatuated with me at the moment, buzzing about my head, landing on my legs under the table, and on my hands as I type. I must look like I have some sort of palsy, the way It twitch, jerk, and swat uselessly at these little bastards as I sit here. These are not the lazy houseflies I'm used to in California, or the bottle flies that throw themselves endlessly at the windows until they die from exhaustion. Oh no, these are Beelzebub's own special little little devils, a legion who's only purpose in existence seems to be to drive men to madness. They are small, wickedly fast, and relentless. They seem to have a special, and disturbing, fondness for human flesh. I've tried baiting them away from me with sacrifices of coke or juice in a shallow dish, but these tiny demons, won't be appeased not when their is human skin to land on anywhere in their vicinity, and when they can't have it fresh they haunt my bed, tasting me on my pillowcase.
I'm locked in a war of attrition that I know I can't possibly win, but I have set about killing them out of spite if nothing else by any means I can, sometimes leaving their splattered bodies, like morbid trophies for a few hours as if to deter them from their campaign. the sandal is the most reliable weapon in my arsenal, and I even deputized Diego, the little boy from the family across the hall to come in with his fly swatter and kill as many as possible for a few hours in exchange for a popsicle. This was my most effective resource for a while but the flyswatter wore out and broke from to much use, and their are no more left at the local supermarket. I've even brought in chemical weapons to combat the hoard. Spray that's supposed to kill "instantly." I'm sure it does if they just sat their and let themselves be sprayed, but even flies aren't that dumb. The only technique that seems to work is to create a massive aerosol cloud around the devils and try to coral them into it. As satisfying as it is to each them fall out of the air, the room reeks of deadly chemicals with a lemony fresh sent for a while after each gas attack.
I'm thinking that the entire theory of spontaneous generation needs to be revisited because, the only small victory one can hope to accomplish is to kill enough of them before going to sleep, so that they don't wake you up at the crack of dawn. As hot as the nights are here, I shut the doors to my balcony at night less out of fear of intruders as out of desire to not have my face assaulted like a corpse in the morning by fresh troops that have flown in over night. It doesn't seem to matter how thorough I am, there are always several trying to attack me in the morning. All in all though It's really not that bad I suppose, It's just a bit annoying to be locked in an endless, and ultimately futile struggle with such a insignificant creature.
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