The Humidity Crouched in front of the window like a huge hot animal with trembling flanks. There it was - languid, broad-bellied, wobble-bellied, match-tip-red dots an its yellow-skinned, mushroom-fanned dragon-belly - and breathed heavily, trumpeting like a bellows, rhythmically. The tongue - the flame-colored, fire-flush tongue smoked above the roofs. With each breath the beast exhaled swarms of small yellow-winged mosquitoes.
They were like flags hung in the air: drooping and trailing, bil-lowing and knotted rope-like, with tips flapping like a droning waterfall, and resting as if woven into a carpet. In the evening they began to dance with resonant fury. They spun around like furious whirlwinds, descended upon the room with rage, and circled the lamp like dried-up wreaths. There were hundreds, thousands. The room started to turn with them. They eclipsed the light. They knocked against each other like purring rosary beads - winged centaurs, an army of huns without clatter of hoofs.
We cast the nets of our fingers among them, closed the fists, and held the small twitching bodies imprisoned. We slew them with rags and pursued them with burning candles to light their funeral pyres.
But their numbers continued to swell, and the curvature of their orbits grew mightier. They forced us to sit behind closed windows. When we stepped up to the window, we saw them clinging to the glass with inordinate desire. We were afraid. We retreated into the darkest corner of the room like cave dwellers, grew coarse-boned and club-swinging, long-haired and bearded, and stared at these hostile, deadly monsters.
Every evening we had to lower the glass abatises. We sat fatigued in our armchairs. We rolled our cigarettes with moist fingers. From time to time one of us went to the window, where from outside mosquitoes reeled against the glass with a low thud. We were under siege, confined : they always lay in wait for us. The humid nights steamed under the moon. An uncontrollable hatred against our enemies seized us. We killed them, if we encountered them singly. We opened the window a little, so that through the small opening a staggering band wafted inside. We slew them all. Our prison life became unbearable. The sweat ate us alive. We made plans to escape, considering the possibility of fighting our way out with smoking torches and the din from swinging bells. We dreamed of slaughtering them en masse, sizzling them with glowing broad-shovels. Our nostrils expanded at the thought of burning flesh. Then, exhausted, we slumped again onto the tables. And always the greedy wing-beaters were at the window panes.
One evening a quick lightning bolt stabbed the huge animal. A knife pierced the clouds and hissed into the yellow-fanned dragon-belly as if into butter. The blood spilled like rain. The mosquito-spitting breath stopped. We opened the windows wide. Cool air flowed inside : a deep blue filled the room.