Let me tell you a tale...
Last year, the night before my birthday, a terrible beast entered my room. It was small and brown and full of sharp edges. It buzzed ominously. I didn’t know what it was, and when I tried to turn off the lights to coax it out of my room and into the hallway, instead of taking the bait, it took a nose-dive into the darkest corner of my room, and finding it was an impossible task. I braved it, however, and went to bed. I felt something crawling on my chest. And suddenly, out from the duvet, was the beast. I screamed and panicked and tried to shove it away, fleeing my room as quickly as possible. The beast continued to evade me, and eventually, too fearful of it to continue staying in my room, I left to sleep downstairs.
That thing, that mysterious beast, haunted my thoughts for a whole year. I hadn’t any idea what it was, and that made it all the scarier.
Fast forward to next summer; 350 days after the previous encounter. My mother and I, watching television late one evening, when something mysterious and buzzing around the lights. I used my laptop as a shield. It was a necessary sacrifice, though it ended up unnecessary. As my mother went to dispose of it, it landed on her chest. She squashed it and the danger was over.
But no, it was far from over. It had only just begun. the smell. The STENCH. It perminated her shirt, her hands, the washcloth she so vainly scrubbed at it with. But it was too late, her allergies were acting up, the smell was everywhere. The beast, we now knew, had a name.