| |
|
Years ago I had a nest outside my kitchen window imbedded in a hole in the brickwork. I was sure they were wasps, but my lover at the time had a parent who had been a bee-keeper, and I was convinced otherwise. At first I was worried as the glass in the kitchen window had been cracked sometime before I moved into the place, and there was a hole in one corner the size of a pound coin which I'd cover in winter with cardboard and sticky tape. But the little black and yellow creatures never seemed interested, and so for a few weeks, every morning I fell into the habit of sitting in the window and marveling at the the constant flow of traffic in and out of the nest. Every so often, to my delight, a big, fat, orangy-yellow head-honcho would crawl out onto the wall and stretch and "breath" for a few minutes. It was like a slice of nature had been left on my city doorstep and I was more than greatful for the spectacle.
Then, one night my ex and I went out to the party, returning a few hours later a little spaced and in the mood for a snack. We opened the door to the kitched and (I admit) I yelped: there was a tornado of wasps spinning around the room! There were so many I could barely see the kitchen, and I instinctively backed away, closed the door, flipped off the light-switch and hurriedly taped up the edges of the door.
For a while, I thought they'd come to get revenge for the competetion we used to have in summer as kids on the bus home from school (I was the champion wasp killer for two years in a row). Of course, gradually I realised that they must have been confused by the kitchen light which we'd left on all night, or else judged it to be an attack on the nest. But the thought of a super-organism-like mind deciding to send troops into my kitchen was no comfort as I struggled to sleep that night.
Weirdly, the next morning I crept back into the kitchen and to my relief they were all gone; all, that is, except for one: a single, dead wasp lying in the centre of the linoleum like some kind of sick warning: "We're so bad we kill our own to prove a point." Needless to say, five hours later a seemingly fearless man from the council extermination team arrived and I watched, half in horror, as he covered their nest in nasty white powder.
I guess sometimes it's either them or us... |
|
|
