The Culmination of a Half-Year of Non-Thought (Part 2)

There is a knock upon my door. A knock-knocking of poignant importance. My seat is left with a flurry and spins in my absence as I abscond to the top of the stairs, leaning over to peer down and through the window. Another knock upon my door, a knock-tap-knock. Impatient, insufferable, intolerant persons upon my step are gathered like a storm that hasn't properly visited this winter.

Dejectedly, muted as a TV in the throes of more important (if not insipid) conversation, I descend like a mongrel king to the entrance, and upon disengaging the lock of the door, divulge the outer frame by removal of the same. It swings inward, chilly autumn-like air pooling at my feel. Little gremlins stealing my heat. Two women, bundled against the cold, eye me. Blue eyes and brown eyes.

They hand me a piece of paper, speaking as they divest themselves of whatever this solemn duty is. Apparently, my abode is to be screened for bedbugs.

My face falls, a warrior atop a ridge shot in silhouette and left to tumble down in crimson, furiously clinging to a wound and life. A victim of happenstance. Questions begin to roll out my mouth, unabetted regurgitation of demands for information. At first, shy and coy glances are spent between blue and brown. Oh, but they can't! But they shouldn't! But they couldn't! But they will. And the tale, loathsome as it is, is unfurled before my glazed over eyes.

It begins innocently enough. New neighbors. Only it is what they've brought with them that horrifies, shocks and bedazzles the mind. An infestation of bedbugs. But they didn't, nay wouldn't, tell anyone of their pet problem. Instead, they horde the little beasts in the confines of their beds, feeding them at night on a strict diet of human blood. But a problem arises. Some of the minuscule pests jump ship, clambering through a wall into an adjacent townhouse . . . upon which the renter made complaint.

Obviously, there was an investigation of all the attached units, to ensure that the problem hadn't spread further along. And then they realize who had started it: three families, all of Indian origin (from the country of the same name) and who were now tracking that very vile parasite between three different blocks of townhouses, one of which was my own. They were living next door.

Everything had to be packed up. Furniture pulled away from walls, dishes boxed up, clothes into totes and plastic bags to protect them from the pests, although they first having to be laundered in boiling hot water and died in the dryer at the highest temperature for a minimum of forty minutes. So much work for the inspection. The end result I already knew -- I didn't have an infestation.

This, however, leads to a new whole series of adventures...