When you leave the windows open in the countryside with the lights on inside and darkness outside – well – as dark as it can get in this British summer… midges come in.
They come in and populate the ceilings.
They scutter and scadder and crawl and half-fly and half-jump and they scare the socks off a five year old sleeping in the bed under the corner of ceiling on which they congregate. He gets up and throws all the cushions and pillows at them, and they move away, only to come back again. Tiny, like little dots, jumping and crawling like fleas, but not quite. They like the light so they congregate to where the light source is, and the five year old begins throwing heavier things.
Slippers, a plastic cup, he runs with determined frustration to seize his mother’s metal water bottle and throw it at them, the tips of his ears red with anger, how he hates them! His father sees what he is doing and gets up to pull the bottle from the little boy’s hands just as he throws it – the father catching the bottle as it leaves those little hands.
‘Why are you throwing things!?’ the father cries, taking his boy by the shoulders and marching him back into bed. The boy’s large brown eyes fill with tears, ‘I really don’t like those midges!’ he says, his voice catching in his throat, his lips trembling.
‘They’re only tiny, they won’t hurt you! Now get to sleep right now!’
‘But.. but I really can’t sleep with those midges up there!’
The father sighs crossly and gets a kitchen towel, wipes away all the midges, tucks the boy in bed, gives him a kiss, and tells him not to get out again.
The boy lies there staring at the ceiling.
‘But Dad there is still a midge on the ceiling,’ comes his little voice. He doesn’t move, though.
‘It’s ok. It’s small. It won’t hurt you.’ His father firmly replies.
And the child turns over and goes to sleep.
Ocean Bream 