Suppose when you see them crawl, they don't do so in the orderly fashion that a garden ant would. This does not mean that the ant does not evoke fear in the way they approach their victims or their voyeurs. Maybe there is a characteristic movement of the insect or its head features that bother innocent observer enough to change them into fearful bystanders. And the curious will look up the mouthparts in books dealing with the subject. You and I are accustomed to our look but the look of alien mouthparts that pinch instead of kiss and the look of cracked legs that move in asynchrony have bothered a silent majority of insect gazers and spotters.
Suppose the crawl is in combination with blood sucking flights of the night in a camp where a screen mesh has been poked open and the creatures of the night inauspiciously wander towards the light.
What will the trajectory of the crawl be today as the camper slowly awakens? As long as it does not descend from the ceiling over the bed, the person might just shrug it off until another visit. It might involve an abrupt movement as if to test the air around before proceeding, keeping in mind how much energy the tiny beast wants to conserve before it finds another body size crack along the wall. Perhaps tonight it will find comfort in the crevasse of a human fold.
I remembered those giant mosquitoes of the night, the ones that were not as swift as their lighter cousins yet agile enough not to rest long between one landing and the next. And I would approach cautiously to see if the back two legs were suspended in the air, just enough to warn me that this was not an Anopheles but its sinister cousin. There are so many people who have been bitten by these insects in the warmer countries, I mused, so why should there be one of those other types? That did not quell my fears and I had often forgotten about the eight-legged visitors that joined the nightly invasion of my comfort. I didn't care whether they were insects or not, they were just as creepy with those tiny multiple eyes that divided up their visual world and one never knew how.
I would be taunted by the insect world in the night, they were so innumerable and seemingly resistant to any remedy, always being able to find another port of entry into the bunk, be it a rotting floorboard or a cracked roof shingle. I would want the comfort of my bed at home, the spotless pillowcases and spreads and not the insect lymph spots that stained my sheets. And i would furiously check the corners of my bed of any crawling before laying my head back to rest. I would have to resist the night and the rampage from this smaller world. I could not keep myself free from the thought of being targeted.
