In the fading light of nocturne, a muddy-green sky is painted above a lonely valley while the dim air of Autumn below grows humid and pure.
Within the gloom there begins a memory.
Patch-marked trees were hung wearily with stillness as their drooping branches lay heavy and low; the rolling bluster of day at last faded, night settled its way into ascendance.
Beside a narrow valley, a lone mosquito had emerged into the growing night and was greeted by this silence: the slow-moving creek of its home rolling softly along a narrow bank and disappearing into an unknown land beyond.
Stretching its wings, the mosquito buzzed lazily across the creek, drifting thoughtlessly over the muddy water, and circling back towards a foam peaked puddle of stagnant mire. Looking up, it recalled a time where dozens of its kind would fly in great arching loops below the light of a streetlamp. The flickering light and radiant warmth pooling outward from the sentinel of daylight, a light that they all had lived beside for longer than memory could recall.
It was a beautiful place, this riverside home. Resting upon a blade of grass, the mosquito looked out across the ambling water, and breathed in the fragrance of tannin that ran slick across its surface: streaks of muck, painted through the brown creek as if interwoven into the water from its very creation. Water bloomed from here. the creek rose and fell, growing with rain and becoming parched in drought, but never halting, never ending completely. The mosquito wondered if this was a place of beginnings and if the creek should one day have an end. It wondered if there was a place so unfathomably distant from its home that could be call an ending, a place where the water stopped and then fell to rest. Older mosquitos had spoken of a place where the heat of day and the silence of winter never reached. A bright place, of sprawling pools and of soft earth, of rich soil that bubbled generously with ground water as you landed.
The Mosquito wondered if this was where it should truly be. It wondered if it could follow the snaking banks long into the night and reach the storied marshlands to the east to see this heaven with its own eyes, to touch the waters of paradise.
Without plan nor wish of farewell, the mosquito left.
Night held dominion over this hour and the mosquito knew that it could travel freely. It had travelled westward often in its short life but had ventured no further than the bridge’s underpass to the east; stories of phantoms and streaks in the shadow beyond the concrete’s edge abating its curiosity. But the underpass seemed so close now. It was clear that the creek continued to something greater beyond, and a once impermeable barrier had now been removed, its passage becoming only a trial.
Drifting closer to the underpass’s edge, the mosquito gazed into the casted darkness beyond. A streetlamp, a candle in the distance, provided direction as the hiss of a passing car above made the cave shudder and roar: a beast, hidden within the veil of its lair menaced and stirred.
Steeling itself, the mosquito prepared to barrel forward, hoping to pass quickly through this place so that it could see the open sky once again. But it paused, something deep within the heart of its memory had called for it to wait and two golden strands were suddenly illuminated by the passing headlight reflecting off the water below. A spider’s web, the mosquito thought to itself, flying low beneath the sheening strand and hovering close to the water. It waited for another car. Inch by inch, the passing lights shone upon the hidden webbing and with great care the mosquito slowly made its way forward. In time the bridge opened and a crack to the sky above provided a moment of safety. The mosquito knew that traversing the bridge above was dangerous. It knew that the hypnotic light of passing cars would swallow it, that the twinned glow would catch it and then all too suddenly vanish into the nothingness of the city beyond. No, it was safer below.
Hours were felt to pass as the mosquito crept carefully forward through the tangled webbing. Twice it had caught glance of a crawling shape and fought against panic. It swept low, upward, doubling back when the way grew tight, taking no risk when the gap ahead seemed too inviting. It pushed away thoughts of exhaustion and fear, it knew that a mistake could come easily. Wait, watch for the golden stands, envisage the web beyond.
The ache of concentration began to weigh heavily upon the mosquito. It could once again feel the open air of the night beyond. It could hear its laboured breath rasping louder and louder as it moved on. It was close now. No more than a meter stood between it and the sky, and every part of the mosquitos will urged it to fly forward. One more car, it thought, one more passing light to reveal the unseen and to prove the way forward.
It waited. Creeping cracks sprawled across its composure as the traffic remained still. The mosquito faltered, leaning forward it was a movement away from risking the blind way ahead when a sudden lightness blossomed into opalescence and a safe passage was uncovered.
Fleetly, the mosquito tumbled through the opening, brushing the surface of the creek as it passed through the last section of the underpass and finally reaching the safety of sky beyond. Light exploded off the surface of the water, as twisting colours vaulted and streaked across the sky, the stars themselves appearing to fall and then dwindle away from existence. Landing breathlessly upon the edge of a drain, the mosquito watched on as greens, yellows and reds burst spontaneously from the night air, colouring the world for one glorious moment and then receding into cinder. It longed to fly upward and live within the starlight, but this seemed too brief a life, despite its wonder.
In time the stars no longer blossomed with iridescence and the mosquito had caught itself again ready to travel. Looking once more back through the underpass, it knew that the bend would remain there, it knew that a new family may one day choose to grow there and that they too would reach the water’s end in their own time. But for the mosquito, open sky ambled off into the distance and it knew that its journey had only just now begun.
It set off, fixing its gaze upon the path beyond.
The night had begun to cool.
Tracing the edges of the creek, the mosquito took time to listen to the deepening night as it flew. Cicadas droned on as if lost in their song as the clipping “tuk” of several marsh frogs provided an unmatched drumbeat. Possums rustled up and along branches as an ever-rolling creek burbled beneath the flowering gum of their home. The bush was alive with melody.
Knowing well the dangers of night, the mosquito kept low to the surface of the creek and only rested for brief moments when the water became still and the cicadas droned their loudest.
While at rest, a pair of darkened wings cut silently across the sky followed by a murmuration of fruit bats taking flight from their roost. They vaulted upward, filling the air with screeches and calls, then moving above the thick canopy and away from sight.
What had caused them to move, wondered the mosquito as it floated in the protection of a culvert dug by the water’s edge. There was a fragility to the river at night. In the darkness fearsome creatures prowled and roamed, themselves fearing something greater, retreating before the rising light.
The mosquito thought of a place without fear and dreamed once more of the water’s end. It dreamed of shelter and of nectar, of marshlands, and of warm, windless nights.
Lifting itself from a branch above, a tawny frogmouth plummeted downward, landing close by to the mosquito at rest. It struck the ground solidly, the still water becoming unsettled and the song of cicadas quietening in the glade. It ducked, bending almost as if to drink from the creek, spreading its titanic wings outward before springing upward, taking once more to the branches above.
Itself leaping skyward, the mosquito shirked backward in fear, not only from the bird but in seeing the broken form of a frog clutched in the departing talons, one that had been hidden in the reeds so close to where it had rested moments before. Unknowingly the tawny frogmouth had saved a lone mosquito. It had struck down a life and in turn prevented another from a similar fate. Shaken, the mosquito moved again into the night. Only coming to a rest when the pulse of its heart had returned to a calm.
In time, morning drew light across the ambling creek bed and again night followed thereafter.
For three cycles the mosquito had travelled by moonlight and long into the fourth night it had begun to grow tired.
There was an ache to flight that the mosquito could no longer overcome and the distance between its travels had become less and less. Flowers dotting the bank once gave the fleeting respite of nectar but were no longer seen to grow from the creek bed. The shelter of its home felt lost now, the memory of lamplit dusks almost receding into faded colours and faint joys.
Had it seen the golden lights sparkle in the sky? Had it been foolish to dream of a paradise?
Drifting above the reeds, the mosquito watched as the creek slowly grew wider. What had once been within the step of man had now become vast, the peaks of wind-drawn ripples sweeping across its surface as if not composed from a single stream but existing within the confluence of many. It was flowing now, a rolling collection of water born from many places. It pushed across the land, guided by the edges of its banks. The water had travelled so far, learnt everything that it could know.
Dawn had begun to rise but the mosquito travelled onward.
Boyed by the faint eastbound winds, the mosquito watched as grass became reeds and reeds became marsh below it. The tree line crept forward, as if no longer afraid of the water. It hedged the bank and its twisting roots rose and fell from the swirling water as if snakes trapped in silent motion. To the mosquito, these were a creature that remained unburdened by time. Leaves rustled as the morning song of birds filled the canopy. The mosquito regarded the trees and was unafraid.
Dipping quickly, a powerful gust of wind passed above the mosquito followed by the snap of a sparrow’s beak. Unable to control its momentum, the mosquito was carried along with the passing sparrow, its tail wind arcing leftward and sending the tumbling passenger towards the water below. The mosquito turned, spinning sideward so that the sky was again in view above, it dropped further towards the water, dashing forward as the sparrow struck so closely behind, the creek’s surface exploding as the bird landed then struggled back into the air once more. The mosquito was calm, it had seen the aging bones of a creek as it had grown into adulthood, it had passed through a den of a spider’s nest by lamp light, and it had watched on as death had moved its hand to strike another.
Turning, the mosquito watched as the sparrow arced upwards, circling on beating wing and diving back downward. It stood firm as the bird approached, jerking upwards as its beak fell close, following the wind behind.
Tumbling in the bluster, the mosquito felt lost. Colours spun round in dizzying lustre as the blur of uncontrolled movement carried it forward. It landed hard against the sparrow’s back and was pulled gracelessly along as the bird continued its flight, the world becoming a place of stillness as wind encompassed all that the mosquito could perceive. It closed its eyes. It remembered a place where the creek began. It thought to marshes ahead.
Between the distant banks of an unnamed creek’s end, the low-lying water spans unshifting across a silent marshland. Lilies float upon the surface of this endless horizon as a grey sky lays muted over the dark coloured water below. It is peaceful here. Fog rolls gently between the reeds and the pattering rain passes as fleetly as a winter’s day.
A mosquito drifts lazily amongst the marsh and regards the swarm that flitters around it.
It is happy here. It is home.
J. McCray
2023
Sunday Short Stories 