Last night, when I was sitting at my computer, minding my own business, a mosquito landed on my left forearm. With my lightning-like reflexes, I quickly slapped it: it fell stunned onto a piece of paper on my desk. Slowly, it crawled around on the sheet, looking for somewhere to go. It couldn't fly anymore, and its gait resembled more of a hobble than anything else. Now, I don't know if insects feel pain, but it definitely wasn't at its best. I probably should have put it out of its misery, but the curious side of my wanted to figure out what part of it was actually injured. At first, I thought it was its right hind leg that I had crushed. My eyes followed it across the sheet of paper, as I inspected the wobbly walking. By the time it had reached the edge of the sheet, I still wasn't sure whether my suspicions were right. What was I to do? I picked up the mosquito and put it back in the centre of the sheet. This time it picked a different direction and headed to another edge of the sheet. I soon lost interest in figuring out which part I had damaged when I discovered just how sticky its feet were. I found it utterly amazing that the legs could stick to the eraser on the back of my pencil with just the slightest of contact. Effortlessly, it transitioned from crawling on the paper to crawling up the pencil. I shook it off the pencil a couple of times just to watch it climb back up. Eventually, I got tired of that and lost track of its whereabouts as it eventually made its way off the paper. Alas, my diminutive attention span was no match for the mosquito's lust for random crawling.

This morning, I again encountered the mosquito. Only, this time, it was dead: it's carcass remained but 3 inches from the piece of paper upon which I held it captive last night. I did feel slight remorse for having contributed to its current state, although I'm not sure it wouldn't have been dead by now otherwise. I guess I was right after all. Its right hind leg was carefully curled up and tucked under its body. That's at least what I would do if I died in the process of nursing one of my six legs that someone had maliciously crushed. Its feet, interestingly enough, are still sticky after death. (I guess it seemed effortless because it was.) It would be so much fun to have feet like that. Peter Parker was one lucky guy.