Last year El niño's rain season made the estuary next to where I live to overflow and kill a lot of plants growing around it. The summer heat that followed brought the mosquitos. I hate mosquitos. For some reason they love my skin and the itchiness at night annoys the hell out of me. I can handle the bigger mosquitos but theres nothing I can do with the smaller ones.

Then you appeared.

Not big enough to scare me, but big enough to notice you above the door frame every time I walk through the door. With a small spiderweb you called home and in there, already trapped and cover, a couple of the bugs that annoyed me every night (I have my windows sealed so the door is the only way they come in). In my way to humanize the situation I thought we were doing a transaction, I would let you go on your business in my door and you would deal with the great batch of bugs around it.

Then I told the cleaning lady to not destroy your home as she did with the ones from your brethren around the building and your house grew and the number of mosquitos I had to deal decreased. The pests were still there, you could clearly see them around the lights of the building annoying the other habitants that were too cheap to pay for a fumigation or something to deal with all the problem coming from the estuary.

I even remember that one time I got home and caught you mid hunt. A macabre sight as you were approaching your - still alive - prey. It felt personal, private so I looked away. Confident that you knew what you were doing. It's an instinct after all.

Then you died.

Your body lying on your home a year after you build it. It's a normal occurrence, your species only lives 1 year average. And I hope, given the amount of food you got, you had a good life. Did you had a concept of good? Am I just over humanizing you? Were our lives only a coincidence instead of a pseudo symbiotic relationship?

Doesn't matter now. I'm here and you're not. And every time I walk through my door... I'll feel a lil less safe than before.