Sleep

The glow from the street light cast Suzanne’s back into gentle shadows. The blue and green flickering light of a neon sign added a magical aurora to the itchy red stars strung in constellations across her back. Instead of hydrogen or helium, these stars found their birth in the never ending supply of mosquitoes, fleas, bedbugs and ants that have become our constant traveling companions. Exhausted from another day of cramped buses and unintelligible music Suzanne lay comatose, completely oblivious to my mind’s pen as I drew the line of Orion’s belt across her midriff. An angry spider bite sat swollen on her shoulder and added a perfect full moon to this canvas of a starry night.

With near perfect stealth a lone mosquito landed on the protective net where Suzanne’s leg pressed flush with the fabric. Gently inserting its proboscis through the weave, a seventh sister grew to life in the Pleiades behind her knee. Stirred by some deep protective instinct she rolled to the side, granting only half a meal to her midnight visitor. I could have woken her, slapping furiously at the attacking insect, but in such a vast cosmos of burning welts what is one more star compared to a perfect slumber? Waking her to the world of persistent scratching would have been endlessly more cruel than adding one more irritation.