{"id":81,"date":"2016-01-03T21:01:29","date_gmt":"2016-01-03T21:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christopherwild.com\/blog\/?p=81"},"modified":"2016-01-03T21:05:28","modified_gmt":"2016-01-03T21:05:28","slug":"of-june-bugs-and-may-beetles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christopherwild.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/of-june-bugs-and-may-beetles\/","title":{"rendered":"Of June Bugs and May Beetles"},"content":{"rendered":"

The tap-tap-tap\u00adping on the win\u00addow was keep\u00ading me awake. Most chil\u00addren that I know would be a little scared by this con\u00adstant noise on their bed\u00adroom win\u00addow, but not me. One thing that I have learned in my rather short time is that, on the whole, and gen\u00ader\u00adally without excep\u00adtion, there is always an explan\u00ada\u00adtion for most things that sound like mon\u00adsters creep\u00ading around your house in the middle of the night. That creaky floor\u00adboard that sounds like someone com\u00ading up the stairs long after every\u00adone has gone to bed, well that\u2019s just heat expan\u00adsion. That banging of the pipes that makes you think of someone try\u00ading to break into the house, is just the sound of water stop\u00adping and start\u00ading through the old water sys\u00adtem. And that ghost call\u00ading out to you in the middle of the night, well that\u2019s just your broth\u00ader being annoy\u00ading, either that or your dad has had one too many beers!
\nThis par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar tap\u00adping was the sound of June bugs throw\u00ading them\u00adselves against the win\u00addow. I say June Bugs of course, but that\u2019s the wrong name for them this month, because this month is May, which means of course that this month, the June Bugs are called May Beetles. Just so that you know, there are no July Bugs, or July Beetles, or July Annoy\u00ading insect that keeps throw\u00ading itself against the win\u00addow pane. This is because that by July the beetles have done their thing and skid-addled.
\nThe fact that the May Beetles were com\u00admit\u00adting cer\u00adtain sui\u00adcide by try\u00ading to get into the house by the way of the closed win\u00addow, meant that someone must have left the porch light on. And the only way that I was going to get to sleep, was to go down\u00adstairs and turn off the light. The prob\u00adlem with going to turn the light off, was that it meant leav\u00ading My House<\/em> and enter\u00ading into The House<\/em>.
\nI guess that I prob\u00adably need to explain that a little. My House<\/em> is actu\u00adally a flat inside a con\u00adver\u00adted estate house, and The House<\/em> is an old 18th cen\u00adtury house that has been carved up into flats. I say flat, but it\u2019s not actu\u00adally flat, the way the build\u00aders split the house up means that most of the flats have two floors; so tech\u00adnic\u00adally they are not flat. My dad once told me that it\u2019s really a maison\u00adette, but I don\u2019t like that name, it seems cum\u00adber\u00adsome to say, and rather gran\u00addi\u00adose. Ok yes, gran\u00addi\u00adose is just as cum\u00adber\u00adsome as maison\u00adette. Any\u00adway, I actu\u00adally prefer to call it an apart\u00adment, but apart\u00adment is very Amer\u00adic\u00adan, and I\u2019m not Amer\u00adic\u00adan, so I shouldn\u2019t really call it that, after all, it\u2019s bin not trash\u00adcan, and film not movie. But, I actu\u00adally prefer the sound of apart\u00adment, and it is my story, so from now on I shall call it an apart\u00adment, or more likely, I\u2019ll just call it My House<\/em>.
\nSo, back to the May Beetles. The light at the front door was always left on, as it helped the res\u00adid\u00adents to see where they were going when they came in through the main com\u00admun\u00adal entrance door. How\u00adever, toward the end of May and early June, there was an under\u00adstand\u00ading that the light in the main hall\u00adway would be turned off so that the beetles would stop throw\u00ading them\u00adselves to cer\u00adtain death. In order for me to turn the light off, I would need to head down\u00adstairs, leave the apart\u00adment through our front door<\/em>, walk across the hall\u00adway, and flick the switch next to the front door<\/em>.
\nThis, on the whole would be fine, apart from, the return jour\u00adney would involve walk\u00ading past The Win\u00addow<\/em> in the dark. Remem\u00adber everything that I said earli\u00ader about the explan\u00ada\u00adtion for sounds? Well, that doesn\u2019t apply to The Win\u00addow<\/em>, because that is about listen\u00ading and The Win\u00addow<\/em> is about look\u00ading. And whenev\u00ader you look out of The Win\u00addow<\/em> when it\u2019s dark, you tend to see things that are not there.
\nOk, the obser\u00adv\u00adant among you will see exactly where this par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar tale is going, to those not pay\u00ading atten\u00adtion at the back, for the sake of brev\u00adity, I shall skip to the part where hav\u00ading switched the light off, and tried to make my way back to My House<\/em> without look\u00ading out of The Win\u00addow<\/em>, I acci\u00addent\u00adally looked out of The Win\u00addow<\/em>, and saw a shape-shift\u00ading water spirit.
\nObvi\u00adously I didn\u2019t know that it was a shape-shift\u00ading water spir\u00adit at the time, because at the time it looked like a rather large hedgehog.<\/p>\n

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