A Night’s Unrest

There was something surreal about the tennis ball as it approached me. It was swerving to the left and right, up and down without dropping speed, as if its momentum was from within and not from an opponent’s racket. I repositioned and steadied myself yet again, sweat dripping from my face and further drenching my already soaked vest, annoyed at this ball that was defying nature’s laws; hoping to teach it a lesson with a superb return serve.

Just before connecting with my racket I noticed, heard actually, something else. There was a puzzling whizzing noise coming from inside the ball, like the sound of a small airplane. For some reason this got me all the more irritated, and I swung my racket ruthlessly for the ‘kill’.

Wham!

A shiver of pain ran through my body, and my left ear felt as if it had gone through a hot stove. The slap got me up with a start, erasing every last bit of restless sleep left in me. Sadly I was sure I’d missed the fly. Self-inflicted pain is the worst kind, especially when the attempt at causing such pain was intended for an adversary. I reached in the dark for my mobile phone to check the time, and my groping fingers found it on my bedside table. 1:28AM. I was sweating profusely in the dark; and all over my body I could feel itchy bumps where I had been bitten by the flies that pervaded my bedroom. I sat up, as if to give my present distress a better perspective.

I had returned from work the previous evening to discover, to my chagrin, that the generator had gone berserk. To be fair to the poor thing, it had laboured tirelessly for several weeks now, and had subtly been warning me of this eventuality by becoming noisier over time. I was paying heavily for my nonchalance, and could only hope that on this particular night PHCN would take responsibility for power generation for a change.

Well, PHCN didn’t. So I got into bed anticipating the worst, as heat descended on me like a cloud, accompanied by flies already salivating at the prospect of a good dinner. I spent the next hour tossing and turning, slapping and slipping in and out of my blanket, trying to find a tolerable balance between heat and mosquito bites. It was after I eventually slipped into some fitful sleep that my tennis racket experience ensued.

Then suddenly an idea dawned on me. With the display light of my mobile phone I found my car keys and a T-shirt from the wardrobe. I was still groggy and my left ear was still numb as I found my way out of my flat and locked the door behind me. My dark-coloured Nissan was packed in line, flanked by other vehicles belonging to my co-tenants.

The other three flats had their generators blaring loudly, and in a way I was thankful for the din as I eased into my car and started the engine, engaging the central lock at the same time. I switched on the air conditioning, and turned on the radio. I chuckled to myself as I reclined my seat and allowed the 24-hour radio station to serenade me back to sleep. 1:45 AM. In four hours I’d have to be up again, to get ready and hurry off to work.