The Worst Night of my Life
Aaron T.

If I were to make a list of the worst sleeping conditions imaginable, the situation I found myself in last night would have been one of them. It was about twelve o'clock when I finished my nightly reading of Anna Karenina and turned off the lights. At about that time I heard a strange sound in my ear. It sounded like when you put a shell to your ear, but louder. It was accompanied by a scratching sound and a dull pain. It only lasted a couple of seconds and then stopped. I didn't think much of it and soon discounted the strange sound as my imagination and rolled over to try to sleep.

My night would have been all right if that would have been the end of it, but sadly it was not. A couple minutes later the incident was repeated. At this time I started to think that I was suffering from an earache. I don't remember having an earache ever before, so I was unfamiliar as to what it felt like. For all I knew I was experiencing was perfectly normal. Then the sound kept coming back, more frequently and still with the pain, which was fast changing from dull to searing.

Several times I got out of my bed and stumbled to the bathroom where I desperately tried to twist my head into a position where I could see into my ear. I tried to sleep but the pain and sound where too much for even my tired body, sleep would not come. I took to pacing and alternately jamming my finger as deep into my ear as I could and smashing my head into things. 

All my movement did not go unnoticed and my Grandmother came out of her room into the hallway to see what all of the ruckus was. I described to her my symptoms and she prescribed me some Tylenol. Then she said something that I didn't take too seriously at the time but that later weighed heavily on my mind, "Maybe you have a bug in your ear." I took the Tylenol but it didn't help. As I lay there in my bed, unable to sleep and just about the most uncomfortable I have ever been in my whole life all I could think about is that maybe I had a bug in my ear. "Maybe I have a bug in my ear, maybe I have a bug in my ear, maybe I have a bug in my ear, maybe I have a bug in my ear," I thought to myself over and over again.

I did not seriously think that I had a bug in my ear. I had never even heard of such a thing, but, for reasons unknown to me, that was all I could think about. After laying there for a bit I finally resigned myself to the fact that sleep would never come again. I once again took to pacing back and forth to the bathroom mirror trying as hard as I could to see what IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY WAS IN MY EAR! On the way to the bathroom I passed a table with a pair of scissors lying on it. You have no idea how tempted I was to pick up those scissors and just ram them into my ear until they pierced my brain and ended my misery, whether it killed me or the scissors somehow stopped whatever was causing my agony. Even though I didn't use the scissors to try and alleviate the pain I did try several other means: I put my head under the faucet and ran water into my ear, I jumped up and down, I spun in circles, I would have even done a back flip on the off chance that it would stop the agony if only I was capable of doing such a thing.

Eventually I just gave up and lay in my bed, my very soul crying out although my body had only the strength left to whimper. My mind then began to daydream, or nightdream, or whatever you call dreaming at night when you are still awake. I considered that if it was a bug, then how in the world was I going to get it out, my first thought was the scissors; my next thought was not to far from the first, surgery. I imagined a surgeon cutting my head open (in my fantasy there was no anesthesia, I figured the pain of the incision might distract from the pain in my ear) and cutting my brain in half (I was sure that if their was a bug in my ear that by this time he would have to be at least as far as my brain) to pluck out a bug that looked much like the one that was put into Neo in the Matrix. Another dream, or whatever, I had was them using bugs as torture devices. 

At about this time I felt a tickle on the outside of my ear. I jerked my hand up there and grasped my tormentor. The source of all my misery was in fact skinny bug about an inch long. I turned on a light and looked at him. He was extremely ugly looking, though maybe a member of his species of the opposite gender would be a better judge, and just thinking that he had been inside my ear moments before made me want to puke.  Now that I could see him clearly I took great satisfaction in crushing him into a fine powder. I was never one to torture ants with a magnifying glass or anything of that nature, but anyone who looks down on my treatment of that infernal creature has never had a bug in his ears for four hours. Finally relief was mine, well, sort of.

It was four o'clock and half my night's rest was gone for good, my ear was sore, and I was still extremely paranoid. I searched all over my bed to make sure it was bug free (a habit that will stick with me for a long time) before finally settling down for a much deserved rest.