When I was feeding Will his dinner this evening I noticed the same wasp that Elliot had spotted when I picked the kids at school was sitting on the top of the car having managed to hang on despite the 80km/h that we were traveling. I'm not a writer- but I'm quite happy with it.
Bugger
My friend Gareth went missing on Wednesday 10th of March 2032. Well sort of.
You would have liked Gareth, everyone did. He was kind of eccentric but had a way that put you at ease. He had flame orange hair, and you'd practically never see him without his cape on. It was a dark dark navy blue with white stripes and a long black cats tail coming out the back. It was from a puss-in-boots costume his Mum picked it up for him back when Harry Potter was big. Gareth and I had been friends since I started at Hobsonville Kindy and we'd connected over a mutual love of the sandpit.
Gareth was single but it felt like the whole town was his friend. He was always buzzing around from one place to another, seeing this person for lunch and that person for dinner. His parties were legendary and not just because everyone came. But because Gareth's place rocked. He had a massive studio apartment in an industrial area of town it took up the whole floor of the building. No one in the area was at work nights or on the weekends so there was no one to call noise control. And Gareth ever the child had all the mod cons including a trampoline mezzanine- my kids loved to go visit Gareth.
It might sound like he was a big kid but he also had a more serious side as well. I mean that guy was smart- super smart, I reckon a genius. He could have been the president of Mensa. He knew something about everything, but science was his passion, he could have done anything he wanted in the field of science. But he always said he just couldn't work in one of those white coats. So he got a job at the museum working with the school kids that came to visit. The kids adored him and the teachers wanted to marry him and take him home- he was just that sort of guy.
I texted him that day, the day he disappeared. Well pixted him to be more specific.
It was a Wednesday I had just picked my kids and various others from school. When Elliot who was in the front seat beside me noticed this weird kind of wasp like insect on the windscreen. To be honest it gave me the creeps I mean you should have seen the stinger on it. Anyway the kids wanted to know what it was so Elliot took a photo on my phone and we sent it off to Gareth- because if anyone would, he'd know what it was.
Then I forgot all about it- I mean when we got home there were things to do; washing, homework, dinner and bed etc etc etc- it never really ends does it. So it wasn't until lunchtime the next day when I was sitting at the kitchen table feeding the baby his lunch when I saw that bug again. It was sitting on the roof of my car right outside the window. It was doing some weird signalling thing with it's wings and I shuddered at the idea that it might be trying to attract a mate. One of those creepy things was one too many for me. I did wonder why we hadn't heard back from Gareth- I guess he was busy.
A mother's work is never done and so Friday there was more washing to go out on the line. The wasp- I think it was a wasp, landed on a towel at first. It was doing that weird wing thing again, I kept my distance. Minutes later something buzzed around my head, mindlessly I flicked it away. It circled around and landed on my shoulder. You could hear it's buzz, a little high pitched voice like an distressed child. That just plain freaked me out- my skin still kind of crawls when I think about it. I flicked it off with my husbands undies, well I already had them in my hand. I grabbed the baby and raced inside... the rest of the washing would have to wait.
On Saturday we were heading over to Gareth's to help sort out the apartment for the surprise party he was throwing that night. He wasn't there when we got there I figured he must have run out to get some milk or something. I shot off a text and we sat in the car and waited.
That was the fourth time I saw the wasp- Les saw it too, it was hovering on the windscreen it was flying in a strange jaunty pattern of lines and swoops from my side of the screen to Les' and then it'd go back and do the whole thing again. We watched it for a while but it grew tiresome and so we used the windscreen wipers to swat it away. We waited 45 minutes for Gareth but he didn't show. I left a message on his phone and we headed for home- it wasn't like him to stand us up and we had a lot of work to do for the party that night so I expected we'd hear from him soon with some story of an adventure he'd been lead on.
The phone rang at 11:42am it was Lucy, Gareth's sister and recipient of the surprise party. She was wondering if we'd seen Gareth. They were supposed to catch up for her birthday lunch the day before but he hadn't made it. And then he'd stood up another friend that night. I told her my side of the story edited to leave out the stuff about the surprise party- I just assumed that it would all be some weird misunderstanding that we'd be laughing at over a drink that night.
That said though, we were worried.
I got off the phone to call Gareth's boss, while Lucy was going to call some of his other mates.
Gareth had missed the last three days off work with no explanation.
Lucy and I decided to head back to the apartment. She had a key and let us in.
Gareth wasn't there. It looked like he'd left in a hurry right in the middle of breakfast. His wallet, keys and phone were right by the door where he always kept them and the windows of the apartment were open. Another one of those wasps was buzzing around our heads insisting we give it our attention. Rachel caught it in a cup and released it out the window. After it came back in a third time we closed the windows.
Lucy called the police and I started to work my way through Gareth's address book asking our friends when they last saw him and letting them know there would be no party that night.
When the police arrived Lucy buzzed them in and they caught the lift up to the apartment. Two officers sauntered into the apartment accompanied by one pesky wasp. I caught it this time and put it out the window.
The police had lots of questions but no answers. They wanted to know if Gareth worked at the Lab next door or knew anyone that did. If we thought he'd been in there and other things like that. Lucy and I couldn't understand what it all had to do with anything and we grew more and more frustrated.
Eventually the police left promising to follow-up and contact us with any news. We sat around the apartment not speaking for about an hour. The only sound was the tap, tap, tap of that stupid wasp on the glass. You'd think it'd be able to figure out that it wasn't getting through the glass but I guess it wasn't that smart.
Lucy and I both left with promises to keep in touch if we heard anything.
Monday after school we get home and the kids find the wasp sitting on the doorstep. Plain as day you would have thought it was waiting for us to come home. Kieran and Merenia were looking at it as I got the baby out of the car. I could hear them talking about the the orangey colour of it's body, like flames they said. Merenia said it's wings were blue and looked like a worn out cape draped over its back. Fraser came up and remarked on the way it long black stinger looked like a tail. And that's when Finlay squished him. Splat on the doorstep.
It came out about three weeks later that 6 of the employees at the lab Gareth lived across from had also been missing since that same day Gareth had disappeared. The police tried to prosecute the company as they had covered up a toxic gas leak that same day. But the cops couldn't prove the case there was no evidence and the only witnesses to the crime were 6 wasps that had been found in the lab and they didn't seem to be speaking.
Photo by Elliot♥
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