409: A Wasp

There is a wasp at the window; what am I going to do?  It's not knocking on the outside, trying to get my attention, desirous to be allowed in.  It Is hiding behind the curtains which I have yet to open, mostly waiting silently, but occasionally generating a buzz with a calm rising inflection.  The sudden heat(wave) has meant that the window must be kept open at night, despite the fact that the Britannia Hotel (Portland Street, Manchester) already has a Christmas tree erected in the lobby.  I know this not because I go to hotels, but because my fiancée went there a couple of days ago for her Zumba workout.  There is something strange in here; something not quite right  Oh, it's the winter festival three months hence, already being celebrated, despite the heat still gripping this small Northern Hemispheric isle.

None of this has occurred to the wasp, I presume to know; it merely struggles to find freedom.  To break away from the endless flat force field keeping it from moving forward.  It is trapped and its few tiny synapses do not contain power or appropriate context necessary to formulate an escape plan, or even comprehend its predicament.  On Sunday I killed a wasp in the Tollgate pub, armed with a beer mat and a pool cue.  Yes, it was armed with a pool cue, and I still bested it in mortal combat.  It was so small and weak it might as well have been an insect.

I am a benevolent ruler, and have decided to grant it freedom.  With Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud I will bat the stripy interloper out of the open window, and from that point on it is left to its own devices.  Freedom to fall a storey to the gravel below, or take to the skies to find wood pulp or pollen to take home to its brood.  Be gone, buzzy one.

OK, that's strange: I see no sign of it.  I lifted aside the curtains but found no wasp, not walking the windowpane or hiding within the rippling surface of the curtain cloth.  I pushed open the window more to widen the gap, and let the curtains fall back into place.  Another buzz signalled the continued presence of the wasp; or did it signal the freedom which the wasp had taken for itself?  I cannot see it, so until evidence says otherwise I shall assume it has escaped my jurisdiction.