Deadly phobia

1
Ralph Markin winced as he lowered himself into the steaming tub of water, once settled in comfortably, he let out an audible sigh of relaxation, nothing like a bathtub full of hot water to sooth away all worries, he though to himself as he sunk his body deeper into the water.

As Ralph lay there in the tub, relaxing after a ten hour drive, he felt unusually content in his singleness, nobody banging on the door bitching that they had to take a shit or to do some other bodily function; nope, this day it was just him, Bach in the CD player, the Coors light resting on the edge of the tub and three freshly rolled cigarettes. Yes Sir, life was sure good at times like these.

Taking a long pull from his Coors, Ralph ran his thoughts back to the week he had just spent in Kentucky checking on the progress of the crew he hired for the construction contract he bid for. He really didn’t feel the need to make the trip, he trusted everyone of the guys he sent on the job, hell, he worked with them for years before going into business on his own, but, part of being the boss was the unexpected visits to the crew.

His third day at the site, a good looking red head happened to walk by, his crew noticed his jaw hit the ground and immediately started in on him to ask the lady out. Ralph, having a low self esteem to begin with, thought there was no way this fine looking lady would ever go with him anywhere, but self esteem came second to looking like a chicken shit in front of his crew.

Running his hand smoothly through his hair, he walked up to the lady, “excuse me miss, I was wondering…..Holly fucking shit!”

Ever since Ralph could remember, he had a fear of bees, wasps, dragonflies and anything flying which remotely looks like it might have a stinger; it wasn’t that he was allergic to a sting, it was just that they scared the holy hell out of him, and as it would happen, just as he was about to ask the lady out, a large bumble bee happened to pick that moment to buzz around his head.

So there he was, looking like the worlds biggest dumb ass flaying his arms in the air and doing his chicken shit dance right in front of this beautiful woman and his co-workers. Damn the rotten luck.

He had time to hear the woman laugh at his cowardice before he ran away from the irritant pest that wouldn’t leave him alone no matter how much he swatted, danced, cursed and cried.

When he reached his co-workers {all who were rolling on the ground laughing their ass off} Ralph noticed that the buzzing around his head had ceased and allowed himself to relax, which is when the reality, of just how idiotic he had looked, set in.
“
Hey,” Greg Major said, leaning on Ralph’s shoulder to support himself upright from laughing so hard, “Is that a fancy new way you white boys have for asking a beautiful woman out?”

The question brought about another round of laughter, hell, even Ralph cracked a grin, which soon, turned into laughter of his own, he knew how silly he must have looked, and besides, if it was one of the other guys it had happened to, Ralph would have been dogging them just as hard. Never the less though, he dreaded the rest of the week, knowing damn good and well he would be ragged hard over this one.

“Fuck you Greg,” Ralph said good naturally, “Just fuck you.”

“Might as well come and get you some of this black ass,” Greg retorted with a grin, “Cause you sure ain’t gonna get any from that fine lady you so gracefully ran from.”

This is gonna be a long week, Ralph thought to himself as his crew had themselves another laughing fit at his expense.

And I was right too, Ralph thought to himself with a smile while taking another pull from his beer. Never was he more glad to be far away from his friends, he hoped that by the time they were through with the job and made their way back to Tennessee, the entire incident would be forgotten about, “Yeah right,” he said to himself while lighting up a smoke, “and Elvis is pumping gas at a Texaco station in Memphis.”

About a half hour later when the water was getting to cool to enjoy, Ralph stubbed out his last smoke and stepped out of the tub, stubbing his toe painfully on the discarded beer bottle in the process, “Fucking watch yourself you idiot,” Ralph cursed himself through gritted teethe, “need to quit being so damn clumsy before I wind up killing myself.”

After rubbing his toe for a few minutes, Ralph dried off and slipped into his silk boxer shorts, walked to the bookshelf and grabbed a book of poems from his large collection then headed to his room to read a while before calling it a night.




Ralph was about twenty Minutes into his book when his heart froze in his chest, a moments of fright, when everything seems amplified and all senses seemed to become acute, over took him as he thought he heard a buzzing sound come from the behind the thick dark curtain which covered his window.

Nervously he lay down his book and strained his hearing to try and catch the sound again, hoping to himself that he had imagined the noise.

No such luck.

The buzzing sound of a flying something or another bumping aimlessly into the window started up again making Ralph’s heart start to pound loudly in his chest and his breath to come out in harsh rasps, “Damn,” he stammered out loud, hoping that the sound of his voice would break the fear spell which threatened to overcome him, “I got to do something.”

Slowly, as if in a dream, Ralph stepped out of bed, clad only in his boxers and approached the window, before reaching the window, Ralph stopped cold as he realized that he had nothing to kill the dangerous intruder with.

Keeping an eye carefully trained on the window, Ralph slowly backed up till he felt the doorknob jar him in the back. Turning around, Ralph quickly opened the door and made a mad dash into the kitchen where he kept his fly swatter and wasp spray.

He returned to his bedroom and carefully approached the window with the wasp spray poised out in front of him, ready to spray living death to the flying, stinging, good for nothing monster. Breathing heavily, Ralph drew back the curtain with a shaking hand, ready as he’ll ever be to confront the intruder.

“Fuck me!” Ralph screamed while simultaneously jumping backward, catching his foot on the discarded shoe laying in the middle of the floor and falling heavily to the ground, twisting the wrist of his right hand that he used to try and break his fall, but he had no time to worry about that, madly he scrambled to his feet, slipping twice more in his haste before managing to stay upright.

With his feet finally stable, he ran desperately to the door, which swings inward and was left open, and in his blind run, he managed to dash face first into the side of the ajar door, bloodying his nose and splitting open his lip, plus, bruising his left cheek; but again he had no time to worry about it, backing up a half step, Ralph adjusted himself and rushed out the door, slamming it hard on his way out to safety.

A minute ago he had prepared himself into attacking what might have been a single bee, but when he drew back the blinds and saw four large red wasps congregating at the window, he lost all the bravery he had managed to muster up. Now, as he knelt outside his bedroom door, away from the monstrosities, he tried to control his breathing and slow down his heart which was beating like a madman in his chest.

Ralph ran a hand down his bloody face and began to feel the first pangs of pain in his injured wrist, “Lousy stinging son of a bitches,” Ralph screamed loudly to the invaders in his room, plus added a few more choice words directed at himself for his own cowardice.

After a few minutes of kneeling down his heart began to resume a normal place as he started to calm himself down, he placed his hands over his eyes as a wave of drowsiness overcame him like it always does after an adrenalin rush. Suddenly, the feeling of full awareness came speeding back to him and his fear threatened to overtake him again as a thought occurred to him, “The god forsaken door.”

When he left the bedroom the first time to get the wasp killer, he left the door open, what if one of the wasps had gotten out of the room while he was gone, there could be one flying around out here now, searching for him, awaiting the perfect opportunity to jab it’s stinger remorselessly into him over and over again.

Absently, Ralph reached down to get his cigarette roller out of his pants pocket, realizing {after his hand touched his bare leg} all he had on was a pair of boxer shorts, his roller was back in the room with his pants, and the stinging monsters.

“Now here’s a damnable situation,” Ralph muttered to himself, almost laughing out loud despite the terror which raged through his body, “Here I am, chased out of my room, practically nude, no smokes and hurting like hell.” Suddenly, humor became rage and he banged his fist on the ground. The pain reminded him that he should have used his other hand for banging the ground, it also brought about an after thought, “Oh yeah,” he said while nodding, “Let’s not forget the likely hood of their being more of the stinging pricks out here.”

Ralph raised slowly to his feet, letting out a gasp as he unconsciously used his bad hand to push his body up from the floor, he let out another gasp as his wrist gave up the support and he fell back to the floor, “Fucking shit,” he cursed as he finally managed to his feet.

Suddenly, all pain was forgotten about as a buzzing noise swept past his head, “Holly shit,” he squeaked as he dove off to his left, earning himself carpet burns on his legs and arms for his diving effort.

Opening his eyes, which he had closed during his dive, Ralph saw that he had landed face to face with with a huge, mean looking red wasp, he opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out except a pathetic, feeble mewing sound which finally, after some effort, turned into a scream of pure terror.

Whether it was Ralph’s body hitting the carpet or his ear piercing, glass shattering scream which provoked the wasp, he didn’t know, nor thought it mattered; what mattered though was the sharp, painful jab which hit Ralph’s nose as the wasp struck.

If it had been a bee Ralph was dealing with, the second sting never would have come, but being that wasps don’t lose their stingers after a hit, the beast had another go at him, this time catching him right above his left eye.

“Damn you bastard,” Ralph screamed in pain as he slapped the creature; Ralph’s slap barely grazed the creature's body, but it touched it enough to piss it off even more. It stung Ralph’s hand three times in retaliation.

“Son of a bitch,” Ralph screamed as he scrambled to his feet, “Leave me the hell alone.”

Ralph ran madly toward the kitchen, flailing his hands above his head as he tried to rid himself of the malicious monster, but unfortunately, the creature was in no mood to be rid of, his constant flailing and screaming just continued to anger the beast. By the time Ralph made it into the kitchen he had been stung seven more times.

When Ralph entered into the kitchen he was in full hysterics and full of pain. Defeat and hopelessness coursed through him, he leaned face first into the refrigerator and let the tears roll, in a fit of anger he punched and kicked the the metal contraption, instantly regretting the act as his injured wrist and newly injured toe cried out in protest.

He was about to give a wailing shout of defeat when suddenly he heard the sound of doomsday.

A second later, he saw the skeleton in the black cloak appear in the form of hundreds of red wasps. They poured out from the back of the fridge where they had built their nest while Ralph was away, angered at the disturbance caused by the banging on their domain.

One final scream of terror and three minutes of flailing and dancing and Ralph’s bout with his phobia had come to a conclusion.