An hour ago it was cockroach kamikaze night. Another one of those nights when the big old roaches here fly helter skelter through the house. One of those nights when it is so sticky, so hot, so muggy and so still that they must fly to loosen their wings from their bodies and cool off. Flying madly they ram into walls and especially into your hair and if you wear glasses like me, they aim straight for the light reflected in them.

People here have two ways of dealing with it. Just sitting by until it passes, flicking away one that gets too close. Others take a more tomb raider approach; ducking behind doors, bolting from room to room ready to swing the lethal zori at one that flys by. I'm more of the latter.

By the time they stopped flying I was so hot and sweaty I decided to sit outside. My cigarrette smoke drifts low and slowly to the east yet I feel no wind whatsoever. Not even the leaves in the coconut and tangantangan trees sway an inch. Almost makes me wonder whether there is a slight breeze to the east or does the smoke just hang there, suspended while the earth and everything on it slowly revolves toward the west.

As I type this, I look upon the carnage on the floor; the roaches that met my lethal zori. Guess I gotta go clean em all up. Can't just leave them there you know, besides, if I don't pick em up, the ants will come.

Please don't think I'm just a bad housekeeper. On this island the roaches, ants, geckos, all end up in even the cleanest homes. Nature has a way of getting back on the intrusion of our homes.