This is a memory from when I was very young, maybe 5 or 6. It might be one of those things where I invented the memory as I grew up.
My oldest brother came home from the Marines for a visit. My bedroom was off the dining room. Lying in bed, I was listening in on the conversation he was having with my parents. He told a bunch of stories from his experiences in the military. One story would change my life forever…
Here’s how I remember it.
A private was standing at attention. A spider crawled in his ear as he was standing there. Because he was at attention, he couldn’t move to swat the thing away. In his ear, this poisonous spider bit him, and he died right there.
(My guess is that my young imagination converted a real story into a really terrifying one.)
That night, after hearing that story, I couldn’t sleep. Overwhelmed by a fear of spiders crawling in my ears, I tossed and turned. Finally, I grabbed my baby blanket from the foot of my bed, made a bonnet with it, and tied it around my chin to cover my ears. For several nights, I slept with this blanket over my ears. To this day, I cannot sleep if my ears are uncovered. I’ll pull the blankets over my head even in the hottest weather. One reason I’ve let my hair grow so long is so that I can pull it over my ears when blankets aren’t available.
This is one of my biggest irrational fears. Bugs crawling in my ears while I sleep.
In the village this weekend, I slept in a kind of gross bed in a storage room with only 3 walls. The fourth wall was a curtain blowing in the cold high-altitude night air. It was dark when I went to bed, but I could see in the dim light that the pillow had a film of dirty dust on it. I pulled my long hair forward to cover the pillow so my face wouldn’t touch it, and pulled some more hair over my right ear, which would face upward as I lay on my left side on the hard bed.
At 5 a.m. I was awakened by what sounded like a moth flapping against the wall over our heads. It sounded very strange, and didn’t stop. I pulled a little more hair over my head to keep the moth out of my ear. After 10 minutes or so, I felt that the sound was really peculiar. Maybe it was my friend’s breathing? She had a cold and we were sharing a small twin-sized bed. The sound was irregular and too loud to be anything I could think of. Finally, I put my index finger over the opening of my ear. The sound was louder with my ear blocked….
Worst fear realized.
For a few minutes, I tried to get it out. I tapped my ear, tipped my head. I imagined a moth with big wings burrowing deeper in to my ear canal as it struggled. I imagined going to a local hospital to have an unsanitary and unskilled doctor try to pull the thing out of my ear. Horrifying images flashed through my mind as I lay there in the dark trying not to panic. Dead insects in my ear, ear infections, deafness.
Finally, I woke up my bed-mate. She instructed me. Tilt your head, and beat on it. She stuck her long pinky-nail in my ear. But the sound of the insect’s struggles continued. Finally, she told me to just turn over and sleep with that ear facing down. “It will go downward like it would if it were burrowing in soil.” I turned over, and paid close attention for any sensation of an insect walking out of my ear.
An hour later, I got out of bed. I did not sleep at all from the time I discovered the bug in my ear until it was time to get up and hit the road. After turning over, I did not hear the bug again, but I never sensed his departure.
In the morning around the breakfast fire, people were discussing their own experiences with these blanket bugs that crawl in your ears while you sleep. They imitated the sound it makes in your ear as it struggles. They told stories of how they’d gotten theirs out. Some used flashlights to lure them out. Some tapped their ears. Some tilted their heads. My biggest fear was a commonplace experience for them.
This is what we go through to get the Good News out to people...
