Bitten

The moment was sometime on Sunday, June 23. I decided to attack the overgrown brush that ran the property line.  Note that I live in the Berkshires on a residential street with a fenced off swamp across from our house and woods behind us. The next morning, I mindlessly scratched what I thought was a mosquito bite on my left hip. Two things happened simultaneously...I felt like I knocked off something, like a fat spider, and I immediately regretted scratching because it hurt like a previous tick bite or like a bee sting.  The bite itself looked like nothing more than a very large, red mosquito bite with a raised center. I looked for an insect on the floor but couldn't find one. The bite was 1 inch in diameter.