And I gave thanks, quoting to myself another of Zachook's sayings, "Better a wasted arrow than lost game."
Ta-ka the Mosquito and
Khandatagoot the Woodpecker
"As Foolish as One Who Shoots Arrows at
Mosquitoes."
achook, with a half amused, half sympathetic smile at my futile efforts to slaughter a small percentage of the mosquito cloud that enveloped us, made a smudge of leaves, and I willingly exchanged the tortures of being eaten alive for those of slow strangulation in the acrid smoke.
My remarks had been neither calm nor patient, consisting mainly of my entire vocabulary of opprobrious adjectives and epithets several times repeated and diversified, aided by a wide, but wholly inadequate, range of profanity in the various languages at my command. And, to digress slightly, I would recommend the study of Arabic and Spanish to those feeling a similar need; they do not meet all requirements of forcible expression, but they add some wonderful flights of imagination to the more practical English expletives.
Zachook was apparently as unimpressed as the mosquitoes, but when I had recovered some portion of my breath and equanimity,