danger/shelter/there's no justice, you know

I.
I was warned that the city would be spraying for West Nile virus tonight.  The mosquitoes in this part of Brooklyn - spawned by the twins of capitalism, global trade and industrial waste, which is to say, imported Asian Tiger mosquitoes and our local Superfund site - are tiny, aggressive, and, apparently, deadly.  Even during the day, they swam around me in the front flower beds, and I've delayed planting one black peony and a purple lobelia from last weekend's rare plant sale in Connecticut for exactly this reason.  They never bother my neighbor, P., who sits outside all day in a plastic lawn chair - "Because he's all full of vinegar," L. explained apologetically.

II.
Tonight, walking home, I received a text: "Hi, your windows are open and the spray of insecticide could start in 45 minutes.  Do you want us to close your windows now?"  Along streets reeking of urine, the patrol cars.  Circling above, in a dreary dusky sky, a police helicopter served to quicken the sense of urgency.  Music thudded from parked cars.  The air smelled funny - could they already be dropping pesticides from the sky? - or did it?

III.
I came home to find a guest in my bedroom.  A few weeks ago, I had three new roommates.  When Chip came for dinner, I told him, I need you to remove all the spiders.  He looked at me blankly and said, "All three?  And I can't I use a vacuum?"  I find many things vaguely menacing; and yet I can never bear to eradicate them; it's my tale and my tragedy.  I handed him a cup and a piece of paper, and he dutifully caught each spider and carried it outside.

IV.
I'd already felt bad for the cricket, now that I knew winter was coming, and all the more so that the end was coming even sooner than I'd known.  There is one cricket in particular, out front in what Z. would doubtless call her "front garden," whose chirp is long and drawn-out, a dirge, not a song, mournful, not chipper.  I'm told the shelter dogs dragged into the euthanization room will shit on the floor in terror.  God, I thought last night, does it know what's going to happen?  And then I came home tonight, and heard the cricket sing sadly outside even as the spider grimly hunkered down in a corner (as though to say: I know I'm not your favorite, but I dare you, I dare you to put me outside tonight), and I thought, The spider knew, I guess; and now I just can't bear to catch it.  There's no justice at all, is there.