It wasn’t easy to say for certain that a small organism was crawling on her arm, and it wasn’t easy to know for certain the name of the small thing that made her jump and hit her hand on the corner of her desk. Nevertheless, the sting ran deep and skipped a few heartbeats, which induced a dizziness like a surprise half-syncopal panic. She caught her breath and tried to process what had happened.
After (in a sense) resuscitation, her eyes narrowed in the monomania of a detective investigating the scene. She searched for a culprit. Each object took on the suspicious attributes of the unidentified organism: behind the desk where dubious electrical currents rattled louder than comfort, the floor’s surface where weeks of resisting cleanliness exposed clearer the defects of hygeine and judgement, and finally her person, where days of preoccupation revealed scented landscapes more neglected than what she, or public decorum, might deem acceptable.
There was no offender in sight. Perplexed, she re-examined herself and her surroundings, attempting to replicate the initial feeling by grazing her left index finger along the small hairs of her right forearm. The completed action disclosed an unsettling realization: the light touch was undeniably similar to the original excitation.