Over the years I have been asked if I am afraid of anything on Bequia, and the answer is a definite YES! There are a lot of things I may not like, such as sailing in rough seas and cockroaches in the cutlery drawer, but the only thing I have ever truly feared is the Caribbean centipede.
I hate centipedes with a passion, and I am not alone. Anyone who has been bitten by one of these tropical insects will instantly understand the expression, “once bitten twice shy!”. The fangs of a centipede release a toxic venom used for killing its prey, and while it’s rarely fatal to humans the bite is acutely painful. They are also extremely hard to kill, I have known people to keep blow-torches handy for just that purpose, stamping on them doesn’t always do the trick and can result in a painful bite.
The first time I was bitten by a centipede I was asleep at our house above the Pizzeria. The pain was so powerful it knocked the breath out of me, almost as though I had been punched in the stomach. The centipede had bitten me on the side of my neck, leaving two puncture marks as evidence. Mac leaped from the bed, pulled back the covers and there the culprit lay, squirming on top of the sheets. Sleep was impossible for the rest of the night, and for two weeks afterwards I jumped awake if a single strand of hair brushed my skin!
Finally I started sleeping through the nights again, my days were long and I very much needed some uninterrupted slumber. Then it happened, a centipede bit Mac, and when he jumped out of bed screaming I rolled on it and received my second bite of the month. I became a nightmare to sleep with, a whisper of a breeze across my skin had me jumping out of bed. Mac started to get annoyed. He told me I was like “a sheep crying wolf”, and after showing me there were no centipedes in the bed he would go grumpily back to sleep.
One night I woke up and just KNEW I had been bitten (on my neck again) and woke Mac up. He told me I was just dreaming and to get back into the bed, he couldn’t see puncture marks on my neck and didn’t believe I had been bitten. I refused to return to bed, instead I sat bolt up-right in a chair with my neck throbbing, proof that I had been the victim of yet another centipede.
As I sat there I caught a movement from the corner of my eye. Not moving an inch, I watched as a centipede crawled down my long braid onto my nightgown. As gently as possible I squeaked, “Mac! Mac! Help me!”