I didn't understand what had happened at first - I felt an insect flying around my hand, so I idly waved it off. A sharp fire shot into my hand, like a needle administered by an inexperienced and sadistic nurse. I cried out in pain, thinking it was a deerfly bite, and knocked my attacker to the ground.

Our guide ceased his lecture, startled by my outcry, and eleven heads bent to examine the yellow speck now writhing on the leafy forest floor. "She was stung by a yellowjacket," Gabe informed the professor, and Roger reached out a boot toe to crush the jewel-like body into stillness. Funny, I hadn't thought to kill it, even as I clenched my jaw to hold back tears of pain. Its hapless motions on the ground seemed so harmless now: what could it do to hurt me more?

The pain was so intense that I wasn't sure I could stand it, though there didn't seem to be another option. I held my wrist to my mouth, nursing the sting instinctively, but truthfully this did no good. The next fifteen minutes of ecology lecture were somewhat lost on me as I stared, fascinated, at the progress of my injury. Almost instantly, a white o-shaped lump rose surrounding the sting site, but soon it faded again and left only a slightly red area and a sporadic throbbing of pain.

Now it has settled into a dull sort of prick, no longer overpowering but always present. It still intrigues me while it horrifies me - it is such a unique quality of pain.