Residency Alaa Abu Asad in Timelab

1/8/2022  Monday

It is the Tiger year in China. It must be the Wasp year here! The train is cancelled, the train is delayed. The regular reality of these (post pandemic) days. My list in Rotterdam said 2 things only: Garbage Cables out In Ghent, I go to fetch! – this is what the confirmation email says – the Swapfiets. I hurry. All the way down the canal, cross the bridge and turn left, to the right on the other bridge and all the way till a third bridge, then to the left. The shop is somewhere on the left side of the road. On the way, immediately after the first bridge, I see a big painting of a wasp; I halt! I take a picture and I think of all the wasps I have seen (and tried to kill) in the previous month, and I think: it must be a year of the Wasps! Is there a tiger wasp? Apparently, yes! Of course, the black stripes! It’s called Venomasicus Tigrus and Google says that its sting is the second most painful. But what is the first most painful sting?