nevermore
Give the poor girl a drink.
Here’s a 200–300 word version with the creatures treated almost as tiny, beleaguered neighbors rather than enemies:
A LITTLE BLOOD FOR THE NO-SEE-UMS
We complain about no-see-ums because they bite us.
But consider the matter from their side.
A no-see-um is born into a world in which practically everything is trying to eat it. Fish eat the larvae. Dragonflies, spiders, birds, bats and other insects eat the adults. Wind can carry them away. Rain can drown them. Heat dries them out. Cold kills them.
Their lives are brief. Many adult biting midges live only a few weeks. In that short time they must emerge, find a mate, reproduce and somehow avoid becoming somebody else's dinner.
The males generally live peacefully on plant nectar. The females do too, but many species require a blood meal to provide the protein necessary to produce their eggs.
That is where we come in.
To us, the encounter is an annoyance: an itch, a red spot, perhaps a few minutes of swatting and complaining.
To her, it may be the difference between producing the next generation and not producing it at all.
She does not arrive at dusk because she bears us malice. She has not organized an invasion of the porch. She has survived the mud, the water, the weather and an astonishing number of creatures that regard her as lunch.
Then, at the end of another dangerous day, she finds us.
Warm. Enormous. Well-fed.
All she asks is a drop.
Perhaps generosity toward living things should extend even to creatures too small for us to see.
We have several quarts of blood.
She needs almost nothing.
Give the poor girl a drink.
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