I was stunned when my son started drawing a grinning stranger. “He comes to see Mommy when you’re at work,” Oliver said innocently. Initially dismissing it as a childish fantasy, I soon spied a mysterious man entering our home, igniting a chilling quest for the truth.
I found the drawing while tidying up the dining table. Most of Oliver’s pictures were what you’d expect from a six-year-old: dinosaurs with rainbow scales, our house with a chimney that looked more like a volcano, and stick figures of our family holding hands. But this one made me pause.
A man frowning at a drawing | Source: Midjourney
Among the crayon scribbles was a tall figure with unnaturally long arms and huge hands, wearing what looked like a suit. The figure had an enormous grin that stretched across most of its face.
“Oliver,” I called out, trying to keep my voice casual as my fingers crinkled the edge of the paper. “Is this me in the picture? Who is this?”
My son looked up from his LEGOs, his blue eyes bright with excitement.
An excited boy with a bright smile | Source: Midjourney
The plastic blocks clattered as he dropped them onto the hardwood floor. “That’s Mr. Smiles, Daddy! He’s Mommy’s new friend. He comes to see her when you’re at work.”
My heart skipped a beat. Laura and I had been married for nine years. We’d had our ups and downs like any couple, weathered job changes and family losses, and celebrated promotions and birthdays. But never, not once, did I think she’d…
No, I shook the thought away. There had to be a reasonable explanation. Laura wasn’t that kind of person. We’d built too much together.
A concerned man holding a paper | Source: Midjourney
“When does he come over?” I asked, proud of how steady my voice remained despite the tremor in my hands.
Oliver stacked another block on his tower, his tongue poking out in concentration.
“Sometimes in the morning. Sometimes at night. He always makes Mommy and me laugh.” He glanced up, suddenly serious, his small face scrunching with the weight of importance. “But, Daddy, it’s a secret! Don’t tell anyone!“
An emotional man standing in a living room | Source: Midjourney
The mention of laughter and secrecy felt like ice in my stomach.
That night, I barely slept, watching Laura’s peaceful face in the darkness. The steady rhythm of her breathing, once comforting, now felt like a taunt. Every time she shifted in her sleep, I wondered what she was dreaming about. Who she was dreaming about.
The next day, I left work early, parked down the street from our house, and waited. The fall air grew crisp as the afternoon wore on, and fallen leaves skittered across my windshield. A little after 3 p.m., a sleek black car pulled into our driveway.
A black car parked in a driveway | Source: Pexels
A tall, wiry man stepped out and marched up to the front door. Even from this distance, I could see his broad smile when Laura welcomed him inside. The door closed behind them.
I gripped my steering wheel until my knuckles turned white; the leather creaking under my fingers.
“Maybe this is all in my head,” I whispered to myself, watching my breath fog the window. “But if I’m wrong, I need to know for sure.”
A man sitting in a car | Source: Pexels
Over the next few weeks, I started buying Laura flowers and gifts, trying to rekindle our bond, but I also began documenting everything.
The evidence piled up: receipts for dinners I didn’t attend, calls she’d leave the room to take, and, of course, more pictures of “Mr. Smiles” drawn by Oliver. Each new piece of evidence felt like another brick in a wall being built between us.
Laura noticed the change in me.
A woman staring at her husband during dinner | Source: Midjourney
“Are you feeling okay?” she asked one day, touching my forehead with concern. “You seem distracted lately.”
The genuine worry in her voice only confused me more. How could she act so normal if she was hiding something so huge?
“I… do you have someone else?” I asked.
“Someone else?” Laura stared at me with wide eyes, then shook her head.
A woman looking at her husband with wide eyes | Source: Midjourney
“Of course not, honey!” She let out a little chuckle. “How could you think that?”
Maybe I should’ve confronted her then, but all my evidence was circumstantial. I needed cold, hard proof.
One Friday evening, I told Laura I’d be working late. Instead, I set up a hidden camera on the bookshelf in the living room and watched the feed from my car parked around the corner.
A bookshelf in a living room | Source: Pexels
The screen of my phone cast a blue glow across my face as I waited, my coffee growing cold in its cup holder.
Right on schedule, Mr. Smiles arrived, and Laura greeted him with that same warm smile that used to be reserved for me.
But then something strange happened. He didn’t settle on the couch or share a private dinner. Instead, my sister walked in, and Oliver came bounding down the stairs with a beaming smile. More people arrived: neighbors and friends!
A man looking at his phone in confusion | Source: Midjourney
They all knew about this? And worse, they were having a secret get-together! I watched in stunned silence as Mr. Smiles, now wearing a festive party hat, juggled three oranges for Oliver and made him laugh.
“What the heck is going on?” I muttered, fumbling with my car door.
Rage and confusion propelled me toward the house. The evening air felt thick and heavy as I stormed up our front walk. I burst through the front door, making everyone freeze mid-conversation, the cheerful music cutting off abruptly.
A group of people in a living room staring at someone in surprise | Source: Midjourney
“Alright, you won,” I said, my voice trembling. “Everyone here knew, didn’t they? Even Oliver? Even my sister?”
“No, no! Please, stop!” Laura’s face had gone pale, her hands clutching a roll of streamers that cascaded to the floor.
I turned to Mr. Smiles, who had stopped juggling and was staring at me with wide eyes.
“You’ve disrespected me as a man, and you’ve got no business being here! It’s my house! It’s my…”
My voice trailed off as I spotted something shiny on the floor.
A man speaking angrily to someone | Source: Midjourney
A banner, not yet hung, with golden letters that read “Happy 10th Anniversary!” The metallic paper caught the light from our living room lamps, throwing sparkles across the ceiling.
The room went completely silent. Laura’s hands covered her mouth, tears welled in her eyes, and she smudged her carefully applied makeup. Mr. Smiles cleared his throat and stepped forward, his famous grin nowhere to be seen.
“Sir, I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” he said softly, his professional demeanor never wavering. “I’m a wedding planner and party animator. Your wife hired me months ago to plan this event — your wedding anniversary!”
A man speaking in a living room | Source: Midjourney
“You thought I was cheating on you?” Laura’s voice cracked with hurt and disbelief, each word falling like a stone between us.
I felt the floor shift beneath my feet. The room suddenly seemed too bright, too crowded, the decorations garish and mocking.
“I… I didn’t know what else to think,” I stammered, my collar feeling too tight. “I saw him coming here, and Oliver said a man kept visiting while I was at work, that this man made you laugh…”
An emotional man looking confused and shocked | Source: Midjourney
“Oliver said he made me laugh because he does magic tricks for him when we plan,” Laura interrupted, her voice rising. “I was trying to do something special for you, and you thought I was unfaithful?”
My throat felt tight. “I’m sorry,” I managed to say, the words feeling inadequate. “I was wrong. I let my insecurities get the better of me.”
Laura wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, leaving a dark smudge of mascara. “How could you think that? After everything we’ve been through?”
An emotional woman speaking to her husband | Source: Midjourney
The party guests began quietly filing out, murmuring awkward goodbyes, their shoes shuffling across our carpet.
My sister squeezed my shoulder as she left, whispering, “Fix this.” Oliver looked confused and scared, so Laura’s mother took him upstairs to his room, their footsteps echoing in the tense silence.
When we were finally alone, Laura sat on the couch, her shoulders slumped. The streamers lay in tangles around her feet.
An upset woman sitting on a sofa | Source: Midjourney
“I spent months planning this,” she said quietly. “I wanted it to be perfect. Remember our first anniversary? When you surprised me with that picnic in the park? I wanted to do something just as special.”
I sat beside her, careful to leave space between us, the cushions dipping under my weight. “I ruined everything.”
“Yes, you did.” She turned to look at me, her eyes red but fierce. “Trust isn’t just about believing in someone when everything’s perfect. It’s about believing in them when things don’t make sense.”
“I know,” I whispered, feeling the weight of my mistake. “I forgot that somewhere along the way. Can you forgive me?”
A couple having a serious conversation | Source: Midjourney
Laura was quiet for a long moment, her fingers tracing patterns on the fabric of her dress.
“I love you,” she said finally. “But this isn’t something I can just get over. You need to understand how much this hurts.”
I nodded, feeling tears start to fall. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make this right.”
“It won’t happen overnight,” she warned, her voice stern but not unkind.
A stern-looking woman speaking to someone | Source: Midjourney
“I know. But I’m not going anywhere.” I reached for her hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, she let me take it, her fingers cool against my palm. “Happy anniversary,” I said softly.
She gave a watery laugh that held both forgiveness and reproach. “Happy anniversary, you idiot.”
Upstairs, we heard Oliver laughing at something, probably one of his grandmother’s stories. The sound filled our living room, reminding us of all we had to lose, and all we had to save.
A couple in a living room glancing upwards | Source: Midjourney
This work is inspired by real events and people, but it has been fictionalized for creative purposes. Names, characters, and details have been changed to protect privacy and enhance the narrative. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
The author and publisher make no claims to the accuracy of events or the portrayal of characters and are not liable for any misinterpretation. This story is provided “as is,” and any opinions expressed are those of the characters and do not reflect the views of the author or publisher.
These bugs come out at nighttime, and attacking victims, they silently kill or leave them with a lifelong infection
When Emiliana Rodriguez was a little girl, she recalls watching friends play a nighttime soccer match when one of the players abruptly died on the pitch.
Unaware of what had transpired, Rodriguez, a native of Bolivia, developed a phobia of the dark and the “monster”—the silent killer known as Chagas—that she had been told only appears at night.
Chagas disease is a unique sort of illness that is spread by nocturnal insects. It is also known as the “silent and silenced disease” that infects up to 8 million people annually, killing 12,000 people on average.
Emiliana Rodriguez, 42, discovered she had to live with Chagas, a “monster,” after relocating to Barcelona from Bolivia 27 years ago.
“Night is when the fear generally struck. I didn’t always sleep well,” she admitted. “I was worried that I wouldn’t wake up from my sleep.”
Rodriguez had specific tests when she was eight years old and expecting her first child, and the results indicated that she carried the Chagas gene. She recalled the passing of her buddy and remarked, “I was paralyzed with shock and remembered all those stories my relatives told me about people suddenly dying.” “I wondered, ‘What will happen to my baby?’”
Rodriguez was prescribed medicine, though, to prevent the parasite from vertically transmitting to her unborn child. After her daughter was born, she tested negative. Elvira Idalia Hernández Cuevas, 18, was unaware of the Mexican silent killer until her 18-year-old son was diagnosed with Chagas.
Idalia, an eighteen-year-old blood donor from her birthplace near Veracruz, Mexico, had a positive diagnosis for Chagas, a disease caused by triatomine bugs, often known as vampire or kissing bugs and bloodsucking parasites, when her sample was tested.
In an interview with the Guardian, Hernandez stated, “I started to research Chagas on the internet because I had never heard of it.” When I read that it was a silent murderer, I became really afraid. I had no idea where to go or what to do.
She is not alone in this; a lot of people are ignorant of the diseases that these unpleasant bugs can spread. The term Chagas originates from Carlos Ribeiro Justiniano Chagas, a Brazilian physician and researcher who made the discovery of the human case in 1909.
Over the past few decades, reports of the incidence of Chagas disease have been made in Europe, Japan, Australia, Latin America, and North America.
Kissing bugs are mostly found in rural or suburban low-income housing walls, where they are most active at night when humans are asleep. The insect bites an animal or person, then excretes on the skin of the victim. The victim may inadvertently scratch the area and sever the skin, or they may spread the excrement into their mouth or eyes. This is how the T. cruzi infection is disseminated.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that between 6 and 7 million people worldwide—roughly 8 million people in Mexico, Central America, and South America—have Chagas disease; the majority of these individuals remain oblivious to their illness. These estimates are provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The persistent infection might be fatal if untreated. According to the Guardian, Chagas disease kills over 12,000 people year, “more people in Latin America than any other parasite disease, including malaria.”
Despite the fact that these bugs have been found in the United States—nearly 300,000 people are infected—they are not thought to be endemic.
While some people never experience any symptoms, the CDC notes that 20 to 30 percent experience gastrointestinal or heart problems that can cause excruciating pain decades later.
Furthermore, only 10% of cases are detected globally, which makes prevention and treatment exceedingly challenging.
Hernández and her daughter Idalia went to see a number of doctors in search of assistance, but all were also uninformed about Chagas disease and its management. “I was taken aback, terrified, and depressed because I believed my kid was going to pass away. Above all, Hernandez stated, “I was more anxious because I was unable to locate any trustworthy information.”
Idalia finally got the care she required after receiving assistance from a family member who was employed in the medical field.
“The Mexican government claims that the Chagas disease is under control and that not many people are affected, but that is untrue,” Hernández asserts. Medical practitioners misdiagnose Chagas disease for other heart conditions because they lack knowledge in this area. Most people are unaware that there is Chagas in Mexico.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has classified chagas as a neglected tropical disease, which means that the global health policy agenda does not include it.
Chagas is overlooked in part because, according to Colin Forsyth, a research manager at the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi), “it’s a silent disease that stays hidden for so long in your body… because of the asymptomatic nature of the initial part of the infection.”
Forsyth went on to say, “The people affected just don’t have the power to influence healthcare policy,” making reference to the impoverished communities. It’s kept hidden by a convergence of social and biological factors.
Chagas, however, is becoming more well recognized as it spreads to other continents and can also be transferred from mother to child during pregnancy or childbirth, as well as through organ and blood transfusions.
The main objective of the Chagas Hub, a UK-based facility founded by Professor David Moore, a doctor at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London, is to get “more people tested and treated, and to manage the risk of transmission, which in the UK is from mother to child,” according to Professor Moore.
Regarding the WHO’s 2030 aim for the eradication of the disease, Moore stated that progress toward it is “glacial” and added, “I can’t imagine that we’ll be remotely close by 2030.” That seems improbable.
Two medications that have been available for more than 50 years to treat chagas are benznidazole and nifurtimox, which according to Moore are “toxic, unpleasant, not particularly effective.”
Although the medications are effective in curing babies, there is no guarantee that they will prevent or halt the advancement of the condition in adults.
Regarding severe adverse effects, Rodriguez remembers getting dizziness and nausea as well as breaking out in hives. She completed her therapy, and she gets checked out annually.
Moore goes on to say that while creating stronger anti-Chaga drugs is crucial to stopping the disease’s spread, pharmaceutical companies are currently not financially motivated to do so.
As president of the International Federation of Associations of People Affected by Chagas condition (FINDECHAGAS), Hernández is on a mission to raise awareness of the condition until there is a greater need on the market for innovative treatments.
In Spain, Rodriguez is battling the “monster” as part of a campaign to increase public awareness of Chagas disease being conducted by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health.
“I’m tired of hearing nothing at all,” Rodriguez declares. “I want Chagas to be discussed and made public. I’m in favor of testing and therapy for individuals.
They are being heard, too.
World Chagas Disease Day was instituted by the WHO on April 14, 1909, the day Carlos discovered the disease’s first human case.The WHO states that “a diversified set of 20 diseases and disease categories are set out to be prevented, controlled, eliminated, and eradicated through global targets for 2030 and milestones.” And among them is Chagas.
To prevent a possible infestation, the CDC suggests taking the following steps:
Close up any gaps and fissures around doors, windows, walls, and roofs.
Clear out the rock, wood, and brush piles close to your home.
Put screens on windows and doors, and fix any tears or holes in them.
Close up gaps and crevices that lead to the exterior, crawl areas beneath the home, and the attic.
Keep pets inside, especially during the evening.
Maintain the cleanliness of your home and any outdoor pet resting places, and check for bugs on a regular basis.
If you believe you have discovered a kissing insect, the CDC recommends avoiding crushing it. Alternatively, carefully put the bug in a jar, fill it with rubbing alcohol, and then freeze it. It is then recommended that you bring the bug’s container to an academic lab or your local health authority so that it can be identified.
Please tell this tale to help spread the word about an illness that goes unnoticed!
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