Romantic musings from the tick I found on my ass
The first time I saw Ellie, I knew she was the one.
My next blood meal. I will die without her, I realized.
I made my move when she was distracted. She had seen several spittlebugs in the high grasses of the Kentucky nature preserve where I live, and leaned over to get a closer look. I stretched out my little arms.
“My favorite bugs!” she cried, not referring to me.
I’ll be your favorite bug soon, I thought grimly to myself, as I launched from a cattail onto her leg and began the slow climb up into her pant leg.
All was not well in my life at this time, reader. I had recently been yanked off the thigh of my previous partner, a tanning salon magnate named Beryl, before I’d even had time to feed. “Ahhhhhh!” Beryl screamed as I flew through the air, spinning in slow motion, my mind a tangle of grief and memories. “Harold, oh Harold,” Beryl wailed to the man next to her, as I scurried back off the path. “There was a monster on me!”
As much as I tried, I could not forget this, even as I began this new and exciting chapter in my life with Ellie. Monster, I fumed, as I prepared to plunge my tiny head into the 31-year-old ass of my new best friend and blood bag. I am actually a really nice person, I reminded myself, as I inserted my feeding tube.
My body began to fill with the contents of hers. How interesting and horrible, to become one with another.
I sensed, through the stories told by her blood, that she was recently diagnosed with arthritis by an orthopedist who told her to never stop living her life on account of this new condition, and that she went back a month later for further imaging tests and was seen by a new doctor, who said “So, he was temporary” and “You do not have arthritis.”
Days passed. I grew larger and more sated, but felt less like myself.
I learned that Ellie sometimes practices conversations ahead of time when she is especially nervous about them, and that they are always weirder because she has done that. I learned that Ellie has read the first 30 pages of 12 books and continually bounces between them, achieving nothing. I also learned that Ellie recently had to get an ultrasound due to a persistent pain in her abdomen, and that it turned out to be literally gas, and that the ultrasound technician pointed to the image to show her all the gas swooshing around, which looked like a heavenly light shining down on her organs. I learned that she found this a little bit profound.
By day four, I was over it. I’d grown bored of this random woman’s anxiety, I looked like Veruca Salt, and I was ready to die. We were in the shower together, and water was pouring down around us. Suddenly a hand was on me, and then I heard a scream. I sighed.
[Disclaimer: Ticks can be very bad for you, no offense to them. Is this even necessary to say? I’m not sure. But be careful out there!]