The Secret - Chapter ThreeA Chapter by FlatDaddy The continuing adventures of Tex and his very strange friends. Enjoy!
The Secret _____________________________________________________
Chapter Three
Blae-Lok had told me it would be a long journey, so I prepared a knapsack with a few extra clothes, some toiletries and other minor provisions -- like snacks. I didn’t know what June Bugs ate, but I didn’t think I wanted to try it. Hey, I get nauseous just smelling broccoli and have to run for the toilet if someone drops a clump of brussel sprouts on my plate! Bug food? Oh, no no no! I had some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, some packs of Ritz crackers and some bubble gum to keep me happy. We walked out the door and I headed for my silver Honda hatchback with Blae-Lok perched on my left shoulder. When I pulled out my keys and reached for the door, Blae-Lok said, “Tex, what are you doing?”
“Uh, opening the car door, Blae-Lok. It’s easier to get in that way.”
“We won’t need your car, Tex.” I felt him smile. But it was a different kind of smile, one I had not felt before.
“Oh, no, my friend,” I bristled. “I told you that I am not a walker. Plus, you told me it wouldn’t take that long, so I figured your people were camped out somewhere just a quick car ride away. If that’s not the case, well, we had better …” Then I stopped. A weird cloud had appeared on the horizon, dark and foreboding. It topped the far ridge and seemed to slide with a quick, easy grace just above the ground; as it grew closer, it shimmered in hues of green and blue and red, tinged in some darker color … brown perhaps, or …” and my eyes widened. A light “buzz” accompanied this “whatever” and fear rose in me like a living thing. The buzz grew to a deep thrum, and the cloud of colors coalesced into an enormous mass of June Bugs! I opened my mouth to scream when I was suddenly covered in calm. A physical calm that draped over me and in me, and I heard Blae-Lok, deep, deep in my head.
“Everything is okay, Tex,” I heard him say. “There is nothing to be afraid of. These are friends, Tex. My friends, and now they are your friends, too.” I smiled. I needed more friends. Lor ...whatever was constantly telling me to get out and make some new friends. But I don’t think she would like it if I brought this bunch home for punch and pinochle. That image made me smile more, and I could feel Blae-Lok laugh.
Something tightened around me, gently pinning my arms to my side. “Oh, a hug,” I said. My grandmother had been a great hugger, but these guys were running a close second. “Oooo, that’s nice, I said. “Do I get a cookie, too?” Momma Mae made the best cookies.
“No cookies, Tex.” I heard my old buddy Blae-Lok say. “Maybe later.”
“Okay, Blae.” I said. “Have you met my grandmother? She likes bugs. She told me once that when she was a little girl, they had to eat bugs sometimes, and she liked ‘em.”
“I don’t think I’d like your grandmother, Tex. Now how about you just relax and take a little nap. We’re going to go for a ride now.”
I felt myself being lifted off the ground, like I was in a very small, tight elevator. And then ...>snooooore!<
_____________________________________________________
When I awoke, I lay flat on my back on something very soft that smelled like newmown grass. I opened my eyes and saw I was in a huge bubble of stars, more stars than I had seen since I was a child in Waco, watching them from the roof of my house on North 11th Street. “Wow,” I said. You’ve probably noticed I say that a lot. I heard an odd noise and turned my head to the right and saw an army of June Bugs staring at me. “Yie yie yiee!” I shouted aloud, and jerked to a sitting position. I had started to say,“Yikes,” another favorite word of mine, but it’s a leftover from my childhood that makes me seem … childish. So I stifled it and retreated to an old favorite.
“Wow!” I deserved to say that a million times. I slowly looked around. I was surrounded by June Bugs. June Bugs of every stripe (and some were striped!) and color. Some were the familiar brown, but others were green, or multicolored with an iridescent sheen. Some even had a kind of light brown fur sticking out all around the bottom of their shells. Most of them were a bit over an inch long, some as much as two -- but later I would see the “big guys” -- hunters and army guys more than three inches long who must have weighed a pound! In their natural armor, they looked like they could have picked up my Honda and thrown it over my house. Big Boys, yes siree!
“Uh, hello” I squeaked. I even gave them a tiny wave. None said a word or made a sound of any kind or even flinched. I was beginning to think I was in a very strange dream -- but I wasn’t afraid at all, which is what made the dream so weird. Then the calming voice of my old friend Blae-Lok came into my head.
“Have a nice rest, Tex?” asked Blae-Lok. And his voice sounded a lot like Walter Cronkite, a great newscaster from the old days who I had watched many times deliver good, bad, old, and funny news in the same, sane voice of reason that he always used to paint the news. I saw movement to my left, and saw Blae-Lok perched upon my shoulder.
“You should change your name to Walter,” I told him.
“Wal-der is my third cousin,” he replied.
“You sure have a lot of numbers in your family.”
“We have a large family, Tex.”
I glanced around. “So I see. These all yours?” I whispered, “There must be a thousand surrounding me.”
“Oh, some are family, other are colleagues, friends, you know. Everyone is curious. And there are twenty-eight thousand, four hundred and twenty of them here.”
”420?” I said, and laughed. “Now, that makes sense.” Bla-Lok seemed puzzled, especially when I added, “Is this a joint effort? Har har!” Now he was just confused and I felt I had jabbed his brain enough. “Sorry, sorry.,” and waved a hand in a dismissive gesture.
“28,000, huh?” I leaned over to whisper very quietly, “Are you sure these aren’t statues? Not a one of them has stirred since I woke up.”
“We don’t feel the need to move around if it isn’t necessary, Tex.” He waved a mental hand at them. “They can all hear everything we say, Tex. If we want them to. And for now, we do.”
“And they all understand English?” I asked incredulously. Blae-Lok laughed.
“We’re not speaking English, Tex. You are hearing and speaking English. Because that is your language, I am speaking and hearing ‘Junie.’ Actually, Tex, neither of us are speaking any language at all.”
“Huh?” This was far beyond me now. I heard the opening refrain for that old sci-fi series, “The Twilight Zone” playing in the background.
“I don’t get it, Blae.” He took the shortened version of his name in stride, but was curious. It was the second time I had said it. I could see him file it away for another conversation later.
“Tex, in order to say something, you first must conceptualize it.” He saw my brow furrow like a newly plowed field. “Look. Let’s say you want to say ‘bird.’ Before you can say it you have to know what you’re going to say, right?” I nodded. So far so good. “Okay,” he continued, “so you see ‘bird’ in your head before you ever say it.” I nodded again. “The concept of ‘bird’ triggers the word you say. But I don’t hear the word, because you haven’t really said it, except to yourself.” My eyes began to glaze. Blae continued, undaunted.
“You have thought the concept to me, Tex. And not just any bird, the exact bird that you saw: crow, hummingbird, whatever! That concept of ‘bird’ in my brain is the duplicate of yours and I call it ‘bird’ in my language. Concept to language, language to concept, and back to language. That is the chain that creates understanding. Got it?” And “Boing!” The light flickers and then shines brightly.
“Ohhhhh!” I said. Then I paused and said (you got it) “Wow!”
“Wow,” said Blae-Lok, “indeed. Tell me, how are you feeling, “T?”
I grinned widely. “Well, I’m feeling pretty good, Blae.”
“So tell me, T, what’s the deal with the shortened versions of our names? I don’t pick that up from you when you do it.”
“Oh, it has nothing to do with the saying of your name, ‘Blae,’ old buddy. It’s just harder to type; it takes more time, and this is a long story.” Ol’ Blae seemed puzzled. I was impressed, and laughed. “Don’t worry, Blae-Lok. I don’t think you will understand this time. Maybe when all is said and done.
“Wow,” said Blae, and it was, indeed easier. I was proud of him for the way he said ‘Wow,’ too. It sounded very natural. Then I looked around at all the June Bug statues. They still had not moved so much as a whisker, if they had any. I tried to see if the ones nearest me did, but failed to find any facial hair, and for a moment I saw, in my head, a huge June Bug standing in front of my bathroom mirror, all lathered up with a straight razor in one, uh, claw? He gave a quick swipe and whipped shaving cream all over the mirror. I felt a “Whaaat?” from Blae, and laughed. This was becoming a fun outing. And I had been worried about it!
“What was that all about?” Blae asked.
I laughed again. “Let it go, my friend. I don’t think I could explain it.” And I giggled a little. He sighed, and I felt his resignation, with a hint of, “I’ll ask him later.”
“Okay, T,” time to get up we have a lot to do.”
“Okay, Blae. Hey, that makes a nice rhyme, ‘okay, Blae, whaddaya say? Today’s the day!”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, that’s it! Get into it, my fr …” but he cut me off.
“Tex?” he quizzed softly, “are you alright?
“What? Of course! In fact, I’m feeling quite well. Very rested. Why?” He looked at me strangely -- if he could do that. But I felt the strangeness in my head, overlapping his question. It was a curious feeling, but I think it meant I was really getting a handle on this method of talking. “I don’t think I can explain it, Blae. It’s a human thing. If you don’t get it now, you may never get it. But that’s alright. It’s nothing to worry about.” I felt him sigh.
“Well,” (with a mental shrug), “it appears you are mentally and physically ‘Tex,’” he said. “So get up, we have much to do and see.”
“Well, all right!” I was eager for this! I had been looking forward to it with a combination of curiosity, happiness and fear. I stood and glanced around.
“Wow!” Now that I had the view of a taller man, I could see beyond the small group of bugs that had encircled me. Blae-Lok wasn’t kidding. I knew he couldn’t do that, but still … and without thinking, I pursed my lips and made a short, admiring whistle, sorta like, “woo, hoo!” and all hell broke loose! All the “JBs” around me jumped and burst into flying, crawling and scuttling bugs! I heard a loud, horrible scream in my head -- and some of it in my ears -- that went along with a lot of scrabbling, buzzing and wing flapping. Naturally, I fell to the ground, hands clapped tightly over my ears, and curled into a ball smaller than the right eye of a gnat.
“Tex!” Blae-Lok yelled. I barely heard him over the great kerfuffle. “Did you do that?!” He must have heard me mentally nod. “WHY DID YOU DO THAT?”
“It was just a tiny whistle!” I tried to think it meekly, but I’m not sure the meek part got through. I heard Blae-Lok make a kind of physical growl. We both paused to let all the commotion subside. I always wondered what the term “pregnant silence” meant, and I found out at last. It was what you get just before you have an ugly baby. Blae-Lok just had one, in his brain. I saw it, and it looked like me, all feathered and screaming.
“Oh, come on, Blae! I didn’t mean anything! Geez Louise!” A long silence washed over us, then Blae spoke softly.
“Loo-Eese” is my 5th child, T.” He was much calmer now. I tilted up my head and looked around. We were very much alone. Blae must have seen it through my eyes, for he then said quietly, “Wow.” Another pause, and I started laughing, gently, then soon I was at full gale. I rolled onto my back, tears in my eyes. At last I could speak again.
“Do you have any ‘Ran-Dees?’” I asked.
“Eighth uncle,” said Blae. “Very Ug-Lee.” And we both howled.
After a while, I was able to rise again. I brushed off my jeans and looked around. Blae and I were alone. I turned to him. “I’m really sorry about that, Bl…” He waved me silent with an arm/foot/leg/whatever.
“That’s okay, Tex. I know you meant well, but please don’t do that again.” He saw my puzzled look and continued, “Tex, your ‘whistle’ sounded exactly like the war cry of the Midnight Raptor.” That’s the word I am giving it, because, from Blae I saw only a fuzzy image of something flying, and no word came at all.
“Never heard of it,” I said.
“I do not see it in your head. We thought it was extinct. We watched it happen.” Blae felt my puzzlement and continued. “We had been at war with them years ago. They ate many of my people.”
I was silent, enthralled and aghast. “Eww, that’s terrible! What did you do?” Blae threw a big grin at me. I deftly caught it with my fore-brain (oh, come on, I’m trying to write smarter here! Geez).
“We did what any intelligent species would do, Tex.” He paused for effect. Blae had obviously mastered talking to people now. Or at least to me. “We killed them, Tex. We killed all of them.”
“All?” I whispered. I felt myself go ashen.
“Oh, hell, no, T, those things are big and fast and scary! We ran, crawled, dug, and flew for our lives! That was in Arizona about two hundred years ago -- or maybe twenty. We’ve never had a great concept of time. Didn’t need to. Things were much simpler before fooch.
“Well, how do you know about it?” I said.
“We have always had mental connections with each other, Tex. We just weren’t aware of it, but it was there and we used it -- still do -- to pass along anything the tribe might need to know. Each of us passes those memories along to our progeny. We all have memories of the dreaded Midnight Raptor.” I felt a shudder and shared it with him. Then I had another thought.
“Wait a minute! You just lied to me, Blae! About all those raptor things! I thought you couldn’t do that!”
“No, we just never had reason to lie, T,” my little friend said with a cocky mental grin, “Then I learned how. From you, Tex. I learned how to lie from you. Thank you. This may be a great gift to all of us.”
“Oh. My. God!” I whispered. I leaped to my feet. Then dropped to my hands and knees and peered closely at my hard-shelled friend. “Blae, please, listen to me now, more than you ever have listened before: DO NOT TEACH THAT TO YOUR PEOPLE!!” I had not been truly scared before, but I was now. “Please, Blae, you will regret that more than anything that has ever been done in your history! Please, do NOT teach your people how to lie!” I felt him look at me oddly. Then I swear I could feel a very slight “crackle” roll through my head. I even saw a small white flash sparkle past my eyes. Blae-Lok felt it, too. He had caused it.
After a long pause, Blae-Lok finally spoke: “Wow,” he said quietly.
“Wow, indeed.” said I. Then another pause, and I felt Blae-Lok nodding.
“I see,” Blae said quietly. Oh, Tex, I do see. Oh, my, you are right! I can never share this with the tribe. Never. Not Ever.” He paused, then added, “I shall never do that again.”
“Oh, good.” I sighed heavily. I felt much better. Of course, Blae could be lying now. He could tell everyone, ALL of his tribe, tell any one or any thing he wished. But I saw into Blae’s mind as he had seen into mine. He was horrified, and I was so glad it was me who had made him feel this horror. “Thank you, Blae-Lok.” I whispered.
“Thank you, Tex. And please,” he added, “call me Blae.” And there was that comforting smile again. “Now come, Tex. There is much to see and do. And you have people you must meet.”
“Great!” I liked the way he called his people “people.” It seemed to me that he was equating the members of his tribe with those of mine, and found them -- in the most important way -- equal. I felt great relief at that. “Okay, Blae, let’s get busy!”
We walked down the small rise we had been on, or I did the walking while Blae rode my shoulder (I had a quick moment when I saw him mounted upon me using a leather saddle just his size, then I quickly dismissed it; Blae saw it, too, and giggled in my mind). Now with a clear head, I saw that many of those who had run screaming from me before had come trickling back while Blae and I had been “conversing.” As they moved toward and beyond me, I could see by the mood they were “broadcasting” that they felt no fear nor anger toward me for what had occurred earlier. Everything was the same as before to them, as if nothing at all had happened, except now they were moving around. It soon became obvious that something Big was coming. Something Big was going to happen!
A “Thrum” began among the crowd and I could see the wings of every June Bug start to vibrate. A rush ran throughout the crowd -- and even through me -- and all turned toward a small mound at the end of the very large glade we were in. The thrum grew louder. Leaves on the surrounding trees began to vibrate, slowly at first then faster as the thrum grew louder. Even the trees themselves, and then the ground, began to vibrate and hum; this incredible sensation and sound moved up my legs, into my chest, my head and even my hair! “Oh my God!” I cried, trying not to do so loudly, but it would not have mattered. Every June Bug there was humming and clicking madly, thunderously. The trees around me began to shake violently!
I was thrown to the ground by the sheer violence of this, this whatever this was! My hands were clapped to my ears, tightly. And then it stopped. The silence that replaced it was almost as loud. There was just nothing, the most nothing I had ever known; never was there so much quiet. I was afraid to breathe, afraid to disturb that quiet. It was … religiously quiet. That’s the only way to describe it. Then something caught my eye, and simultaneously, I heard Blae whisper to me.
“Now we begin, Tex,” he said, “Look.” Two small dots flew slowly from beyond the hills to our south, over the trees to my right, and landed on that small hill at the end of the glade. Behind them came a dark, undulating cloud -- not like the one that had enveloped and carried me here, but a cloud, instead, very much like a murmeration of starlings. I know what that is because the little girl who lives in the estate next to ours -- okay, she’s our next door neighbor in another double-wide a lot like ours. Geeze. She told me all about them when we saw a flock of other birds do something similar early this spring. But the Starlings, she said, use something called, “scale-free correlation,” which is more complex than other murmerations. Hmmm. Now how in the hell do I remember that? I’ve never been able to remember stuff like that before. I looked sideways at Blae, who was bowing low on the ground next to me, facing the two newest members who now stood on their back legs and blew metaphorical kisses to the cheerily buzzing crowd. Again, I thought, “hmmmm.” I think somebody’s been feeding me words and I don’t know if I like it. Isn’t that right, Blaeee? I felt him peek over at me.
“Not now, Tex,” I felt.
“Yes, now!” I said through gritted mental teeth. “What the hell did you do to me, B?”
“You need more mental capacity for all of this, Tex. More ability. I gave it to you. Don’t ask how, I don’t know. I didn’t know I could, I just did it.”
I felt anger surge in me and I started to just let him have it! How dare he! Then I felt a sense of shame from him wash over me. “Oh, Tex, I am so sorry. I know I should have asked your permission, but it was not something I thought about. The need for it, the how for it, too, suddenly came to me. And without conscious thought, I just did it. I apologize, Tex. Please forgive me.”
I was flummoxed. A good word, I thought. And I knew. I knew Blae was right, but it didn’t mean I liked it. I felt as if I had been skinned alive, then given a new skin, and I was definitely not comfortable with the fit. I involuntarily shuddered. It didn’t help.
“There is a good side to it,” said Blae.
I cast him a wary eye.
“It will wear off.”
“It will?” I said brightly. Hmm, a little play on words there, I thought. I wouldn’t have done that a while ago. I sighed heavily. “Damn, Blae,” I said softly. “I, … I don’t ...know what to say.” My head was awhirl. Stop that! ‘awhirl’? Really? I told myself.
Blae’s sense of shame washed over him again -- and me again, and I joined him in it with my own. “Damn it, Blae, it is what it is, so let’s just both try to understand and accept it and get on with our business, okay?” We both gave a kind of mental shiver. “Okay, Tex,” said Blae, with more brightness in his voice. “Let’s do this.” We trod toward the new arrivals.
As we moved forward, Blae whispered,“All is said mentally, Tex, and all can hear unless we whisper and direct what we say to each other. Remember this. Conversations between you and me can remain private -- unless we are loud.”
“I’m whispering now, Blae,” I squeaked, “I’m too terrified to speak any louder.”
“You will need to speak more loudly when King GooChi-GooChi addressees you, Tex.” (Yes, that is his real name. How could I make that up? But I confess I snorted loudly when Blae said it. He threw me a dirty look -- which is very dirty indeed when it hits you smack in the medulla oblongata.) Then Blae continued, “I will speak first.”
“Oh, thank you for that,” I replied, and meant no sarcasm. “I have no idea of what to say.”
The closer we got to the front of the crowd, the quieter it became, physically and mentally. By the time we reached the front of the queue, the silence was total. Even the blades of grass in the enormous glade were afraid to move. When we arrived at the front of the assembly, King GooChi-GooChi (snicker), an impressive JB at least three inches in length, and two in width, stood on his hind legs and stepped slowly to the front of his royal mound; he looked down at us. Well, he looked down at all the others; I, on the other hand, was still a good six inches taller than this gigantic bug despite his raised grassy mound; feeling suddenly very awkward, and mentally nudged by Blae, I dropped to one knee and bowed my head. I wished I had worn a hat so I could take it off.
“We have a rare guest this day,” I heard, in the most basso profundo voice I can imagine. Blae had told me that their king had been preparing for this meeting for many days now and wanted to be sure to impress this representative of all mankind. He had, therefore, chosen this particular voice especially for its ‘Bigness.’ “Please welcome ‘Tee-Ecks the Hue-Man’ to our Shlooper!” he said, so loudly and deeply my toes rattled.
“Shlooper?” I whispered to Blae with a bit of a giggle. “Is he kidding?” I felt another giggle coming on but it was stopped by a sudden buzzing that had risen from the ground; growing louder by the second, it penetrated my shoes, crawled up my legs, and settled in my stomach, churning the remains of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich I had devoured just before Blae and I had left my house. “I think I’m going to be sick, Blae.” I whispered meekly.
“Don’t do that!” Blae whispered. He jumped to my shoulder and inserted some very dark and disturbing images that gave me strength to fight off the nausea. How the hell did he get those pictures of the President? I wondered.
The buzzing grew much louder as every bug in attendance -- fully two hundred thousand of them! -- beat their wings against their shells in three-quarter time. The air itself trembled and I gritted my teeth; a filling in one wisdom tooth wriggled loose and I spat it into my hand, looked at it as it jumped around in my palm, then put it into the watch pocket of my jeans.
“Yikes.” I said out loud -- at the exact moment the buzzing sound stopped. Blae was still on my shoulder, and I felt him cringe. “Oh, hell,” he whispered to me. “Oh, fooching hell!”
END CHAPTER THREE
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