A Tick is a Tick
Lice are one thing. And fleas, mosquitoes, gnats, horseflies, midges, that’s all the same thing. But ticks are another thing. A tick is something else, it has its own lore. It is true that there are worms that are also another thing but they are not the same as ticks, they disappear inside, and remain hidden. The thing that is different about your tick is that it is still there when you find out that you have been bitten. It is still in the act of sucking. It is not one of those who alight imperceptibly and then disappear again with nobody the wiser. It gets stuck in and commits for the long term. And sometimes, when you’ve already checked and declared the all clear, it turns up later. Sometimes it is still not there yet. It is still on its journey. You must tuck your trousers into your socks to prevent them. They are messengers from rodents and dear. Messages from other lifeforms that have also stood in this place. There are other rules about ticks. We have learnt that we must examine ourselves. We must remove ticks before 34 hours have past, or run the risk of Lyme’s. The bullseye weal that we wait three days to appear. We must turn it anti-clockwise to remove it. It is true that a flea is not going to win any beauty contest but a tick is something else again. When it has had its fill, it looks like a pea that has passed through a dog’s digestive system, unchewed. A pea extracted from a reheated curry sauce. A bluish distended, overcooked pea with helpless legs contentedly waving. Blake showed us the soul of a flea, a terrifying thing in another dimension, something towering over us in a parallel universe. But what does the soul of a tick resemble? It is strange but no matter how many boundaries we jump between universes, a tick is still always a tick. And no matter how many transcendent dimensions we pass through, the tick remains as it is. The tick’s karma neither advances nor regresses. It is there with the wound that it makes, waiting to be found deep in the hole of its doing. It is there with the disorders that it passes on. It is there and sometimes it is still not there yet. Sometimes, it is still on its journey. But, being perfect in its way, and its self never being displaced into another form means the tick, unlike the flea, has no use for a soul. The tick has no soul because the tick is a soul, and nor is it the soul of something else. A tick is the soul of itself, eternal and perfect.
