The Adventures of Tex & Blae-Lok – 3

© 2025

It was a beautiful summer night in Austin, just a little warmer than usual for early June. A honeysuckle breeze made it almost perfect. A gazillion stars filled the sky and my way to my magnificent live oak tree was kindly lit by a huge full moon so bright you could spot the spots on an albino giraffe at 100 yards. I hummed a little bit of CSNY’s excellent song, “Our House” while I walked. It was mine and Lorr….padorps favorite.

“I like that piece of music,” Blae-Lok said as I arrived. “We sing it sometimes at our gatherings. It is not much to dance to, but it is pleasant to hear.” I looked around for him and he fluttered his wings to get my attention. Ah, there he was, sitting in the crook of my beautiful oak’s lowest branch; ten inches thick, it squirmed three feet above the grass for another ten before it twisted its rough bark skyward.

“Lorr… acoochi and I like to sit in that crook, holding hands, and stare at that fat Texas moon.” I absently caressed the rough branch with my left hand and lightly hummed a bit more of our song.

Blae-Lok followed my gaze upward. After a few moments, he asked quietly, “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” I agreed. “You should have seen her when she was young.“

‘I did”

“Mmm? You did what?”

“See her when she was young.”

That took me by surprise. I furrowed my brow and cocked my head at him. “How could you have done that?”

“This is where I was born, Tex. When I was just a grub, my brothers and I would play in her young tendrils, so soft and yielding …’’

“Whoa!” I yelled, leaping from the oak. I turned to him. “How dare you say that like that!”

Blae-Lok seemed surprised. His wings quivered and buzzed a little. “Well, I was just a grub then, and couldn’t see quite yet, but I could tell she was meant for greatness.”

“What kind of greatness, exactly?!” I shouted belligerently.

Everything stopped for a beat, then two. I stared at Blae-Lok like he was Martian — which he practically was, in an “alien” sense. Certainly, there had never been anything like him on Earth in the history of, history — as far as I knew,

I felt lightheaded. A low, light whooshing appeared in my head, at the back, close to my neck. I felt a push on my brain for two seconds, then it stopped and I heard laughing — inside my head!

“What the hell!” I yelled, then grabbed my skull with both hands and fell to my knees. What was that!?

Blae-Lok sighed. “That was me, Tex.” And I was calm. So very calm. Then I laughed. I understood now, completely.

“You were in my head.”

“Yes. You were misunderstanding me, and I you. The only way to fix it was to insert my mind into yours to find the problem and …”

“Fix it.” I said quietly. “You were talking about the oak, and I was talking about Lor … Lor …”

“Your wife. Yes. And now you know how we talk. We do it all in your head.”

“But I hear you so clearly! I can tell it comes from you, where you sit. I hear it directionally!

“Of course,” said my tiny, exceptional friend.

“But why?” I began.”

“Because we do not have another … oh, of course. We do it because we need your help — and you need ours.”

“Explain.” I was calm now. I accepted what my little friend had to say — almost completely. I could see the answer I wanted, it was there, hiding just behind his last answer, but it would not come out. Blae-Lok was stopping it.

“Why do you not wish me to view the complete answer to my question?” I said with no emotional attachment to my query.

I wanted to know, but didn’t care if he answered it or not. In my head I saw the contradiction in that. But in my heart it really didn’t matter. This method of talking was too hard for me. I shook my head and dropped to the ground in front of my oak. There had been a slight constant buzzing in my head that I hadn’t realized was there until now — because it faded away to nothing. I gasped and felt like my brain had been pulled out of my ears — one half to each ear, — then both halves had been thoroughly washed in some super brain detergent, hand-dried with rough burlap towels, then stuffed back through my ears and recombined by berserk squirrels with dull knitting needles. “Ow,” I said.

“I must apologize, Tex” said Blae-Lok, and our method of conversation was back to what had appeared as “normal.” I took a deep, satisfying breath. The warm Austin night air had never smelled so sweet, so clean.

“Wow,” I said as I raised my head to look at the sky. The moon was where it sat earlier, but it was brighter and glowed with a beautiful yellow blaze it never had before. “Wow.” At least my store of brilliant conversation was still intact.

“Wow,” indeed,” agreed Blae-Lok with an inferred smile.

“I can still feel you in there, Blae-Lok,” I said, “but it’s not the same.”

“No,” said Blae-Lok, “it is not. The beginning phase of Juning is over, the ‘churning,’ as we call it,.” He didn’t need to explain that. My hippocampic squirrels knew all about ‘churning.’

“Of course not. What’s the next phase called? ‘Screaming Madness?’” I was only half joking.

“You are such a funny guy.” said Blae-Lok. “No, it is called, ‘Joining.’ Does that ease your mind?”

“Do I have a choice? No, don’t answer. I can see — or feel — that It does not. But that’s okay. I’m actually looking forward to it now.” I was sure that Blae-Lok had flicked some brain switch that calmed me down, and perhaps did other things while he was in there. It sure felt that way, because I knew that the thought of his doing so should have made me run screaming to my house looking for an axe with a very sharp, bug-sized blade. Instead, I calmly said, “So, when do we begin this lovely adventure?”

“First,” my buggy puppet master said, “you must agree to our terms.”

“Terms?” There were terms? To meet a bunch of bugs? My understanding of the world was undergoing a bizarre change. I felt a little lightheaded and squatted on my beautiful Bermuda, cross-legged.

“Oh, yes,” said Blae-Lok. “Most certainly. You will be the first human to ever meet with us. You will learn our secrets and ways. So there are conditions that must be met.”

The entire world tilted on its axis for a moment and I felt myself falling. Luckily, I was already sitting, so I just fell backwards and stuck out my legs. My bunny slippers turned to each other and said something rude.

“Um,” I said quietly and thought, Am I ready for this? This sounds like a very somber affair. Then another thought popped into my head. I had a question for Blae-Lok I should have asked him much earlier but didn’t — and I wondered why. I gulped and loud whispered, “Uh, Blae-Lok, before we go any further….”

Blae-Lok sighed. He was expecting this, certainly. “What is it, Tex?”

I squirmed a little then suddenly leaped to my feet. I grabbed my butt with both hands and twisted my head around, trying to see my backside. “Oh, noooo!” I yelled. “I’m getting grass stains all over Rick and Morty!” I cried.

I heard laughing, buggy laughing, and I glanced at Blae-Lok with slitted eyes. “You don’t understand!”

Blae-Lok stiffled his glee. “No, I surely do not. But I can enjoy it. Hee hee.”

“Hey!” I said. You don’t understand! Why not? You know everything else, down to the hair color on my testicles and the place where my first girlfriend kissed me — and I don’t mean Saskatchewon! So why don’t you know that I don’t want grass stains on my PJs?”

“Oh, I do know that you don’t like it. What I don’t know is why.”

I slow strutted around, smirking a little smirk. “Sooo, the mighty, super intelligent mind reading bug has a problem with human humor, does he? Ha, ha, HA!”

“Do you? He asked, seriously.

“Of course! Of course, I do!” I huffed a little and blinked my eyes at him a few times. “But it’s … complicated. Uh, these are my favorite jammies, and uh, Rick, you see, is um … uh.” I paused. Hmm. “This is going to take some time, Blae-Lok, Why don’t we save this for later. I’ve got my own question. For you.”

Blae-Lok acquiesced by saying nothing.

I moved to sit on the wooden “swing” on the oak branch. “You mind?” I asked. “Rick wants to have a seat, Morty doesn’t mind. He’s still young and strong.” I waited to see what he thought of that, but he didn’t react at all except to say, “I don’t mind. It’s your tree.” But in my head I heard him more quietly say, “No, it isn’t.”

I knew what he meant (“Trees belong to everyone!”). I glared at him anyway. But enough of this. I moved to sit on MY BRANCH, and Blae-Lok rose and buzzed around me til he found a comfortable position on my knee. “Um, I know you talk in my head, not out loud. I’ve accepted that. But how did that start? Have you always been able to do that? And you’re not ‘plucking words from my head’ to use because you’ve said some words I’ve never heard before.”

“Not true, Tex. All those words and many many more are in your head. You just don’t recall ever hearing them, so of course you never use them. It’s simple really, Tex. I am not speaking to you. I am speaking with you.”

“Oh, of course. I knew that. You’re not talking to my head, you’re talking with it. And talking isn’t speaking, even when I hear you, because you’ve pulled up an easy chair somewhere behind my eyes and made yourself at home.” I paused a moment then turned to him.

“You didn’t talk to my wife, and it seems to me now that you can’t. Why is that?” My head was spinning, but I was on a roll now. I didn’t give him time to answer. I was pacing in the grass. “And have you always been able to do this? And when you …” I paused. I felt myself going pale, my eyes grew large and I slowly turned to him, then backed off several feet and looked up at my beautiful oak tree. It was in its glory, a mighty live oak that clearly towered eighty feet high, with gently gnarled branches that could easily hold a full dozen child-bearing forts.

“Blae-Lok,” I whispered, “you said that you knew this tree when it was young!” I felt him mentally nod. “But this tree is old, much older than me!. He brain-nodded again. I squatted before him, wanting to see him up close. “Blae-Lok, my friend, just how old are you?

“It is difficult to explain, Tex. “We ‘June Bugs,’ are the most highly evolved spe…”

“Yes, yes,” I said impatiently, “You said that before. Now how the f…udgesickle OLD” are you!?”

“I don’t know how old we are, Tex. None of us do. Time was not important to us until well after the change. And many of us did not survive it.”

“How old are YOU. Blae-Lok?” I may have spoken to him mentally, but I could feel myself yelling, too!

Blae-Lok sighed. “I am not sure, Tex. At least seventy years.”

“Seven …!” the rest of whatever I was going to say disappeared into the night air. “Oh, my God! I’m talking to a June Bug older than me!” My knees gave way and I irreverently sat down hard in my very young Bermuda. I heard Morty go “Ooof!”

”Did any of you ..”

“No, Tex,” We did not know George Washington. None of us did. We didn’t know anyone in the Revolutionary War, We didn’t know Lincoln, We didn’t really know any humans until fairly recently.”

“Why not?” I was a little disappointed. What a shame; there were a lot of things I would have liked to ask old Georgie. Like how he liked using wooden teeth and did the girls dig them when they french kissed.

“Tex,” said Blae-Lok before I could go off on another useless tangent, “why don’t I tell you the important things. Afterwards, you can ask all the stupid questions you like.”

I felt a little foolish, but moved back to my oak and sat once again in my favorite spot. It

made Rick sigh. And his breath was a little stinky.

End Chapter Three