The Adventures of Tex & Blae-Lok – 4

© 2025

“A very long time ago,” started Blae-Lok, “My grandfather and a few friends went out hunting for food. It had been a very bad year for Texas — or, the land that is Texas now. The land where we lived had suffered a terrible drought and there was little to eat. Those early forebears of mine finally ventured into a system of caves southwest of here close to where Hamilton Pool is now.”

“Oh, I know Hamilton Pool! Lorr…dybee and I used to go there years ago!” I smiled, remembering. Such a beautiful place! “There are species there found nowhere else in Texas!”

“Yes, I know.” said Blae-Lok sardonically. “May I continue?”

“Oh, sure, sure.” I still wore a goofy smile, thinking of my young wife and me picking our way down the long, rocky path between lush growth and the smell of a hundred different flowers, Lorr…labia leading the way with my eyes fixed on her ..

“Uh, Tex?” Said Blae-Lok, “”It won’t help, thinking about your wife’s a …”

“Okay, okay, okay, I’m here, it’s okay!” I said. “Heh, just a uh, …momentary blip in the matrix, that’s all!” I grinned at my little pal, “So, whatta we do now, huh?

“I tell you how it all started, Tex.”

“Really?” That brightened me right up. “Well, okay! Where do we begin?”

“Right here.”

—————————————————————

“Our fathers were on a hunt; children were dying in the dirt, undernourished mothers no longer could care for most of our tribe’s young. We were dying, pitifully.”

My eyes welled. I was always a sucker for stories like this. I clutched my elbows and sniffed. They always made me think of Bambi. Blae-Lok stopped for a moment and I felt a quick smile. I waved the back of my hand at him. “Please, continue,” I whispered tearfully.

“They smelled water and it drove them on. The hardiest of them turned back to fetch all who remained of us. On their return, clutching fragile grubs to their bellies, too exhausted to sing soothing lullabies to their own children, they struggled onward…”

I gurgled a little bit and pulled my knees closer.

Blae-Lok nodded. He understood. “It’s okay, ‘Tex.’” And I felt a grin from him. “So, the balance of our people, young, old, grubs and juveniles, struggled through near unbearable heat until they saw a dark cloud approach. They stopped, so weary, and let it envelope them. It was their brethren, Tex, flush and fat from pure, clean water — and something else, something new and wonderful.”

“What was it? I whispered, one hand clutching the other, knuckles white, my eyes like shiny quarters.

“It was fooch, Tex. Wonderful, magnificent fooch!”

I rolled the word around my tongue, trying to taste it for myself. “FOOOOCH. But what is ‘fooch,’ Blae-Lok? You said this word before, when Porky lay on my table!”

I felt, for the first time, something uncomfortable in the air, a bit dark and … purple?

Blae-Lok shifted slightly and his wings vibrated a low, bass sound I hadn’t heard him make before. I had a question in my head — and then I didn’t… I turned, ashen, and looked at this alien friend of mine and tried to smile. I couldn’t.

“I’m sorry, Tex, said Blae-Lok. I felt him make a heavy, deep mental sigh. You cannot fathom that without feeling it yourself. It told me he was being genuine, It told me this was truly a friend who wanted to be completely truthful with me but who was being limited by those above him in his buggy kingdom. “I’m not at liberty to go into that yet.” I felt him shrug. “We don’t know, Tex. The fooch came from somewhere deep in a now long destroyed cave. But its smell lives in memory and helps us find it when we need it, in remarkable places that are not always the same places.”

I sat up straight. “But that doesn’t make sense.” I struggled with that thought, and Blae-Lok paused, not trying to help me with it until, finally, I felt him laugh. “You don’t know, Blae-Lok, do you? Not what it is, how it works, where it is or will be, nothing.” I shook my head. “Dang. But tell me, what happened next?”

“Our forebears tended to our remaining members where they found them. A constant cloud of the restored flew in slow circles above them, offering shade from the brutal sun above and warning off the hungry predators that surrounded them.”

“They could do that?” I said amazed. “Incredible. “Can you do that still?”

“How do you think we’ve lived this long? We die now only through accident. Or by willing death to come.”

My mouth was agape. “Willing it?! But why? To live … forever … would be so…” I whispered.

Blae-Lok nodded. “History is heavy, Tex.” And suddenly I could feel that weight. A crushing, awful weight. It lasted only moments, then was gone, but I had seen. In the end, it was simple: Too many ingredients spoil the soup. And life was the soup. Now, why can’t people share this way, this quickly, perfectly? I thought.

“You’ve got it, Tex. Now let me tell you what we’ve become.”

“Oh, please!” I said. “I love soup.”

If Blae-Lok could, he was squinting at me, but my head just wasn’t the same. I knew I was a kind of goofy guy. I always had been. But with Blae-Lok, I found myself feeling … smarter, more … self assured. I knew it was because he was messing with my brain, but … I really didn’t mind. Then my head would clear, like the sudden lifting of a hangover, and my old, weird self was back. Like I suddenly was, and I was both scared and fascinated. I needed to sit dow… — and Blae-Lok was flapping his wings real s l o w in front of my left eye and I didn blame him ….

“Tex,” said Blae-Lok, “I think we may be moving too fast.” He hovered back and forth between my eyes until they crossed and I saw four of him, and he stuck out his tongues at me, all of them, while looking at me closely. “You need a good night’s rest, Tex. Why don’t you go back to the house. Have a good snuggle with Lorr….aine. We’ll start fresh in the morning.

“Okaaay. I am kina tireeee …um.” Then that big ol moon came smiling down through the stars and the trees and said hello to the squirrels who were dancing with Morty on my crotch and Mr Mooon said CRAHNNNNGHHHHhh

—————————————————————————–

“Oh, hi, everybody. Sorry I uh, “left early” last night. I wasn’t feeling quite myself. It’s still a little early, so I’m going to have a couple quarts of coffee, then I’ll meet you down by the ol …”

“Randy!” my wife screamed, “who the hell are you talking to? I’ve been waiting for you to wake up for hours now, and I come in here and find you still lying in bed and talking to the air! What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Uh, Lor …wrecka, I really …”

“Damn it, STOP CALLING ME THOSE STUPID NAMES!” she paused, breathing hard. “I’ve been playing along with your stupid game for weeks now! All those stupid people coming by and peeking in our stupid windows just to listen to those stupid stories you’ve been telling them, and I’m stupid tired of it! AHHHHHKKK!” Boy was she mad. I wasn’t sure what to do. I knew she was waiting for me to reply, just so she cou….Ohhhh, wait a minute! I slid out of the bed and hustled over to the bedroom window, the one that looked out over my private yacht club. I opened the window.

“Randy! What are you doing now! If you jump into my flower bed again and trample my four o’clocks, I’m gonna …!”

“Hey, Blae-Lok!” I yelled, are you out there?”

“Right here, Tex,” he said. I looked down to see him perched on the windowsill. “I’ve just been enjoying the morning sun while waiting for you to rise. I was just about to give you a wake-up call.” He flew into the room and landed on my shoulder. “Say, you’re not going to wear those pajamas again, are you? I had hoped for something more formal, for the occasion. You know, like jeans, maybe. Or a kilt, perhaps.” From the corner of my eye I could see Lorr …alee was trying out her synchronized mouthtrap routine. Her sweet puss was opening and closing like a garage door with a haywire controller stuck on double-time.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” I said calmly as I crossed to her. Her eyes were fixed on my tiny companion, and they grew larger with each step I took toward her. She knew that I knew she was terrified of bugs of all kind — so Blae-Lok knew it, too. I stopped in front of her and looked down at my friend, who was flexing his wings in a sure sign of dominance while doing some kind of dance on the large freckle that lived on my collar bone. I thought for a moment he would do a Michael Jackson imitation and walk backward to the end of my shoulder, but it appeared he was satisfied with just scaring the poop out of her. No need to send her screaming to the psych ward. “He’s a friend, baby,” I said in a quiet, calm voice. “Really. And I’m going to go on a little trip with him on a very important mission. Okay?”

She turned white, then whirled around in one swift motion that propelled her screaming from the room and all the way down the hall, and the stairs, and out the front door. Then realizing she was outside where bugs lived, she ran back in, still screaming, and vamoosed into her sewing room where she had many sharp instruments capable of buggy destruction, like sewing needles.

“I might have handled that better.” I said.

“Me, too.” said Blae-Lok. “But I admit I was entertained. Has she ever done opera?” I shook my head. “Pity. She could have had a real future there.”

“Mmmm,” I nodded. “Could be. “She did Pirates of Penzance once. She still knows all the words to, ‘I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General.’”

“Really?” said Blae-Lok. “But that was Stanley’s song. He’s a male.”

“It was in Junior High School. No one else in her class — or any class — could sing it. Just her,” I sighed. She still does, at least once or twice a year.” I did not say it happily.

“Ouch,” said Blae-Lok. I felt a mental head shake.

I looked down at him, realizing what we had been discussing. “You know musical theater?” I asked, very surprised.

“Hey, I told you I’ve been around a very long time. I saw it on Broadway, from the orchestra pit.” My eyes widened. “Why not? I get in for free.”

“That’s quite a distance from here, Blae-Lok”

“When time is long,” said my friend, “distance is short.”

“Uhuh.” We paused a moment, and I sighed. In our silence, we could hear loud crashing noises coming from downstairs. I looked at Blae-Lok and said, “We had better get going before she comes up here with her machine gun.” I could feel he was startled at that.

“She has a …!”

“No! I’m surprised you didn’t catch that.”

“Came too fast, Tex. Things like that, said off the cuff, can catch me by surprise, then reality catches up. So you can fool me for a moment, but not for long.”

“Good to know. But we had best be careful. By the time we return, she could easily have a machine gun.” He looked at me and we both burst into laughter. Then I quickly dressed, my best jeans and an old Pink Floyd tee that Blae-Lok swore would go over splendidly with June Bugs of all ages. I grinned at him and packed my cell phone — for “emergencies,” ya know?

As I strolled away with the morning sun at my back and a large Bug on my shoulder, we could still hear Lorzilla screaming obscenities behind us. I had not been this happy in years. Oh, I knew my lovely, adorable wife would get over all of this eventually, I knew she loved me and vice versa, but damn, it was good to feel like I was in charge for a change! Then I thought about what I was doing, where I was going, and a chill ran through me. I couldn’t help but wonder just what I would find when we reached Blae-Lok’s tribe. He told me that they had been moving northeast toward us, to make the trip easier for me. I appreciated that because I am not much of a walker. I bought expensive new plush tennis shoes for this trip and paid the paperboy $20.00 to break them in. My idea of a good long ramble is writing around a long paragraph to reach a funny conclusion. Well, Blae-Lok thought it was funny.

And, we’re off!

END CHAPTER FOUR