The Adventures of Tex & Blae-Lok – 7

© 2025

The sky suddenly grew dark  —  and very loud! Blae’s feet dug into my shoulder, quite hard. “Ouch.” I said aloud, involuntarily.

“Shut up, Tex!” Blae commanded. He didn’t just say it. It was most definitely a command.

I shut my mouth so tightly I thought I had welded my upper and lower teeth together. I was so scared, I thought my Yellow Submarine underwear was going to loose a torpedo. I could tell that Ringo’s face, pressed up against the glass of a porthole, had changed color to match the boat.

“Tex,” whispered Blae-Lok rather louder than a whisper should be, “will you please stop thinking of pee-stained Beatles!?” I swear I could see steam rising from Blae’s shell.

“Oh, Blae, I am so ..!” And suddenly my head was filled with an enormous SOUND! It was the loudest, most thunderous noise I had ever heard! I was so frightened I was sure the entire band was floating inside a lake of urine now. John, Paul, George and Ringo were all bright yellow corpses! And BOOOOM! That enormous sound grew even louder! I tried covering my ears, but since the sound was entirely mental, that did no good.

“Oh, my God!” I cried. I looked around and Blae was lying on his back on the ground next to me, unmoving. I was on my knees, shaking with fear. I could see that all of the tribe that had surrounded me had vanished somewhere into the forest. With a glance upward to the grassy knoll, I could just see part of King GooChi-GooChi. Like Blae, he was on his back. His legs were trembling violently. Finally, the enormous noise began to diminish.

“Oh, shit,” I thought. “I’ve killed them. I killed the King and I’ve killed B …B … Blae-Lok!” Tears began rolling down my cheeks,

Then I noticed the King was rocking from side to side. His legs were waving frantically, and six enormous June Bugs the size of dobermans swarmed the stage and rushed to their fallen leader. Two more of those huge bugs suddenly appeared to either side of me. With me on my knees, they were as tall as I.. (not the best time to be literarily correct,” I thought.) — and that gigantic sound exploded again! This time, I thought I could hear … a word! Or almost a word!

“AHHHHHHHH!” I heard, and thought, “Oh, God, he’s in terrible pain! Oh, hell, what have I done!” Next to me, I saw Blae shakily roll to his feet. “Wh, wha? What happened?” he said weakly.

“I killed the King!” I wailed. “Wahhhh!”

“STOP! STOP!” cried King GooChi-Goo-Chi. “Oh, please, please stop! AHHHHH! AHAAAA!, AHH AAAAHA!” and the King struggled to his feet, shaking.

“What? What’s going on?” asked Blae-Lok uncertainly.

I sniffed, blew my nose, and wiped the mess on my jeans. Then I managed to wail, “I killed the King. I killed you, too, Blae-Lok. You’re dead.”

“I am?” Blae replied meekly. I could see his feet touching himself for injuries. “I don’t see any blood, Tex. I think …”

BOOOOM!! That sound again! And the King fell off the mound, rolled up in a ball and headed straight toward me as he screamed, “AHHHHHHHH!” Oh, the poor King! He came to a stop in a cloud of dust and shredded grass, right in front of me.

“You! Hue-Man! AHAHAH! TEE-ECKS, THE HUE-MAN!” The King motioned to two more of those monstrous burly bugs and suddenly they were on me; as one, they grabbed me and lifted me high in the air — well, high for them; if I had tried, I could have dropped the four feet I was airborne and started running — but it did not occur to me that I had that option. I saw Bla-Lok weakly try to intervene, but he was no match for them, especially in his pathetic, wounded condition.

The Kings guards hoisted me above their heads and carried me, marching in lock-step to and up the mound. A much, much smaller June Bug watched from atop the mound and cowered in abject fear, I saw, for the pain and suffering I believed I would have to endure. Surely, they would not behead me or rip me to pieces in front of what must be some helpless, sweet bug child? Then, as the guards brought me closer, the tiny one leaped high into the air and landed on my head where it began to pound my skull! It was so small and weak I could scarcely feel it. Still …

“Tex?” I heard Blae whisper to me, “Tex, are you okay?” he said shakily.

“Noooo!” I whispered loudly. “Noooo, I am not! WAAAH!”

“AHHHHAHA!” the King cried again. “No More! No More! HAHAHA!” He shooed the tiny bug off my head, ignoring the blood I was sure gushed from the wounds on my scalp — but weren’t there at all. I patted my head but felt nothing there but tangled hair.

“Tex??” said Blae — and I could feel a smile in his voice! “Tex, it’s okay. It’s OKAY!” Blae then shot to his feet and did an impromptu jig! “It’s okay, it’s okay, you’re okay! Hahaha!” Then he popped out his wings and flew up to where I lay sprawled upon the ground with a teeny child bug jumping up and down in front of me while it made whirring sounds.

“Wh … what?” I said incredulously. “What?” My tears were quickly drying up.

“We’re going to be all right, Tex!” cried Blae. He did another short impromptu dance singing, “We’re okay, we’re okay, everything is gonna be FINE!!”

A smile began to form on my still trembling mouth. “I don’t understand, Blae. I thought … and then, that sound! That incredible BOOM I heard! What was that?”

Blae laughed again. “THAT, my friend, was King GooCh-GooChi laughing,  Tex!” 

“Laughing?” I said incredulously, “He was laughing?? I thought he was dying! I thought I had killed him!”

“Frankly, Tex, so had I,” said Blae. “But somehow …”

Then King G (I can’t keep typing all that), King G jumped up on the mound, took me by my left pant leg, and walked with me in tow to the head of the mound. “FRIENDS, FRIENDS, COME!” he bellowed in every creature’s mind. “COME MEET THE BRAVEST CREATURE IN THE FOREST!” he cried. “COME MEET THE GREAT TEE-ECKS!” And slowly, June Bugs of all sizes and colors began reappearing on the grassy plain. By the many thousands they poured like a river from the trees, the rocks and the sky. The forest was abuzz with their sound as they returned to face their ruler — and to meet the great TEE-ECKS!

_____________________________________________________

Oh, what can I say? I’m now regarded far and wide as the bravest man in the forest — NO! The bravest creature in the forest! Haha! Oh, if only Lor …grrr could see me now! Why I bet …

“Excuse me, your lordship,” said Blae. And if a June Bug can be droll, Blae was being droll. “Harrumph, sire,” continued my droll friend, “the King wishes to know if you have finished supping so that we may get on with our business.”

“Okay, Blae, okay,” I grumped. Geeze, can’t be a hero for more than ten minutes around here. I gulped down another Ritz, and rose to trudge off to our audience with the King. To be fair, it hadn’t been ten minutes; it had been a full thirty minutes since King G had taken his leave of us to recuperate before our meeting proper would commence. The serious bout of laughter earlier had totally exhausted him so much that he had barely been able to finish off a huge helping of roast lettuce and garbanzo beans. I shuddered; just thinking about those beans made my nose hurt. I rose from the huge bed of grass and flowers that had been prepared for me by the King’s royal servants, and said, “Let’s roll, Blae. I am pleased.” I strutted beside my buggy friend from under the hastily prepared thatch-like canopy of hay and roses that had been prepared for me earlier. I stopped for a moment to admire the intricate craftsmanship that had been required to build it. “How did they create this so quickly?” I asked the air. Bla quickly snagged it and replied — again with superb drollness.

“They’ve had lot’s of practice, Tex. That’s all they do. That’s what they were created to do, their whole lives.”

I looked more closely at the work of these servants. “This is exquisite,” I said to anyone who might listen. “It would take humans at least a week or two to create something so intricately woven!”

“It is no thing,” I heard a tiny voice say, “a shade for you while you supped.”

“Well, hello,” I said brightly, looking around. “and who might you be? And where do you be?” I saw no one, or thing, except Blae-Lok.

“Here!” the tiny voice said. I looked down, then fell to my knees to see more clearly the very small creature before me. It was a June Bug not much larger than the winding knob of my old wristwatch, so small I would not have noticed it at all, but I could see now that it was beautiful! A June Bug that seemed to be made of gold, with jewels of red and blue stones, not carved or placed upon it, but part of its shell! It popped its wings, flew with a little “buzz” and landed on my nose.

I slowly rose to my feet, my hands on my hips. “Hi, who are you?” My eyes crossed but could not focus on this little thing. “Would you mind jumping to my finger? I cannot see you well like this. I raised my right hand to my nose. This seemingly bejeweled bug lightly leaped to my index finger. I rose it so as to focus clearly. “Ah, there you are!” I thought, then added, “And how beautiful you are! How should I address you?”

“I am Queen Poo-Tee,” said the very tiny June Bug.

I was startled. “What?” I exclaimed, “Did you say you are the Queen?! Really?” I was astounded. Blae quickly rushed to my side.

“Queen Poo-Tee!” Blae said” with quiet reverence. “I, uh, that is, we are so very honored to be in your presence.” He bowed several times to the tiny monarch.

“It is nothing, Sir Blae-Lok.” “Sir?” I thought. Has Blae been holding out on me? Is he bug royalty? Blae heard my thought and shot me a dirty look. And a dirty bug look was much dirtier than the normal one we humans use with each other. No, this was like being hit between the eyes with a big glob of you-know-what and having it drip down on your nose! Now that was a dirty look! But I had no idea why Blae was smacking me with a glob of poop. I queried him with a stout, “What the f…udge, Sir Blae!”

“Yes, Sir Blae,” said the Queen haughtily, “”Why dost thou smack your gallant compandium with a poopy … thing between his see holes?” The Queen was trying very hard to use thought speech with er, tortuous  success — which is much more success than any other female June Bug, who were completely unable to do so at all. Her royal genes gained a bit of a brain boost from using large amounts of fooch. Unfortunately, it had side effects, like mangled thought speech and body shrinkage. Before fooch, she was only slightly on the small side, Now she was on the verge of disappearing completely. She didn’t seem to mind.

“I apologize, my Queen,” said Blae, subserviently, “but the King is waiting for us.” He bowed several times while saying this and twice more when he finished. But his interjection had the desired effect, and soon we were on our way.

King G’s royal chamber had been hastily constructed, but it still proclaimed “royalty” at every turn. The thatch-like covered room was built from spun pulp from paper which had been “rescued” from a nearby paper mill that would never miss it; they had a brief “June Bug invasion” a month earlier during which about ten pounds of paper had gone missing. Not a big enough loss for the company to even put on their books, but a godsend for the JBs. Their worker bugs were able to “deconstruct” the paper to pulp and use that as an effective building material. They had been doing this for many years and had it down to a science. 

Blae and I were ushered into a rather ornate chamber built entirely from pulp which had been decorated with flowers, leaves, and long grasses intertwined in such a way as to create rope used for both binding and decoration. They found King G sprawled upon a sturdy paper throne that was almost as strong as steel yet was flexible and even warm to the touch. Grass had been woven and used for intricate decoration of his throne. The King welcomed them warmly and urged them to dispense with formalities and assume the more relaxed roles of longtime friends. Blae and I both welcomed this boon and I, at least, felt a great weight lift from my mind. The King had ordered “refreshments,” and a variety of drinks and little balls of something made from a variety of plants and juices. The drinks were much too sweet for my taste, but the King had a big surprise for me: four mid-sized JBs appeared carting a bottle laid lengthwise on a grass rope net between them. The label on the bottle bore the unusual name of a Texas beer which I will not name for fear I might be promoting alcoholic drink.

“How ‘bout a Bud?” said the King, with a big mental grin. King G, of course, can promote any damn thing he wants, but since he couldn’t read English he had no idea that the label read, “Karbach Hopadillo,” with which I was not familiar. But then, I’m not much of a drinker. The beer was okay, and by the time I had downed half of it, I had a pretty good buzz on.

There was a bit of banter about “women” and the usual joking around what to do with the kids during molting season, then we finally got to the real reason I had been brought there.

“Tee-Ecks, said King G, you may know a little bit about the origin of our species, and I know that Blae-Lok has provided you with information on how we discovered fooch, the miracle of our rise to the top of the food chain. But the real truth is that it was a small band of early Tee-Ecks-Ass Hue-Mans — your ancestors, no doubt, for you bear their name! — who introduced us to fooch.”

(I became uncomfortable at this and started to interject a salient point, but Blae bit me on my shoulder, where he had been sitting, and loud whispered me to “NONONO! SHUT UP!”)

“By the way, you are much larger than they were, Tee-Ecks. The effects of fooch on them, no doubt. They saw,” said the King, “that we were slowly dying, withering away in the blazing sun of Central Tee-Ecks-ass during the last months of a too terrible drought that wiped out almost every animal and plant species in the land.” He climbed down from his throne and paced the floor slowly. Finally, he stopped and continued his obviously well practiced speech. It was easy to see he had been coversing by thought for a long time.

“These last survivors of the Great Tee-Ecks-Ass Death of Animals and Plants led us through a maze of caves and tunnels that wound deep below the burned up plains and hills of Central Tee-Ecks-Ass, caring for us all the way, bathing us in strange cool sparkling water that reinvigorated us enough to continue this rough journey; at last, we arrived at a small bubbling pond and a stream that fed into it; the vegetation around this pool and the banks of the stream were lush and green. The pond was filled with numerous types of fishes, frogs, salamanders and other animals, many of which had also been saved by your people, Tee-Ecks.”

I looked sideways at Blae, wanting desperately to say something, but he again bade me to be silent with a mental, “UHNT-UH, TEX, UHNT-UH!”

END CHAPTER SEVEN