HERE, THERE & ELSEWHERE. Tick tock

When Bins and I are both in Elsewhere, one of our daily activities is to go for an evening walk. We always go to the huge cemetery nearby. Despite gravestones and brooding angels, it’s a great place for a walk. There are often other people there, walking their dogs. Sometimes there are canine parties in progress, with four or five friendly pooches galloping about, their tongues hanging out and happy grins on their furry faces.

We normally walk on the paved road that winds around the graves. But the other day, we crossed a patch of grass. As a result of this extremely brief exposure to Nature, I became host to an unwanted guest: A teeny, tiny, almost invisible tick. No doubt, at the time it climbed aboard, I wouldn’t have seen it or felt it in any way. They’re smaller than a mustard seed. And I am shortsighted. So even if I’d been looking directly at it, I would not have seen it.

What did happen though was that a day later, while showering, I felt a small, unfamiliar bump just behind my right ankle. I peered at it, in my shortsighted way, thinking it was probably a mole. I wondered how it was possible to acquire a small, dark brown growth so very abruptly. Naturally, my first thought was cancer: A bump, a lump and perhaps in a month from now I would be composing my own obituaries?

I dressed and called out to Bins. “Yoo-hoo! Guess what? I might have a tumour on my ankle. It must have grown overnight.” He frowned, saying, “Pooh! Not possible.” I hopped across the room to where he sat, with my foot extended forward. “See? A tumour.” Bins, who is not shortsighted, took one look, then took another look, then grabbed my foot and took a really close third look. “Ah,” he said. “Just as I suspected! It’s a tick.”

He was still holding my foot, so it was impossible for me to jump 10 ft in the air, even though that’s what I wanted to do. “A TICK!!!!!” I shrieked. “Aaaarghh! Get it off of me! Am I becoming a dog? Will I die of rabies? Let’s amputate my foot!!! Ooohhhh! I’m feeling thirsty — and that’s a sign of hydrophobia isn’t? Aaaaargh!!!” In case it isn’t very obvious let me just say: I have an extreme aversion to parasites. Maybe it’s because they’re drawn to me like iron filings to a magnet. If there’s a tick, a bedbug or a cat-flea anywhere in my vicinity, it will leap across the room just to attach itself to me.

“Cool down,” said Bins. “I think it’s a deer tick. So: Lyme’s disease. We must see a doctor! Come on.” Three hours later, I had a prescription for antibiotics and a tiny bottle with a dead tick inside it. It had grown to the size of a small raisin. “Aaaargh,” I said softly to the tiny corpse. “Goodnight and goodbye.”

Manjula Padmanabhan, author and artist, writes of her life in the fictional town of Elsewhere, US, in this weekly column

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