The Rainbow Ticks of Ticketyboo Take Terra
Sequel to "The Rainbow Ticks of Ticketyboo"
Gibberish: Flash Fiction Friday - Sun-Ripe
April 4, 2025
Scoot’s Assignment: Write a short story about a new leader, including sun-ripened ruins, a character who is under arrest, and the sentence, “My story is over.”
Highlighted in FFF (April 18, 2025) 🤗
The Rainbow Ticks of Ticketyboo Take Terra
Sequel to “The Rainbow Ticks of Ticketyboo”
It’s been a long time since I met Stella, my first ticketyboo tick. Her bite introduced me to an amazing sense of well being that nothing else could achieve. In all those years since much has happened. While spreading the word of the Ticketeyboo, I managed to marry a wonderful woman, and together we raised a wonderful child, Susannah. Unfortunately, at this point, I am currently living in jail. Many people never could get over their fear of creepy crawlies, which is what led to my current predicament. I still feel ticketyboo, perfectly healthy, but I will soon be dying. I was found guilty of destroying the world, and am now awaiting my execution.
So how did this happen? I’d been allowing anyone who asked to take a walk through our tick infested forest, in search of an invigorating tick bite. Quite a few people jumped at the opportunity to achieve perfect health through one of Stella’s descendants. No, the bigger problem came about when my former buddy, Joe, decided that he wanted to make a mint. He always thought that I’d been sitting on a goldmine, and just lacked the wherewithal to leverage the resources into a profitable business. Yeah, I know he was right - I’d been giving them away, I figured they weren’t really mine to sell. After all, nature provides her wonders freely to all.
At any rate, Joe brought some of the ticks to his lab, where he began his experiments. Eventually he isolated a bacterium that he suspected to be the agent of the good health. But of course, he did not realize at the time that nature is generally a complicated beast... this he would learn later, when it was too late. He developed an injection, cutting out the middle tick, so to speak, and made a bundle. Tick-averse folks flocked to the pharmacies to be injected with Joe’s Rainbow Panacea. To be honest, it did seem to work... at first... and there were none of the glow-in-the-dark side effects that seemed to frighten people so.
But then the recipients of the injections began dying for no apparent cause... and people wanted justice. Joe took off for Switzerland to hide out with his money, leaving me behind to face the mob of dissatisfied customers. The ability to glow in the dark is kind of cool, but is a distinct disadvantage when trying to escape detection. We spent the nights hiding in the caves in the land we'd recently christened Ticketyboo.
The war was on. Our enemies tried to eradicate ticks by spraying the land with pesticides. Our ticks were unaffected, their metabolism easily handling the poisons. The other insects outside of Ticketeyboo weren't quite so fortunate. The fools completed their catastrophe in quick order: The pesticides failed to kill the ticks, but the bees and other pollinating species were wiped out. Without pollination, the plants were endangered as well, withering away without progeny. Without plants, the herbivores soon suffered, followed closely by the carnivores. The scavengers had a very good time for a while, until even the carrion was depleted. And with no other living things, the humans were doomed.
We needed to do something before the plague extended into Ticketeyboo territory. Realizing that there must be something more than a single bacterium causing the benefits, I decided to extract saliva directly from the ticks to inject into aphids. Once released, the infected aphids passed the Ticketeyboo bacteria on to the plants; the pollen of these plants’ flowers infected the bees and other pollinating insects, which then passed it along to other plants. Between the aphids and the ticks, all flora and fauna of Ticketyboo were eventually infected, rendering the plants resistant to herbicides, the insects resistant to pesticides, and the animals strong and healthy. Outside our little oasis, civilization had become a collection of sun-ripened ruins, but within the confines of Ticketyboo, everything was… well… ticketyboo.
The surviving humans were in trouble and required a scapegoat to pay for their plight. With the perfidious Joe hiding out in the Swiss Alps, I figured that I was the natural second choice. I finalized my plans to keep the recuperation of the world and its inhabitants rolling along and then passed on the control of Ticketyboo to my Susannah. I knew she'd learned enough to handle the job by now. Then I went out into the wide world to face my doom, leading the mob as far from our little haven as possible. I didn't want them to destroy our glowing garden of Eden, before Susannah got the chance to unleash the ticks of Ticketyboo upon the world. I knew that I'd taught her well; she would be a competent leader on this vital mission.
I wasn't eager to meet my end, but I knew the sacrifice was my duty: I slowly led the mob away from Ticketyboo. Because of my glow-in-the-dark tendencies, nighttime was the worst time to hide, but I could usually find some place. Eventually, however, there was no more cover, and one night they followed the glow emanating from my body and captured me. There was at least a trial, but I knew that both the verdict and sentence had already been decided.
So my story will soon be over. But for the world, a new chapter will soon begin, with a brighter future.
Thanks to
for encouraging me to write this sequel, and also for pointing out that it's difficult for one to hide if they glow in the dark… 🛸
Could be an allegory for our times...
The ability to glow in the dark is kind of cool, but is a distinct disadvantage when trying to escape detection...🤣
This is so funny reminds of Vonnegut.