The Conquering Flea
by Charles C. Cole
Belief in a superbeing is divisive, but hear me out. I write not of an omnipotent ruler who created everything and is perfect. No, I’m talking of a creature of the same magnitude to us as we are to moss. Is that so hard to conceive? And let’s say that creature toured our world in a manner undetectable to our senses.
In a moment, while it was exposed to our chaotic atmosphere, the wind or insects or loose dust caused it to brush at its irritated visual units, and a flake of sentient dandruff, something very close to human consciousness, fluttered down under the relentlessly driving force of gravity, where it landed on another head, smaller, less consequential. After a moment of panic, this undemanding lifeform felt a familiar, almost comforting existence, as it settled into the accepting tissues, at least at first.
Then, gradually, the visitor realized, in this world, if it so chose, it was much higher in the pecking order.
My first acknowledgement was naming it. This casual gesture became an identity, a boundary between it and all others. It was a drunken joke. I’d been laid off and lost my apartment on the same day. I was drinking in my parked car in my parents’ garage, feeling exceptionally sorry for myself. I smacked the rearview mirror and, suddenly, I was looking directly at an alien, unpleasant version of me: pitiable, red-rimmed eyes and hangdog expression.
Only it wasn’t me; it was the spirit of depression possessing my face. Hiram. Hi, for short. Sure, most have a dark side, but usually, in my experience, these shadowy entities are ashamed and shy. Not Hiram. “Go away, vile fiend!” I cursed. “You cannot have me!”
You petulant asshat, who’d want to? said a voice from a hideout so close to my ear it would be otherwise inaudible to anyone else.
I reacted: You hear me!
Indeed, and I should have ignored it. Instead, I said, ironically, “Fine. Welcome to the pity party, Hiram Hiccup Highgate.” Thus, he was christened. At that moment, a vague, persistent presence, something that had lingered like heartbreak, a moody miasma of the mind, became an unbidden roommate incapable of autonomy, full of contrary opinions and a gratuitously grating attitude.
Shampoo had no effect. Shaving my head made me look like a mental case. He was too small to isolate and remove with tweezers, with a personality the size of a mansion. He was as real as doubt, or the knowledge that Death is an eventuality, whether we want to admit it or not.
A typical conversation in the basement behind closed doors, where I rarely looked at my reflection, went like this:
“Hiram, buddy, it’s a big planet, at least for people like me. Go experience more of what’s out there. Collect all sorts of information. When the big fella comes wandering through on his return trip, you’ll have an excellent bargaining chip. If he takes you back, you’ll tell him all the juicy details of our earthbound civilization.”
“Puny humans,” he said.
“Small, yes, but complicated and endlessly entertaining, like you. I’ll take you to a bus terminal or the park or the mall. All you have to do is let go. Fate brought you to me to acquaint your wandering prince with another world, almost microscopic to him, to open his eyes and, perhaps, engender compassion for lives so small as to be almost invisible.”
“Or.”
“I douse gasoline on myself and escort you to oblivion.”
“Or.”
“I want to love again. I want to work again. I want to be a productive member of society. I want to get out from under the benevolent thumbs of my oppressive parents. But I know they’ll lock me up the first time I have a Socratic dialogue with the voice in my head. You may be a tiny cell from the greatest being the universe has ever experienced, but here you’re a roadside curio attraction.”
“I want to be more,” said Hiram.
“Exactly! And I want more for you. I’ve shared everything I can share. The sum of my wisdom could fill a thimble. All the information in the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution is but an afternoon distraction for the likes of you.”
“Take me there.”
“If you let go.”
“Who will walk me from exhibit to exhibit?” he asked.
“Any person of your choosing.”
“Will that be everything there is to know?”
“No, but a good start.”
And so, I took him. The day was blustery. The crowd was large and shoulder to shoulder.
“Stay away from the children. Focus on the individuals with some gray hair; they have seen much of what we have to offer.”
“I’m really going,” said Hiram. “Come back in a week. That should be plenty of time.”
“Of course,” I lied.
“I cannot say you’ve been a good friend,” he said then, “but you have opened my eyes. I’m thankful for the experience.”
“Ditto to you, oh mighty speck. You will not be forgotten.”
When I left him, the clouds parted, the birds whistled a comical operetta and the yummies from the parked parade of food trucks smelled like Great-Gamma’s home cooking. I was free.
At first, I worried. I watched the news with my fingernails tightly clamped between my teeth. What if his next host was more emotionally vulnerable with an axe to grind, access to weapons and a lifetime supply of aggression? But nothing happened. The world went on.
I took a position at a big-box retailer, reshelving during the overnight shift. My job let me sleep in the day without my parents nagging me.
One day, while jogging in the park, I noticed a towering cumulus in the shape of the lower legs of a strolling giant. I knew Hiram had changed me, his influence had allowed me to see the typically unseen and hear the unheard. Someday I’ll tell my new girlfriend about my former protégé, but not yet.
Copyright © 2023 by Charles C. Cole
