Virginia’s ‘Tick Town’ is not the first place I’ve visited that smells like blood. There was that field of flesh lilies with flaky white butterflies. The was Nebraska, I think. There was the waterfall in Connecticut that was legally required to allow public access to prove that the liquid cascading over the high cliffs above was not blood, despite it looking like blood and smelling like blood and producing a fine pink mist that tasted like blood. I read, recently, that they had to shut that waterfall down.
It was blood after all.
‘There is little doubt that humanity has wreaked havoc on the planet and there are a number of good people- of good scientists- doing hard work to recognize and mitigate that damage. Within that population, however, there are a few that take what is clear and run with it to unclear conclusions. This is likely true of the creators of ‘Tick Town,’ a couple of disgraced biologists that claim, generally, that man has stolen its blood from the ticks.’
They make you wear a tick-proof suit in ‘Tick Town’ despite several signs that indicate the ticks should be harmless, given how much blood exists “in its natural state.” The natural state of blood, according to ‘Tick Town,’ is in rivers and rain. Flowers are dewy with blood in tick town and blood pools in the cracked sidewalk like a cracked callus. There is so much blood that the ticks drown in it. They swell up like balloons and float around like contented tourists but even I can see they’re dead.
It’s hard to feel sorry for them, though. Even in such a miserable state.
I’ve chosen to avoid the peak hours of ‘Tick Town,’ when the owners arrive to give themselves over to the starving ticks, describing all the ways a visitor might accidentally let a few into the suits to join them, though also explaining that they are legally obliged to warn visitors against doing anything like that. They explain how easy and painless it is to be bitten by a tick- how little blood a tick actually consumes compared to the volume we carry around each day. It is a simple way to give back to nature, they tell you, and if that’s what they have to do to feel better about the world, then I’m happy to keep my judgement to myself.
Hector stays in the trailer for this one, as bloated and dependent as the ticks. As much a means to cope with the world, too. He would be happier in a home, I’m sure, with other tragic animals. But I need him and, as long as that’s true, he needs me too.
But people do what they have to, just to get by. It’s as true on the Wayside as it is anywhere.
-traveler
