THE ADVENTURES OF FLEA

"No!" said Flea to Agneetha. "I am not coming up there this Friday night. You know I don't like to leave my patch here on the belly. I have all I need. Belly blood is the best... but hey, if you are coming all the way down from the neck, can you bring me some of that fresh aortic blood?"

“What will I carry it in?” asked Agneetha. “There ain't no bottle factory on this dog, you know. No, you wouldn't know anything beyond your own square inch, would you? Honestly I don't know why I bother with you! Except for that cute foreign looking ruff you have on your head which I wouldn't mind passing on to my kids - if you'd ever let me breed with you. But you're too young for that sort of thing though aren't you? Yes, block your ears! It's all food and sleep isn't it? Typical boy. Ok, I 'm off. Keep it real, Flea.”

Flea was relieved when Agneetha had gone. She was pretty... one of the cool she-fleas. And normal, which Flea liked. She pretended to want excitement and kept coming up with stupid ideas like going on excursions to different parts of Bazza, the scruffy old farm dog that both of them lived on. For kicks. To see the world - that sort of thing.

Flea was just waiting for this phase of hers to pass. He knew it was his responsibility to breed, to sire a bunch of little larvae, to actually leave Bazza and spend a little time rolling around in the dust leaving his brood to pass on his genes which had come all the way from central Europe and beyond. Flea didn't want to admit it to Agneetha, but this was his greatest fear. Just thinking about it – leaving Bazza – sent a shiver down his carapace. Some fleas never made it back to their hosts.

Not that there was much chance of this with Bazza, however. His habits were regular as fleas - eating sleeping, moving to some where warmer, darker. Bazza followed the warmth of the sun from the back porch to the dust bowl down by the letterbox or into the house by the fire in winter, the furthest he ever went unless dragged on a walk by his mistress Susan was to the neighbour's garden to crap on their lawn.

And of course there was his food bowl which Bazza checked seven hundred times a day. This was Bazza's favourite spot, a dog after Flea's own heart. If he ever did leave to breed, this would be his emergency return point. Wait by the food bowl and jump on Bazza's snout as he attacked his bowl of canned mush. That was Flea's contingency plan if he ever got separated. He thought about this a lot. Bazza was his home. Bazza was his meal ticket. Everything he lived for, food, and sleep, comfort and security.

Flea loved Bazza. And with that thought, he plunged his proboscis into Bazza and nodded off to sleep.

*

Rip! Jab! Snap! Flea awoke screaming from a nightmare, flying through the air. Or was this still the nightmare? He couldn't tell. Flea tried to pinch himself with one of his six legs, but they had locked into landing mode, which, in his spinning airborne position, he could do nothing about.

In slow motion, Flea watched his world turn upside down, that world being Bazza who was rolling about on his back, scratching himself vigorously with long unmanicured claws right in the place – Flea's square inch –where seconds before he had been sleeping . He seemed to be flying extraordinarily high. The view from these heights was amazing. Next to Bazza was Susan, sitting cross-legged on the floor, licking the edges of an old fashioned eggshell blue aerogramme. She paused in the licking to reprimand Bazza.

“Hey Flea bag,” said Susan. “Stop scratching. I gave you that lovely homeopathic remedy to ward off fleas last week. You shouldn't be scratching.” Susan believed that all life was precious, even that of a Flea. “Come on. Let's go for a lovely walk to the post office. I've written to Milan on one of Mum's old airletters. He doesn't have email yet over there in Kathmandu.”

Flea was now falling back towards earth. He passed the tip of her nose just as she said the word ‘Kathmandu'. It resonated painfully through each of the tiny ears that lined his legs. For a moment he thought he was going to land on her tongue, which had re-emerged from her mouth to add a little moisture to the last flap of the airletter. Thankfully she withdrew it in time to click her tongue at Bazza. Flea landed on the age-softened surface of the pleasantly-coloured airletter, thanking his lucky stars that he hadn't been swallowed alive.

He gripped the surface as best he could and remembered his contingency plan. Get To The Bowl. Just Get To The Bowl.

But there was no getting to The Bowl. Before he knew it, the top and bottom of the letter were each sealed over the middle, followed by the edge-flaps. He spotted a chink of light in the corner and scrambled over to it just milliseconds short of Susan sealing over it with sticky tape. He was completely trapped in his eggshell blue prison.

“These air-letters are so old,” said Susan to Bazza. “I hope it makes it there in one piece.”