A Flash Memory Writing Prompt

I said I would try this year to put out some writing prompts. I’;ve been reading Peter Orner’s Still No Word From You, a collection of essays often inspired by books he’s reading, so in a fractured mirror or multi-layered memory where I’m prompted by something Orner’s written in response to something he’s reading: I give you—ticks.

Again, a memory involving my father.

I had a propensity to walk in the woods near our house (the woods was eventually plowed under for a highway bypass), and with all this walking I’d take a rest and lie down under the trees staring up at the sky or the underside of leaves. Later, at home in my bed after a shower trying to fall asleep, I might notice a lump behind my ear or attached to my skull. I’d go downstairs and there would be Dad reading by the light of a lamp or the glow of the TV—Hey, what’s this? I’d ask.

A tick.

This is before Lyme disease or the fear of catching anything from the bloodsucker. He’d get out his tweezers, maybe light a match to sterilize them, often not, and pull the little guy off. Hopefully all of him as even the bits left behind are still pervasive. “Were you lying down in the woods again?” I think we all knew the answer to this question.

The real question was why was Dad up? Where was Mom? Why just him in a circle of light all the other lights off?

He told me that ticks were hard to kill. You either had to hit them with a hammer (maybe I made this next bit up) or burn them in the flame of a candle. You couldn’t just smoosh them in a tissue and deposit them in the trash; they’d get out and come back to suck more blood. We disposed of the tick and I returned to my bed.

But, I return to the woods even today and will often take a rest on the ground, wary of ticks, and beneath the trees wonder about Dad, all alone.

——Your turn, what are you remembering? Revisiting from your past?