Far North Friday #86: Small Can Be Big

We hit a roadblock. Actually, a boat block. A small set of rapids lay before us. They were too shallow to run upstream using the motor. The bush was too thick to portage. Besides, the boat was too heavy to drag through the bush. The solution? We got into the water and pulled the boat upstream, through the rapids.

I was wearing my work boots, which I did not want to get soaked. I removed my boots and walked the rapids barefoot. There were risks: sharp rocks, broken glass, or an old tin can on the river bottom could slice my foot, I could slip on the rocks, twist an ankle, or abraid the skin off. All risks I was prepared for to keep my boots dry for the work day.

Despite the strong current, we pulled the boat through the rapids, getting wet only to our waist. Refreshing in the morning! We jumped back into the boat and sped off along the river.

I started to dry my feet to put on my socks and boots. That is when I saw “it”. The BIG risk I had not considered. “It” was attached firmly between my toes. It was 2 feet long, had canine teeth the size of a megalodon shark. “It” had an orange belly. “It” sunk its teeth into my ankle. “It” started up my leg, all the time salivating in a menacing way. I tried to knock “it” off. “It” refused to let go. My foot now looked like a raisin - blood loss, I suspected. I tried to knock “it” off using one of our paddles. No luck. “It” progressed to my knee! I felt weak because of the 20 litres of blood that “it” must have sucked from me. I started to panic, but remembered “be cool in front of my colleagues” who were oblivious to my pending death. I tried using a BIC lighter to burn “it” off. Did you know wet leg hair burns just as well as dry leg hair? I gave up, swung my leg towards John, and yelled, in a cool way, “pull “it” off”! By now “it” had advanced to my mid thigh. My “Arnold Schwarzenegger” thigh now looked like a twiggy thigh - a combination of blood and muscle loss. “It” must have burrowed inside of my leg and was eating me on the inside!

John was cool. He reached slowly into his shirt pocket, pulled out his bottle of 100% DEET - the original formulation that melted plastic and striped paint - and carefully squeezed out 1 micro-drop onto “it”. All in slow motion. “It” screamed like a Banshee, convulsed in agony, released me from “its” death grip, and writhed on the boat floor. I was released - and grateful - and a little embarrassed that I had lost my cool.

Oddly, “it” had transformed itself. “It” shrunk to about 1 cm in length. “Its” orange belly was really grey. John casually picked “it” up and flicked “it” into the river.

“It” was a leech. A tiny, 1cm long, non-blood sucking leech. It had attached itself to my foot to hitch a ride to the top of the rapids. It did not have canine teeth. It did not scream. But, in my imagination, it was the biggest, meanest, baddest, leech in these waters.

My colleagues focused on driving the boat and watching for rocks. Neither acknowledged the Herculean battle I had fought. 

Sometimes the smallest thing can become a really BIG thing, when your imagination rules.

May 20/22; Facebook May 20/22