I recall being awakened in the evening by my mother. I sensed that she was
very excited by something and I felt deeply attentive. The permeating light around us had a soft, distant atmospheric
quality, casting an indirect intensity, which enveloped everything like some
strange lenses had been unknowingly placed over my eyes. This quality felt
natural and more familiar than my usual view and this mildly frightened me. Our
surroundings became shiny as if it had just rained. The viscous shadows held a particular mystery and within them seemed
to be portals to unknown worlds waiting and watching, all unique, connected and
expanding beyond visibility. She grasped my small hand and said she had
something to show me. We walked together, down into the darkness between our
tall hedges in front of a short cinder block wall. Everything
exuded a violet hue.
She made sure she had my attention and
then indicated with her finger to carefully direct my eyes to the top of the
block wall adjacent. Focusing, I was lured by the sight of two lizards engaged
in violent combat. One had succumbed to the other and was in the last throws of
life, facing an apparently inevitable end. The prevailing lizard had it pinned
down with his jaws closed tightly around the neck and head. There was an
impersonal air of ruthless necessity in the eyes of them both. The same look of detached endurance and surrender shared, despite the
differences in their positions of victor and victim, neither abandoned themselves
as they stared relentlessly into the world before them.
This cold look shocked and jolted me as my
body trembled, experiencing a rippling sensation from their gaze into and back
from my own. The battle continued
for some time as we observed silently. I found myself alternating between the
pair, experiencing the conflicting roles, which merged in this epic struggle of
predator and prey. Then after sometime, the slightly smaller lizard could fight
no longer and was overcome entirely, suffocating as his throat was clutched
mercilessly, the fittest prevailed.
The shadows and configurations of the branches in
the surrounding hedges composed random organic shapes, expanding
into greater depths, soliciting the effect of staring down
endless corridors. The more I
looked at them, the darker everything became.
Then my attention was returned to the
animals. The living one looked like he was kissing the expired rival. He had
his mouth placed right near the dead lizard’s mouth and he sat there motionless
for a short while, in a restful meditation. I waited and watched unable to
break away. The scales along the lizards’ bodies each held smaller scenes of their
own as well, all within the different parts, subsequently dissecting further
inwardly becoming worlds
of their own sort.
They were long drably colored lizards,
shaped like snakes, with small limbs and smooth shiny skin. Their bodies had dark
bands, light bellies and strange small black and white patches that looked like
paint brush strokes against their gray bodies. The shine on the scales of the
living lizard were like his eyes, they emitted a glow. The deceased lizard’s
scales and eyes were dull. The corpse slumped, merging more with the darkness
than the other, now becoming difficult to discern. He blended slowly into the
background depths, reduced until he was just another shadow. The living lizard
changed his calm praying position as he opened his mouth, paused and to my amazement began to swallow the head
of the dead reptile.
Again I felt something
within me move and continued watching. The head was swallowed and the
shoulders were next. They took a while because of the arms protruding and so
again there was a pause after another timeless span. I remained shocked and
removed. Both observing and feeling observed.
The cannibal lizard swallowed in
phases, moving laterally to encompass the corpse with greater ease. The legs
were reached and it continued until there was only the tail left. It made
strange subtle movements as it finished eating the dark mass. The tail looked
like a long tongue sticking out of the devouring lizard’s mouth. The lizard had been consumed and then the shiny glow and violet light
dissipated as the gray mist turned everything dark again.
The next I remember it was sunny and
warm. I was out front in the afternoon light. The lizard I held said something
to me. At first he was startled, then
he felt vulnerable being held and became calm and connected, soothed by my
grasp. My focus was arrested as I felt a longing to move to another side beyond an
expanse knowing that the lizard was conveying to me that it wanted to be across
the yard. I set him
on the sun heated stone wall and walked off into the bright busy world.
