Infernal Louisianan sun simmering my skin, I dropped two sacks of refuse into the industrial green bin receptacle, one of two tucked into corners of our building complex. Sentinels of sanitation, the waft of their stink barely touches your nose as you walk away. But enough to dispel any illusions.
Heading towards the mailbox in anticipation of finding therein a meagre symbol of coin designed to stave off physical insecurity another day for me and mine, a tiny lizard scrambled past my feet with that skittish, undulatory motion that reminds you of a frog's hop and snake's slither simultaneously. The gecko--I suppose--made towards the gate to the pool, pausing every few paces, stockstill, to assess whether my foot sought its spine. The sun was a molten ball concealed sufficiently by cumulus fluff to let me unblinkingly spot a hawk sweeping high to my left. The hawk circled; the gecko held that ancient fearful pose.
Was the creature aware that its real threat lay high? Did that fleet whip of mottled green grow taut with adrenaline at the right danger? Lumbering, I could never catch it; inedible to me for all impractical purposes, it could have leap between my teeth without harm coming to it; yet standing there electrified by the feeling of deja vu over a scene that had been played endless times in every squirming cove of life; as certain of my own heightened awareness at the timeless little episode was I that the small beast knew nothing of its position within the web of life; no telltale cue rendered its fear of me inert; the hawk could have snatched and swallowed it without its twitching a vertebrae.
Music, a murmur of strings, crazily struck the air from a nearby apartment for a half-beat, never concluded. My muscles slackened. I walked to the mailbox.
And I wondered: would the same myopia end me, too? Would I know, finally, that I had cannibalized myself?
No comments:
Post a Comment