Two lizards are attempting to console each other at the bank of a recently formed creek. It is the prime of summer and there is a soft hint of sewage lingering among the warm breath of eucalyptus and algae bloom. One lizard is missing a tail and has her head inside the opening of an empty Mickey’s tall can. A slightly more content lizard is taking in a sliver of sunlight; laying on a worn out Ralph’s receipt with her tail in the empty space where the other’s should be. The tailed lizard slowly opens her eyes and says, “By the time this creek turns into a river, it would have grown back…”
The other lizard was silent. A dragonfly hovered for a few seconds then zoomed past.
The tailed lizard took a deep breath and continued, “it’s something every lizard has gone through. I hear it can be a humbling experience, and besides, I know some that look for trouble just to have it happen to them.”
The other lizard let out a sarcastic “tuh,” that briefly reverberated inside the tall can.
“I’m not even fucking with you, it gives off, I don’t know…character,” said the tailed lizard trying her best to sound objective.
After a brief exhale, the tailless lizard replied, “I know, I’m not depressed or anything, it's just… I was having a really good summer and after it happened I can’t help but feel so weird all the time ha-ha, I actually kind of think it's funny.”
Taken by surprise she looked over, tilted her head and asked, “Then why the hell have you had your head inside that can this whole time?” The tailless lizard awkwardly walked backwards emerging out of the cool tin chamber.
“It’s where I go to think, “said the tailless lizard inspecting the other with her left eye.
“Think?” asked the tailed lizard.
“Okay yeah that’s kind of lame, it’s more like a space I go to tell myself things and repeat them.”
“Like what?”
“No, it’s not even working.”
“Just tell me.”
“Lets drop it, it’s stupid. Didn’t we come here to talk about your mate or whatever?”
“Yeah I’m over it. Let the ants have him.”
“Damn, like that?”
“Well he was always fighting off other males but couldn’t give me eggs himself, I told him he should try with a more compatible mate and he bit my cheek! Later that day I found him with the ants…Coyote.”
He was run over by a Ford F150.
“I thought you would have mentioned that earlier,” she huffed.
“Well I was going to, but I realized I was pretty happy and that he probably is now too. I just couldn’t stop feeling that along with the sunlight, like everything was singing ‘tabula rasa’ and before I knew it, I was in a blissful nap. Besides, you seemed preoccupied with losing your tail pacing back and forth like a hummingbird and all.”
“I was thinking,” said the tailless lizard. They both laughed. The tailless lizard wasn't sure she should have, then decided it was probably good she did. The slivers of sunlight have turned into little sovereign regions.
After a while the tailed lizard said, “I was gonna say give it a break, you know, the thinking—it can make you rigid, and a rigid lizard must always break their stillness with a jolt...” The tailless lizard eyed the creek nodding faintly—not really sure where this was going.
The tailed lizard continued, “It can inspire as much as it can forget and most times when something is left behind it is—”
“Alright enough, I get it,” the tailless lizard interrupted. “Look, I told you I’m not depressed about it, I’m—”
“Strangely in denial.” the tailed lizard interrupted back.
“…Yes.”
“And not because it happened but how it happened,” said the tailed lizard.
“Yeah pretty much,” she replied with arched eyes. The tailed lizard smiled and laid her neck on the cool receipt, peeking one eye conveying her to go on.
The tailless lizard was looking at a dismembering cloud when she realized and began, “Uh, right so you know that one place in the sagebrush I go to find beetles, the one near that white bench?” The tailed lizard nodded.
“Okay so I was just looking for a bite and I noticed there were these two people on the bench, some guy and girl, laughing about something.” The tailless lizard looked to see if she was following. She looked relaxed but listening.
“They started kissing each other and they looked like they wanted to do it faster, I could see the heat. I went back to my business because it looked boring after a while but this beetle landed in their direction! Not too close to the bench but to where it inevitably made the two in my line of sight.” A careful breeze coaxed ripples upon the bank. A crow teased another.
“I’m telling you, I’m zoning in on this beetle, it has its back facing me, all I had to do was pounce when I heard this like…shriek? Yelp? I don’t know. I looked and saw it came from the girl. That’s when I realized it was the first sharp note of a muffled sob, and to be honest with you, it scared the shit out of me. It sounded like how I thought a hawk would sound before it died. I was stuck there, frozen, gazing at them. They were holding each other. I felt weightless. I forced myself to move, turn around, to the side, anything. After the first few steps I looked back and saw I had left my tail behind.” The tailed lizard took her time absorbing the tale. The same dragonfly passed by a second time.
“You need to see it,'' she finally said with a cavalier certainty.
“How would that help?”
“It’s still a part of you. At least in your mind, that’s why this newfound reality still comes as a surprise to you each time you feel lighter or turn around. In a sense it was quite literally half of you, a guiding weight, a gratifying symmetry, maybe not in your case but a life saver and at times simply a companion condensed with fats, carbohydrates, and memories.”
“A companion, huh,” she replied, smirking.
“Look, I just think it’d do you well seeing it, it would close the loop you’re in. She looked at a dent on the tall can for a moment then arched her back to the side forming a crescent. Eyeing her stub, she notices it has turned into eight petals of newly formed tissue surrounding the exposed muscle and bone.
She let out a confident sigh, “Yeah, you’re right. Let’s go.”
“The white bench, it's on the other side of the pond right?” asked the tailed lizard, grinning.
“Yeah, that's the one. Near where the cars sleep.”
They made their way under the brush past the horsetails and water lilies towards the boundless field of wildflowers and towering grasses. Viewed from above, only the winged ones could see that's where the trail was. Both haven't made the trek across the field in almost a moon. Both hoped for their intentions to be fulfilled before sunset.
The two lizards followed the path out of the mossy bank, the trees were more spaced, and there were little rocks, cooking all day. Beneath a young blueberry bush, a male lizard is doing push ups, they walk by trying to avoid eye contact. Half-way there they pass under the shade of a pepper tree with ants marching up the trunk.
It was very subtle but getting near you could hear a droning yet triumphant chant of “location, location, location, location…” that seemed to echo forever.
“I heard an ant say something other than “location” once,” said the tailless lizard.
“No way, really?”
“Yeah I found this ant by himself in the datura field screaming (ant volume) ‘WE…. LOST…’ over and over and it was, well, kind of tragic.”
“Damn, must've been heartbreaking,” said the tailed lizard, “Did you do anything?”
“Um, well I couldn’t keep listening to it any longer so I went over and ate him. Swoop, just sucked him in like that,” said the tailless lizard looking ahead. In the distance, they could see the gleaming roofs of parked cars baking in the afternoon sun.
“I think this’ll take us there,” said the tailless lizard referring to a fork in the path into tall grass. A rarely used bicycle trail.
“I'm not sure about that,” said the tailed lizard. “I can smell the sagebrush this way.” They follow the scent to a thicket of sage at the base of a hidden hill.
“It's up there, the bench is at the top and you follow the sage to a clearing near it,” said the tailless lizard. The tailed lizard looked up the hill and noticed long stalks of soft lilac flowers jutting out somewhere up there.
“I think I know where,” said the tailed lizard.
They started crawling upwards, the ground was scattered with dead dry leaves and heavy with pungent bloom. There were beetles everywhere, iridescent wanderers of ruby, jade, and onyx walking obliviously in the olive green labyrinth. They approached a clearing, the white bench was in view behind a few shrubs, somewhere in the middle laid the tail, slender and shimmering with the few blue scales running along the end. It was heavy and still as it was precious, still pristine after a couple days and surprisingly not dusted.
On beholding, the tailless commented, “it looks asleep,” and gave it a nudge. It rolled but just barely.
The tailed lizard, observing the flesh end, suggested a prayer; “Here lies what was once one and now two, may it melt into the flux of growth and happenings, so it goes.” They both bowed their heads.
“It’s missing something,” remarked the tailless lizard.
“What?”
“Here, let me just—” she bites the end of the tail and brings it around forming a spiral.
“There, that's better.”
“Hmm, nice touch,” said the tailed lizard, nodding. They both enjoyed the silence for a moment.
Satisfied, the tailless lizard got up and said, “Thank you, I didn't know how much I really needed this, I can look ahead now, with…” She contemplated it at first, then said, “...agility.”
With that she quietly made her way into the thicket without waiting for nor expecting a reply. The tailed lizard accepted everything happening, and amidst the warm stillness began to devour the tail from the flesh end. She savored every bite. After her fill, there was no trace left minus a few scales. She decided to head back to the bank in secret digestion.
On the trail, she spotted a line of ants piercing into the tall grass, “location, location, location…” There in the dedicated caravan she saw an ant carrying a piece of finger that smelled all too familiar with what was lingering on her tongue.
Overhead, the sky spilled tangerine and violet, you could hear the opening crickets. The crows were making their way back home. The tailed lizard licked her lips as the ants’ chorus faded among the chirping. Each step from her point of reckoning tended embers of kindness. She let out a chuckle for she knew no one ever really dies, everyone around here knew that and also because she didn’t expect the tail to taste so good. Violet seeped through the fleeting crimson, bringing with it the first two stars of the night sky, and with no one else to talk to, delighted each other with curiosities and gossip of everything that happened during the Sun’s wake.
*As featured in Issue No. 1 of Deixis Journal