In a small cottage in a deep valley, an old woman lived with her goats and sheep, chickens and dog, a sway-backed horse and one ginger cat.
Each morning, she collected eggs while the dog led the
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Mr. Lizard felt about his wife much in the way a sunflower does the sun:; growing, living, following that glowing warm light, angelic and celestial with every new day. Similarly, Mr. Lizard saw his children in a way one can liken to how a young child sees a beautiful sandcastle:; impossibly complex, worth every minute of work, his proudest creation.
Such love for his family made Mr. Lizard incredibly excited to go to work every morning. He excitedly wiggled out of bed every morning, scuttled to the shower, and flopped about the kitchen, concocting what only he could call breakfast. But Mr. Lizard cared not for his less than edible meal, he had a lovely family to care for. Mr. Lizard took special care to clean the house in the morning so that his family may have a nice clean house to walk around, and so that he may come back home from work and see how lovely a day his family had.
Mr. Lizard gathered all of his important things, his bowler hat, his briefcase that he carried with his chunky tail, and his mysteriously well tied tie. Mr. Lizard then had everything that a lizard might need for work, and so, he took off with far more enthusiasm for his job than one might think a lizard would have.
Mr. Lizard made great headway on his way to work. His job was incredibly important and what he did made plenty of sense. Mr. Lizard did not like to be late, and yet always found himself scrambling to work much faster than any good reptile should. But he would be okay. He always was.
Always is a funny word. Because as soon as one thing changes, always is no more. And soon, Mr. Lizard would be very formally less than always okay.
He scrambled to a halt, tripping over his own toes and tail as the largest, sharpest, deadliest snake he had ever seen pulled into his path. Interesting.
"What're you doin' round here partner?" The snake said with a dual-fanged grin. He was quite stupid.
"On my way to work sir!" Mr. Lizard replied, noticing the cowboy hat on the snake's head was untipped. And so he inquired exactly that.
"My hat is tipped to those dessserving." Maybe it was his southern twang, maybe his unrefined hiss, or maybe his silly hat, for whatever reason, this snake felt quite dumb.
"Well, that's too bad! I'll be on my way now." Mr. Lizard moved towards his path. The snake moved with him. His eyes widened, his fangs made a grand entrance, and his unrefined hiss grew all the more menacing. Mr. Lizard stared at him blankly. Perhaps Mr. Lizard was scared, perhaps more than he ever had been. But he did not care, he had to get to work, he had a family to care for. The snake was quite taken aback by Mr. Lizards lack of fear. Their eyes locked. A common standoff. The snarling snake and the expressionless lizard.
Their stare down was suddenly interrupted by the scurrying of an even larger critter. And in a moment of biological and evolutionary wonder, the reptiles locked eyes again, and connected on a deep-rooted fear. The two scurried behind a convenient log as quickly as their reptile bodies could in unison. Out from the nearby shrubbery appeared a large weasel. He was hungry, and not particularly as chatty as the snake. Mr. Lizard looked around for a new path to work.
"Alright, well I'm off to work th-" the snake held up his tail as one holds up a finger, swiftly cutting off Mr. Lizard. He was locked in a battle with a heavy thought. The thought won. His eyes grew distant. His heart changed.
"shh shh shhhhh." The snake quieted an already silent Mr. Lizard. "Did I make you feel like thissss? Thissss fear?"
"I guess so?" Mr. Lizard gave the answer the snake wanted to hear. "I'll be off then!" Mr. Lizard started away.
"No." The snake sturdied himself in his determination. "It's okay. Don't worry. I've got this."
"Got what? Where's your hiss?" The snake tipped his hat towards Mr. Lizard.
"It'll be okay. I'll handle the weasel, you escape."
"Really, I think we'll be okay."
"I will make it up to you, no one should feel like this. Live on, Mr. Lizard. Live a good life. I'll take it from here."
Mr. Lizard waddled off towards his job. He didn't hear the rest of the snake's speech. He didn't see the snake steel his resolve, fix his hat, and dart out to face the monstrous weasel. He definitely did not see the greatest wrestle, tangle, and fight to rival the Gods themselves, in the same way he didn't see the greatest act of self-sacrifice a snake would ever do. He never saw the torn-up cowboy hat sway in the wind and slide to rest on the leaf ridden forest floor.
Mr. Lizard continued about his way, trying to make up for his lost time in his last scuffle. Upon his path, quite expectedly, his way was blocked again. This time by a large blue bird.
"Oh dear," he said.
"Hello, I've got to eat you I'm afraid."
"I'd really prefer it if you didn't," said Mr. Lizard. "I've got to get to work and I'm already late!"
"Well, unfortunately I'm quite hungry, and birds eat lizards. That's just how it is."
"I'd really rather not be eaten today if that's alright."
"Well, I don't mean to inconvenience you, but nothing I want to eat ever wants to be eaten. And yet, I must eat."
"Quite the predicament we're in then."
"It would seem so." The two stood in momentary silence, each appearing to be lost in thought, yet each waiting for a stone to fall and the other to fall on their morals first. The silence continued. It was a round and full silence, but not uncomfortable.
"Do you suppose there might be other lizards who would be okay being eaten?" Mr. Lizard suggested.
"I can't imagine there are, could you? And why do they deserve to be eaten any more than you?"
"I'm not really sure. Maybe we could go our separate ways and pretend this never happened?"
"What if every lizard asks me the same and I go hungry?"
"Then you keep going. It's all we can do, isn't it? Regardless of who we meet, what they do and say, whoever blocks our path; we keep going."
"I suppose so." Chirped the blue bird. And after a brief pause, the stone fell, the bird cocked its head, hopped to the side, and flew away. Mr. Lizard continued on his way down his path to work. And kept going, and kept going, and kept going.
And he would not be late.
-Anisah