The only thing I know about Iguanas is that this one was named Earle.
The only reason I knew this was that I had named him. Sure, maybe his family calls him Pepito or maybe his friends know him as Miguel or Juan, but I didn’t want to offend by calling him a name in his own tongue that might not be his own.
So I settled on Earle. With an “e” at the end.
He was about four feet from me – the distance from one crack in the sidewalk to the next. And we were in a stare-down.
He stood motionless. I also stood motionless. Eyes locked.
I don’t commune with nature. I’m not really sure what that means. I definitely don’t communicate with animals. That’s probably for the best. If Earle could read my thoughts, he might discover I’m not the intelligent being I’m supposed to be. If I could read his, the primitive need to wander around eating plants and frightening children might seem too intoxicating to resist.
We had surprised each other. Now we were forced to deal with each other.
Earle was ugly, but didn’t seem particularly dangerous. Given that he and I had only known each other for a few seconds, I wasn’t completely sure whether he had some tool of aggression about which I was unaware. Maybe once we got to know each other better, we’d laugh about this moment later on … but for now …
He was in my path, and I in his. I wasn’t afraid of him. He didn’t seem afraid of me. He was about three feet long, and I’m less than six feet but a handful of inches above five-and-a-half tall. I knew if necessary, I could kick him out of the way, and go about my business, and he about his, though wounded, maybe mortally. What would be the point of that?
If he ran at me, I could definitely avoid him. I could go around him, and he around me. But we didn’t.
So there we stood. Staring. Occasionally, he opened his mouth – not sure why, but he’d let his jaw drop and seemed to be taking in his surroundings. He looked ready to bolt if I made a move.
He pretty much looked like an Iguana – the usual spines and splotches, with a funny splotch in the middle of his back, right next to the row of spines. All four legs were a bright color of blue. I’m sure I’d recognize him if I saw him again.
I’m pretty sure I blinked. Humans do that. I don’t remember if he did. Earle’s eyes occasionally moved. The whole eye. Head-cocked, he sometimes stared straight at me, then sometimes took a quick glance, maybe at his escape route.
Earle might have been a female. I felt badly for not thinking of that earlier.
I was starting to sweat. 90 degrees with drenching humidity was beginning to set in.
It occurred to me that neither of us was accomplishing anything. If I walked around him and let him scurry away, I could go to my room and forget the whole thing. He could have run off to one side or the other, and we could have gone about our business. I guess he wondered whether I would chase him. After all, we really didn’t know each other that well.
Yet, here we were, letting time slip by, locked in a pointless battle, the stakes of which were unimportant. Nothing would be gained by one of us making a move, nothing would be lost by going about our day, leaving this silly competition behind us.
Was there a workplace lesson to be learned from this reptilian encounter?
Finally, I shrugged and walked toward him. At my first step, he ran into the lush undergrowth beside the path. I walked to my room, grabbed a bottle of water, and went about my day, feeling that maybe I had just been party to a deeply metaphorical experience.
In that case, telling you about this low-stakes competition, and urging you to take my side, probably wasted a bit of your day. I would hate it if I had suddenly become one of those pedantic there’s-a-lesson-in-everything people. You’d be right to find that tedious.
Or maybe the warm, languid day had led me to over-think a mundane incident.
I suppose you’re right to find that tedious as well.
Let’s pretend this didn’t happen.