Jeff VanderMeer

It’s been a fuzzy day, with my head full of nails and cotton candy. You try to get the cotton candy out, and the nails just rattle around. You get rid of the nails, and the cotton candy fluffs up and makes you diaphanous but sickly sweet.

So I went out into the yard for awhile to talk to the Lizard-Skink, my new oracle. It’s a hot day today, with no wind and lots of humidity. The air is like eating a heat sandwich.

I think of Lizard-Skink as the reincarnation of our uber-cat Pretty Ugly, who passed away a couple of years ago. I first saw Lizard-Skink in the same place in the yard where we first saw Pretty Ugly the cat. And Pretty Ugly always loved a dust bath, and Lizard-Skink loves dust baths, too.

I put out a pan of water for him today and we had a nice conversation.

“What’s shaking in the lizard-skink world?” I asked him. Not a damn thing, Lizard-Skink told me. The dustier and hotter it is, the more I like it. Bring the drought, baby. Bring the drought.

“Are you really the reincarnation of our cat, Pretty Ugly?” I asked him. Hell if I know, Lizard-Skink said. Why do you assume I’d have that kind of self-awareness.

“Do you like beer?” No, he told me, but I can tell you do.

“What’s the best thing in the world to you?” I asked him. The moist crunch of a cricket between my jaws, he told me. “Fair enough,” I said.

That’s when he began dancing on his hind legs. And I decided it was time to go lie down for awhile.

But, he’s out there, right now, our Pretty Ugly lizard. Racing across the dusty front yard. Flicking his tongue out, sensing for food and water. Evading predators. Having a great time.