My Concerns About the Lizard Multiply

How worried am I supposed to be about this sort of thing?

Jeremy has vanished. He’s a lizard, by the way, and frankly I’m unsure whether to feel pleased or disappointed.

I was tasked with evicting Jeremy from his home beneath the dishwasher some weeks ago, but I kept, somehow, not getting around to it. I felt neither fear nor ill-will towards Jeremy, nor any other skink in general, though he did seem to be an unnervingly large specimen of his variety. And this troubled me because, as Hobbes put it: life in nature is short and brutish, and so for Jeremy to attain such physical stature on his own, in the wilds, etcetera, indicates an almost unwholesome degree of success in eating smaller creatures. But this, in particular, was something I did not like to think about.

Most skinks grow to be about 12 cm (or 4.5 inches). Jeremy, I seem to think, looks roughly 22 cm (8 inches). Distressingly, he looks like he eats other skinks for breakfast.

In fact, he was so disproportionate to other skinks I’ve seen around the place that I went to Wikipedia and read an entire entry about his species. It has since occurred to me that Jeremy might be an immigrant, possibly a wayward refugee from the Solomon Islands. If this is the case, and he has come to this country in search of a better life, Jeremy might one day grow to be 80 centimeters (32 inches).

Mind you, there is no way that’s going to happen. At a certain point, my unease will turn to outright panic. Picture me pouring lighter fluid all over him and setting him on fire, in the middle of the kitchen.

Or, more likely, me explaining to my daughters that Jeremy is now too big and creepy to look at, and we have no other choice than to move into another house.

It’s funny; I can handle small lizards in the kitchen but, at a certain length, their general wiggliness gives me the ick. Imagine interrupting your lunch to take a phone call, and returning to find a meter-long lizard helping himself to the remainder of your sandwich.

What is the threshold of my intolerance? I think it’s about 15 centimeters. And I do not like to analyze the matter closely because, you know, liking some lizards but not others feels vaguely racist, and I don’t respect it.

I’m already uncomfortable about the fact I only seem to eat sushi when it is prepared by somebody from Japan. If I happen to glance into the kitchen and see someone of my ancestry preparing sashimi, then I’m out the door faster than you can say ‘Salmonella’. I acknowledge that I have issues, Reader, and promise to do better. That said, if you write me emails expressing similar views, I will judge you and perhaps even speculate about your voting habits.

Also, seeing that we’re on the topic, I refuse to enter any sushi restaurant that is further than 100 kilometers from any ocean. I especially won’t eat sushi served in airports or shopping malls, because that’s just asking for trouble. In many ways, I am the sum of an assortment of superstitions, and if you have a problem with any of this, I’m happy to discuss the matter over a bottle of whisky — provided you supply the bottle. We will also have to drink the entire bottle first, just to keep the discussion interesting.

But it appears I have strayed from the topic. Let me collect my thoughts.

Jeremy has vanished, and this is not an outcome I had expected. Seven evenings ago, I awoke at precisely 2am, for some odd reason, to find every light in the house turned on, but my bedroom’s. I went out to the living room to investigate and found Hattie and Boudica, ages 10 and 12 respectively, on the couch wide awake and chatting. Hattie was holding my baseball bat protectively.

Yes, I happen to own a baseball bat. It was given to me as a parting gift by my former lab members at Harvard Medical School. It has all sorts of signatures and farewell inscriptions written on it. I don’t know why they gave it to me, nor what they expected me to do with it, but I will mention that Byron’s inscription is the following:

‘Remember to use this bat for good and not evil.’

So, it’s 2am, and my daughters are on the couch speaking in excited, fluent Spanish. This is their preferred language for moments of emotional turmoil. For the record, I have not learned a sufficient amount of Spanish to be able to discuss my emotions. I’m sure it’s a perfect language in which to be indignant, but it’s not for me because, chiefly, I do not believe in allowing my emotions to reach such a pitch that speaking Spanish might be necessary.

Somewhat related, my wife thinks in German because she happens to do a lot of abstract thinking. Again, I disapprove. I spent a semester studying German grammar, and ultimately concluded that it is a language for people who enjoy strict rules for things. Reader, I am not precisely an anarchist, but learning German grammar almost turned me into one.

English grammar, meanwhile, is ridiculous, and wildly inconsistent. If you have ever found yourself explaining some piece of common usage to a foreigner then you will undoubtedly feel like an absolute fool, because English grammar is not a logic-based system. I speak English only because, for a few centuries back there, England had an extremely good navy. I like the language a great deal, but I don’t like to praise it to much because all the wrong sorts of people start to loudly agree, and for the worst possible reasons imaginable.

But the internet, of course, is not a place for nuance or discussion; chiefly, I use it to source pictures of otters or golden retriever puppies, but few people are as wise as me.

Wait — Byron is ringing me, I’ll be back presently.

---

I took a walk, and disappeared for a few hours. Byron lives in Pennsylvania and we typically talk every fortnight or so. He was calling because he had read my most recent newsletter and enjoyed it. I mentioned that I didn’t think many people did, because only four people clicked the ‘like’ button, at Substack. (The metric matters, people; the algorithm needs to be fed, else my stories disappear into obscurity!)

I can’t tell if Byron enjoys my newsletters all that much. He might not read any that mention him. He didn’t read the one about Jeremy the Lizard, either. If I know him, it was because the picture of the blue tongue lizard frightened him a little.

So, I told him all about Jeremy, and about how he was in my kitchen, and how my wife had tasked me with his removal. Bear in mind, the tacit humiliation in all of this because at one time, I was sort-of Byron’s boss at Harvard, and now ... well, now I’m on the far side of the world, being told to remove lizards from kitchens.

Then we talked about aliens for a while because, over the weekend, former American President Barack Obama admitted, in an interview, that aliens are real.

But then, a few days later, Obama backpedaled, and neither Byron nor I are sure we’re buying it. Byron is unhappy about the whole subject because, a few years ago, he was reading an awful lot about alien abductions. It seems he has an Australian friend who was sending him a lot of stories about alien abductions, possibly with the deliberate intention to rattle him; you can read all about it here. Quite often, in those days, he would awaken at 2am and lay there, thinking about grey aliens wandering into his bedroom. Because, as he had learned, most alien abductions take place between 2am and 4am, and once you know that — no, once you’ve read a few accounts of the abductions themselves — then you, too, Reader, might find those hours particularly harrowing as well.

“I wish he hadn’t said anything about aliens,” said Byron, speaking about Obama. “This is going to affect my sleeping patterns, I can already tell.”

“It’s already started for me,” I admitted. “I have this condition with my shoulder; it keeps me awake through the night. Last night, I realized it was 2am, and lay there resolutely not thinking about aliens, which only makes things worse. And you want to know something seriously weird?”

“No,” admitted Byron, because it was well past midnight in Pennsylvania.

“The smoke alarm went off in our bedroom.”

“Huh,” remarked Byron. He’s known me for a long time, and thus wouldn’t find that particularly unusual. Strange things happen to me — so much so that it’s somewhat unsettling that I haven’t, at this point, been abducted by aliens. Don’t get me wrong, I’d be curious to meet them; it’s more that I don’t want to have to spend the rest of my life trying to convince people that I met them, if that makes sense.

“At 2.01am last night, I was awake and failing to not think about aliens. Then the smoke alarm went off like a klaxon. I was out of bed, hyper-vigilant and in the living room, looking for fire, and ready for violence.”

“And aliens.”

“Shut up, Byron. Then I walked into a wall in the darkness. My shoulder. Well, it was difficult not to scream.”

Byron emitted no expression of sympathy. This is because, a few months ago, he was doing yard work in the hot sun and noticed there were vultures in the tree, watching him, and I thought that was funny, though he did not. Byron’s indifference to my shoulder, I believe, relates to that moment.

“Then the alarm went silent after, like six seconds, with no explanation given.”

“Can aliens arrange such things?” wondered Byron.

“Who knows?” I said. But I really need to send you some new stories about alien abductions, don’t I? “Now, exactly a week ago, at that very moment, I woke up and found Hattie and Boudica on the couch.

“Boudica had woken up thirsty, gone into the kitchen for a glass of water, and — well, she heard something in the kitchen. So, she woke her sister, who fetched the baseball bat, and together they turned on every light in the house.”

Byron was confused. So was I, at the time.

“The noise was Jeremy the Lizard. He was messing with a grocery bag. I saw him flee when I entered the kitchen. Then my wife was awake and wanting to know why all the lights were on at 2am, and why Hattie and Boudica were carrying on excitedly in Spanish.

“I think they thought it was a ghost,” I explained to Byron. “Though I’m not sure what that word is, in Spanish. I sent them to bed —”

“There really is a lot going on at your house, isn’t there?”

“There is, and my wife was understandably annoyed that I had not yet exfiltrated Jeremy the Lizard from the premises.”

“Well, he is causing some degree of chaos.”

“Was,” I corrected him, joyfully. “Jeremy has vanished! It’s been a week, now. Nobody’s seen him. He seems to have departed of his own accord. When you rang, I was writing my newsletter about it.

“I mean, I’m not sure it’s a satisfying denouement but it’s nice that I didn’t have to kill him, or immolate him in some way. And strange as it seems, I think my Readers will be relieved.”

But it was now well past midnight, and Byron had to brush his teeth and then lay down in bed until 2:30am, listening, fearing every noise and each creak on the stair, and wondering if it might be a grey alien coming to abduct him. He’s a troubled man, that Byron.

I hung up and sat down with my newsletter, which was still only half-written. Then my wife came in and said: “You have work to do in the kitchen.”

This did not seem to me particularly true; after all, I happen to know the kitchen is spotless. Keeping it spotless is my job.

“I’m going to finish writing this newsletter first. It’s mostly written, I just need to write the ending. It’s about Jeremy the Lizard, and how he left our kitchen about a week ago and hasn’t been seen since.”

Then my wife showed a picture on her phone.

“Hey, it’s a picture of Jeremy,” I exclaimed. “When did you take this?”

“A minute ago, in the kitchen,” said my wife.

“What?!” I exclaimed, leaping out of my chair. “I just wrote my newsletter, all about how he has exited the building!”

“Well, maybe you could write something political instead,” she suggested, wafting away.

I sat down again and looked at my laptop.

Well, thought I, with greater indignation than I can possibly convey:

This is some bullshit.

With chaste affection,

Kris St.Gabriel