I'm coming back

I was a lizard once, in a past life. I remember it well and it informs a lot of my judgements, the way I act. I can't remember where it was or what year, but I was there - a gecko, at moments still as anything and then flitting about, a consciousness I couldn't speak, all these thoughts and attitudes to myself. It wasn't so bad.

I've always like the colour green; well grey/greenish, one of the more drab geckos. That was the colour I was, and I didn't really care that I was ugly and frail. I was weak but it didn't figure. I looked - apart from the scaliness - like nothing much to look at, but it didn't figure as an issue. Not like now. Sadly I've not been able to take these perspectives into my human form. There are different pressures here, and I can't say that the thought hasn't crossed my mind to end it all and see where my consciousness is reincarnated next. It's kind of exciting.

Most people, lizards, whatever, don't remember where, who, what they were last. I was lucky, or unlucky. I remember my times as a reptile so fondly, well-camouflaged, the spotlight was never on me. I had my instincts, reflexes, and my thoughts. Sometimes I wish I could go back into that jungle, wherever it was, and shrink back, revert to type.

See, it's not just knowing that I was a lizard, I still feel like a lizard, a lizard trapped in the body of a man, like in gender dissociation disorders, where a woman feels and knows she's really a man, or vice versa, and acts accordingly. Well, in that respect, I'm a lizard. I've not changed, why would I? I loved my life back there. Yes, for great lengths of time I was alone, but it didn't feel like that, the whole world was around me, and mates dropped by.

I wonder sometimes whether I'm going to turn back into the lizard I was, whether it's happening slowly, and all of a sudden again I'll be a lizard. It's a dream. In my dreams, nine times out of ten, I'm a lizard, a lizard among people, searching for other lizards, or the jungle. It's only when I wake that I realise with apprehension that I have to get up and go to work, that I'm something of a human, at least on the outside.

Do I need tests on my brain? Yes! I'm convinced I'm more lizard. I wonder what other people were before they came back. It's rude to ask. I wonder how many were lizards. I see people sometimes and think: lizard, but then I've got it on my mind - who knows. We can't all be lizards, but I am. I'll be a lizard next again, I'm sure of it.

Reviews

[R J Askew]

I like this better than THE END. There is s delightful quirkiness about this. I can't stand the use of the term 'figure' though in graph two. It sounds all wrong for a Mancunian. OK I'm an old f**k, and who gets 'pissed' at the word 'regular' and 'can I get', too. You can imagine what 'do the math' does to me. Me? I was a language fish in my most recent previous. I like the feel of this though. You cld work it up. Maybe meet someone else who is a fly who buzzes around the gecko and gets eaten.