The Lizard and the Dog

 You may have noticed that I've been fairly speechless of late. I guess there are several reasons for this. It's not that I suddenly have nothing to say. It's just that saying it no longer seems important, or even personally entertaining. I used to look forward to coming out here to Starbucks with my laptop and just writing about whatever was on my mind. Now it's more like a task, seeming like something I should do, or maybe it seems like doing it again will recharge my interest. Nonetheless, lugging the laptop around seems a burden, and writing itself seems a burden--an unpleasant effort now, whereas it used to be just about as easy as breathing. I struggle with the language. I struggle with putting words together, connecting one sentence to another so that a cohesive pattern is maintained. Moreover, the thoughts I think soon fade and flee, such that they have altogether disappeared by the same I arrive somewhere with my laptop. All I can think of now is of a little alligator I saw the other day. It seemed something special at the time, but I have forgotten why. I call this thing an alligator, but it wasn't really an alligator. It was more of a very large lizard, perhaps two feet long, multicolored, fat, slow. I don't know the actual name for these things. It was struggling along the side of the broken crossroad at the end of my street. Not a natural spot for fellows like he. At the other side of this broken road there are three large square holes with concrete tops that have been set aside such that one can view the green irrigation water flowing in its bed beneath the street. In the last of these holes, just before the intersection with the main street, there is and has long been the body of a dead dog in the long process of decay. The smell is nearly overpowering. This happens, I have read, in the 4th stage of decay, known as Black Putrefaction and occurring 10-20 days after death. What all this has to do with a little alligator that is not really an alligator, other than the coincidence of proximity, I cannot say.