THAT LIZARD THING

To be honest it gave me quite a fright at first.

Perhaps I’m just very stupid or perhaps (and I prefer to think this…) I was just very tired after a long day at work, but when I spotted the creature just lying there on its back right at the edge of the pavement and within a stone’s throw of my own front door I did let out an involuntary yelp of… astonishment perhaps…?

Not fear, oh no! I’m far too proud to admit it might have been actually scary, not now that I’ve had time to think about it.

“What the hell is THAT?” my mind may have been screaming at that precise moment, but I’m still astute enough to know that it’s probably best to look twice before ringing the church bells, rounding up the villagers, lighting up the torches and marching on the Town Hall demanding action be taken.

So I looked again.

It hadn’t moved in the full ten seconds I’d been palpitating, so it seemed safe enough to do so, so I did with all the bravery of the idiot in those films who you find yourself bellowing at exasperatedly to “Run away you idiot! Why do they never just run away…?”

On closer inspection, there was something artificial-looking about the feet and I managed to unclench various parts of my anatomy when I realised that it was just a lost or discarded toy.

I’m not sure what kind of child would come to love such a strange and bizarre creature as this is, but it takes all sorts and it is rather a comfort to know that even the oddest looking creatures can find unconditional love somewhere.

Mind you, they didn’t quite love it enough not to lose it and leave it lying there in the rain… Perhaps a blind eye was being turned here…?

“Uh-oh! She’s dropped the ghastly looking thing… Keep walking, keep walking…”

After a moment more of contemplating the thing in order to just convince myself that it really was a toy and not some strange infestation of bizarrely large lizards which seemed unlikely for the brink of Lesser Blogfordshire to be perfectly honest, I unholstered my telephone and grabbed just the sort of blurry evidence that was once so very much loved by the kind of publications which claimed to have compelling evidence of Bigfoot or UFOs.

Just as another local woman walked past and wondered what it was I was taking a picture of…

“What on Earth is it…?” she asked with that fleeting yet familiar look of terror on her face which I was now, of course, able to be quite blasé about, despite having been wearing a similar one myself mere moments before.

“It’s just a toy… just a toy!” I was able to reassure her as she went on her way.

Well, I say “reassure”, but perhaps, as she headed homewards, she was possibly wondering more alarming thoughts about the strange man bothering to take a picture of such a thing than about the giant, soggy, and quite dead looking lizard creature itself which had until recently seemed so alarming to her.