Lesson of the Iguana

Half asleep high on the glittering granite outcrop, the Giant Iguana surveyed its’ territory. An obsessiveness stirred in her. In her two hundred years of life this place had been whittled down from tens of thousands of acres to this 80-acre picnic reserve and forest over which she presided with intent. It was just after first light, and as the sun’s rays rested on this spot for around an hour for most of the warm seasons she could beat the picnickers by a few hours. It was the sunny days in winter that had provided the past encounters she’d had with the occupants of Boclyde and Industria, because in Winter she sometimes needed to sun herself late into the morning. Her favourite spot overlooked the river of moss green water that cut a wide swathe between Boclyde and Industria.

She raised her head and gave a squeal that seemed soft to her but startled the lime and purple-coloured parrots out of the vine entwined trees metres below her. All her aloneness was in that squeal, its’ high pitch belying the age of the wisdom that rested in her. She nodded her head and allowed her pale beard to unfurl taking extra heat into her body. Her folded lids were peeled back from her yellow-flecked bronze irises which saw nothing amiss on this fine late spring morning; she squealed again , not so loud now. The parrots wheeled in the air once more before settling back into the upper branches, ignoring her softer sounds as they whistled and chatted. Another hour and she would return to her deep cave a few hundred metres below this rock shelf. There she would feel the vibrations and hear the sounds of human steps and voices, and the high-stepping hooves of her competitors for vines and fruit.

Mason remembered Tommy’s laughter when he mentioned crossing the river for a picnic; now turned into whining as they packed up their basket : the dry saliva contaminated remains of tomato and feta sandwiches, the crumpled bags that had contained home-made madeleines, and the glass dish stained with berry juice. They had walked along vine-lined trails, filtered and drunk water from the little flow they called a waterfall ( it impressed no one but Tommy) and climbed a hundred metres to a rock shelf which overlooked where they had been walking. Now they must walk back to the road and take their steam-powered car back along the winding road and across the river to Boclyde. The few hours away from the hard graft of their 30-acre subsistence farm wasn’t enough for Tommy who wore his ten seasons with chutzpah on his two-foot wiry frame topped by a mop of curly black hair. Their tall but pre-pubescent daughter Mikala’s seriousness was ingrained in her forehead with a crease, and her mouth was down-turned as Tommy’s screams echoed off a large trunk at a curve in the path. Rachel, her mother, said “ Take him behind those bushes to relief himself,” and she noted her daughter’s stance was losing its’ submissiveness. Her shoulders straightened and she glared at her mother.

The time dragged as Rachel and Mason waited for their children. Finally, a red-faced, sweaty looking Mikala appeared.

Mason huffed, “It took you two long enough. I’ll barely be in time to set up the goats’ milking.”

Mikala stared at him and began to cry. “Don’t be so sensitive Mikala. I’m sure we’ll make it.”

Rachel said, “Tommy must be tired. Do you need me to drag Tommy out from behind the trees?”

Mikala wept.

They bush-bashed and stomped a 20-metre radius. Somehow in the brief time it had taken Mikala to relief herself first, Tommy had disappeared. He did not answer their frantic calls.

There was nothing for it, Mason thought, but to head to the one policing station in a 50-kilometre radius in Industria. Mason focused on the fact that he would have just enough steam for the 5-kilometre uphill stretch to its’ capital Main Town. His anxious thoughts included, Who will give me water for the trip home, or how much will it cost?

“Will the Technos even care about a toddler from Boclyde?” Rachel’s anxiety included a quiet flood of tears down her cheeks.

“I think you should head back to Boclyde by the short cut. Get the villagers to help you milk the goats. Less weight for the engine to pull up hill, and the goats will be milked.”

“You better believe I’ll be starting a search party for my son. The goats can be penned and wait.”

“But I’ll be getting help from the Technos. They can find him faster.”

“If they even care!” Rachel began to sob. She dumped the sacks of picnic things in the back of the steam car and strode back into the reserve. “I’ll take the shortest easterly track towards the pedestrian bridge and back across the river.”

Mason saw she had left the compass in the first sack and chased her thirty metres. “I don’t need you to get lost too.”

“ I grew up coming to this reserve three times a week!”

“But you’re upset!” He stared into her wet eyes. “Do it for my sake.” She snatched it and while flipping the lid open marched away from him. He called out, “I love you, Rachel.”

He heard, “Mason, I—” But she must have passed the first bend in the trail.

He and the frowning Mikala mounted the steam car and headed toward the glittering Main Town of the Technos. There steam car was an eyesore next to all the town’s shiny metal exteriors and geometric objects. Inside the police station , first Mason and then Mikala pled their case. No matter how much they said to the red-eyed metal encased sergeant at the policing station repeated the same sentence, “The search for the Toddler Tommy aged thirty months will begin at 5 am tomorrow.”

He and Mikala left the station and walked the town to see if they could buy one hundred litres of water to take their highly efficient steam car home. The restriction that day was ten litres, after another hour of sitting in the frail north-westerly facing shelter designated ‘for Boclyde residents only’ they sipped some of the water themselves. They would have to walk back and forth to a border water source to get water for the car. How angry would Rachel be when he saw her next? Where was Tommy?

The Giant Iguana was legendary; part of that legend was the designation Dragon or Dinosaur and the myth it would swallow humans whole after shattering every bone in their bodies. The residents of Boclyde used this legend to keep their erring teenagers from braving the short cut to Main Town, and the Technos were confident that the complex of Industria, along with Main Town, could be easily defended from such an impressive but fleshly creature. Dragon slowly munched five juicy pink melons and tore apart ten metres of thick vine for its’ mid-afternoon meal before beginning its slow crawl uphill to its’ cave. She heard squeals which sounded like those of the male of her hundred-year-old mating. Her instincts took her straight to Tommy’s half-asleep and seated body between two low bushes on the east of the cave entrance. A python as thick as her haunches was circling but not yet constricting Tommy. It had definitely targeted Tommy for a meal.

Her mind replayed finding a child in the same predicament fifty years before. Unlike the last toddler Tommy had straddled the python’s body and was scrabbling for purchase. Tommy’s hazel eyes were wide with fear. Dragon swung her tail and knocked the boy towards herself. The python felt the presence of Dragon and was off to find other prey but unfortunately things happened fast. Dragon’s tail rasped across the python’s square half-opened mouth, damaging the lower jaw. The sheer weight of her tail stunned the python for a minute, and it twitched before slithering away in the opposite direction and downhill.

Dragon was relieved when Tommy latched onto her beard, entangling his arms and legs into the folds of skin beneath her great jaw. She closed her eyes with discomfort, but she recalled the previous child who had been weaker and less aware. Thoughtlessly she had tried to grasp the child as the python persisted, its’ scales turning iridescent purple in its’ excitement, and damaged the child with her great claws. After a few days, resting against her body in the sun the hot red flesh of the child had ceased to vibrate, and her eyes grew wet with knowing it had died. She had taken its’ tiny body tenderly in her mouth and carried it to a high spot between two trees on the west side of her cave. She had dug a deep hole with mostly her hind claws, a strange operation of dragging and loosening, and then scooping to each side with her front claws. She wondered if any of her ancestors had ever dug such a deep hole, or if tears were possible for them. Tears dripped on the corpse of the child, and she covered it with dirt and the natural mulch of the trees. She picked up small pieces of quartz and granite with her mouth and made a triangular shape over the grave. She had wondered where the child’s mother was as she was used to seeing the humans in groups.

Her attention was drawn to the present by Tommy squealing. She went to the nearest vine and found a large melon, bit a piece out of it, dropping the piece out of her mouth. Tommy untangled himself from her beard, dropped to the ground and picked up the piece of melon which was bigger than his two hands. He licked the dirt off, then began to suck on it and gnaw at it. That was good for now Dragon pondered, but this time the child would not die. She must find its’ mother.

There were a few families in Industria nicknamed ‘Bridgers.’ They were the families that had accepted, lived, and traded with the Technos. The Technos found it strange that they didn’t prefer their own kind across the river in Boclyde, but the Bridgers were known for their dislike toward other groups of humans . They were aggressive traders and useful to the Technos for their ability to go way into the north and bring back useful things from other human settlements. They helped disguise the presence of the Technos in this locality. Their obsession was hunting, and they wore tunics and trousers made of goat and snakeskin. The teenagers amongst them were obsessed with Dragon and were nicknamed the dragon chasers. The fifty-foot length of the Giant Iguana and its’ ability to camouflage itself amongst the giant flora of the reserve did intimidate them. Mostly their obsession was talk, as their sightings were rare because they avoided the reserve at sunset and after dark. However, they did hear about the child disappearing in Dragon’s domain and thought the matter urgent. Their leader, a well-built sixteen-year-old called Cassidy, determined to marshal an evening expedition.

Cassidy began collecting whale oil lanterns which represented their relationship with the archaic, while her other companions organised digital trackers and water canteens. The forest on the reserve dripped with moisture at night even if storm clouds had not gathered, so they planned to take oilskins. That evening at sunset the seven of them set off on foot, downhill towards the forest reserve. It was the night of a visible full moon, a rare event in Industria as the pollution which arose from the manufacturing area would often put a thick haze between the inhabitants and the sky. At the end of the hour, they were ready to enter the forest reserve but the darkness, the dampness and the slithering sounds sent four of their party back up the hill. Cassidy and her two brothers, Tony and Bruce entered the reserve on their own. At the entrance they stopped and whispered to one another a while. They headed northeast, as the crow flies, to the mountainous area of the park. They carried a spear gun, a semi-automatic weapon with armour-piercing bullets, and machetes.

Dragon roused Tommy from his nap, when the rippling clouds, stained apricot, and ruby, were seen below drifting from behind the distant smokestacks. She lumbered over to him and was gently squealing into his face. He woke with a giggle and jumping up did a jig. He started to squeal back at her, and she circled around him, before breaking a melon open in front of him. He ate a small portion before wandering over to a small pool of water in the back of the cavern and swishing his hands around. He bent his face to the pool and took a few sips before sitting back on his haunches and shaking his head with water dripping from his chin.

Her instinct was to leave now, the days turned quickly dark. She waggled her beard in front of him, and as he clambered up she noticed a red rash on the inside of his arms and legs. Whatever it was he didn’t seem too concerned but it was another reason it was time to take him across to Boclyde. By the time they were down on the forest floor there was darkness. She hummed and squealed to distract Tommy. He climbed higher on her beard, clinging to the inside of the widest fold right under her jaw against what was to her the most sensitive part of her throat. To Tommy it felt like the bearable part of her sandpapery hide. His heart was pounding fast, she could feel it, but after a while it settled into a steady rhythm. She lifted her head, she could smell the river, and the sturdy twelve pylon pedestrian walkway was not far away.

The villagers of Boclyde gathered when their warden had let them know that the toddler, Tommy of Mason, and Rachel’s farm was missing. He called them to gather in the township at the bottom of the main street where the great pedestrian walkway that their ancestors had built provided access to the town. He had instructed them to arrive with as much lighting, outdoor protection, drinking water, and weapons as they could comfortably wear or carry. Now they stood in a circle , thirty volunteers, some hopeful, some fearful, and some aged fifteen years who’d never been let out at night before, all staring at the moon. The warden gave them an encouraging address stating that it was a good sign they could see the moon, and the moon would be shining on Tommy as well. Rachel bit her lip thinking, It won’t be shining in the forest that’s why we have the friggin’ lamps. She supposed the warden meant well. When she’d had enough she said, “Please, let’s go!”

They were just on the bridge when it began to shake. They continued forward but it swayed, then stopped, Rachel shrieked in frustration.

Dragon sometimes stood on the pedestrian walkway at night, on the first section which stretched out to the west of Boclyde across the river to her forest home. It was supported by massive pylons made from two hundred old trees sunk into blast holes in the river bedrock one hundred years before. She loved the whoosh and the green smell of the river because the water level was always close to the bottom of the bridge. In the winter she could sometimes dip her long tongue into the water, and microscopic treats would stick to her tongue, like she was fishing from the middle of the section. In the summer, the evening light lingered long enough to watch the humans as they took the road down from the plateau farms into the village of Boclyde. She had never walked right across the section to the rest of the bridge. But now she must. If the child’s mother was gone, there would be other humans to care for it. Tommy’s warm body was stopping her from slowing down too much, he was like a little heater under her jaw.

She was midway across the section, grateful for the gleam of the moon on the water, when she heard pounding behind her. She swung her tail instinctively and took out a section of safety rail on the north side. She heard shouting and lurched forward. Tommy started screaming. Her haunch claws stuck to what was now the collapsing main walkway behind her, and she held her head up desperately trying to grasp the south rail of the bridge, with her mouth and front claws. There was no wisdom in her about whether Tommy could survive the water. He was an exceedingly small human. And a strong one, she quickly decided because she could now feel him resting over her right eye. She swung her back section, and her huge back claws caught near the north rail of the second section, her head, neck, and Tommy were hanging right out over the river even though she was as bent as she could be. She began slowly to back around. When her head was fully facing back the way she had come, towards the west, there was Cassidy, that nuisance of a human from last winter, with what looked like a large stick pointed at Dragon. Cassidy was making loud aggressive noises; the like of which Dragon had never heard before. Dragon was afraid for Tommy. No.

Tommy shouted, “No, no, no,” and even as she pulled the trigger Cassidy aimed just enough away from them for the bullets to lodge in the north rail.

Rachel shrieked again, frightening herself with the noise coming out of her. The bridge had shaken, and now she could hear rifle shots. And just before them she swore she heard Tommy’s voice. She began to run with the warden and his offsider telling her to slow down. She began to shout, “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot. I’m coming to get the boy. I’m his mother. I’m his mother.”

She tripped over the end of Dragon’s tail. Luckily, her lantern didn’t smash on the wooden bridge but flew through a gap in the rail as if it had sprouted wings, and its’ light was extinguished below in the swirling green water. She heard a soft squeal, and then the voice of her son.

“Mumma, Mumma”

The light of her village group was around her and she could see her son running towards her down the spine of the largest scaliest creature she had ever seen. The warden was the tallest person in the group and stood next to Rachel. He held the lamp high and there was Cassidy still standing with her gun aimed slightly to the right of the dragon’s head.

Cassidy shouted, “My brothers are in the water, and some of you better go in after them or I’ll shoot.”

Oblivious to the tension, Tommy launched himself from the midpoint of Dragon’s tail straight at his mother. Rachel caught him and with Tommy clinging to her went two metres back towards home and wrapped herself around one of the upright beams on the guard rail. Dragon let out a great squeal that brought everyone to a standstill and the bridge lurched as she plunged towards the river. Everyone on Cassidy’s half of the bridge was plunged downward with Dragon. Two grabbed onto the scaly lizard as she swam back to the forest reserve, and then two more took safety: Cassidy’s older brother hooked himself on her scaly neck, resting his unconscious brother between his body weight and her great neck. On shore Dragon waited until relieved of her burdens then giving a sweep of her great tail, lumbered away. The folks on the other side of the bridge were all dragged under water by the collapse but managed to surface, most climbing up the deconstructed timbers of the bridge. Rachel and Tommy were briefly in the water before they heard the sound of chugging and the Boclyde river pilot boat appeared. It picked up about twenty of the villagers that had not made it to shore. Two almost drowned, but the doctor later pronounced them alive, and most likely to be nursed through a bout of pneumonia.

Tommy and Rachel sat by the fire in the office of the river station. A drink of goat’s milk and finest dark chocolate mixed with cinnamon warmed Rachel’s hands. It was surprisingly good, and Tommy thought so too. He stood between his mother’s knees, accepting sips from the cup. Rachel’s legs felt cold and dry, her hair still dripped coolness into her goat’s wool vest. The dry shirt that was available she had put on Tommy, after soaking up most of the moisture from both of them with one towel. The resources of the office were stretched thin. This day would go down in Boclyde history.

She moved a little closer to the large potbelly fire and began to wonder where Mason and Mikala were. Then she heard a distinctive sound, a lone steam car with its’ piston rattles and steam hissing as the car stopped outside the station. There was the sound of the doors opening and closing and then a knock at the door. The door was opened to Mason and Mikala, looking windblown and miserable. Mikala’s frown disappeared as she spotted Tommy’s curly head, low down between everyone’s legs.

“Tommy!” In seconds she was with him, and his surprised expression as Mikala plucked him up from behind and squeezed him made Rachel laugh. The hot chocolate in his mouth spewed forth onto the floor.

Mason came over to them and Tommy wrapped his arms around his legs, while Mason rubbed his hair. “Young man a bunch of robots are going to turn up to try and find you in the morning.”

Rachel laughed, “That legendary lizard creature brought him home. I mean it protected him. I’m trying to process that, but there’s no way we can let the Technos go after it.”

Mikala had on her thinking frown. “I’ve heard if you keep offering a techno Choc chip cookies and hot chocolate it doesn’t know what to do because they forgot the programming for that.”

“Surely, the know how to say, “No, thank you,’ that’s dumb,” Mason laughed.

“Excessive hospitality puts them in a spin I’ve heard. They don’t know how to process parties and dancing. The party we’re going to have to celebrate Tommy’s return is going to blow their circuits!”

“Yes, we’ll hide all the weapons and have an all-day party going by the time they get here. We’ve got a lot to be grateful for!”

“There’s one thing you’re going to have to deal with when we get home. A bunch of really cranky goats. The herd mother, Nemusa, will be cursing you.”

“Since you’re another mother, I’ll let you explain to that three-horned wonder why her clan weren’t the priority today.”

Seven weeks later

Cassidy found the Dragon cave after she’d helped nurse her brothers back to health. The cave floor was covered with desiccated melon pits and rind. This was hard for her to process, but the scat was definitely that of a giant lizard. She searched the cave for evidence of bone or human blood spraying with luminol and using a camera she bought for way too much allowance on the Industria black market. As she moved about, and then settled on a stone in the main cavern she disturbed clouds of lime and purple butterflies which rose out of crevices and holes through which a vine wound throughout the cave.

Oblivious, Cassidy sat obsessing, Am I in the right place? It couldn’t be possible that Dragon was an herbivore. No.

High in a parallel range of mountains, which traced a fault line further to the north of Boclyde, Dragon sunned herself. She hoped she didn’t spot another human for at least one hundred years.