GARY PANTER BLOG

It was hard to miss them: two giant reptiles, locked in mortal combat, right outside the cliffside niche that me and the feral woman had found, in a big hurry. I thought we were having a picnic, at first, woven wooden basket, double flapping lids, checkered tablecloth, a loaf of French bread sticking way out and a jiggling bottle of purple vino, oranges and big simple flowers, like on a painted puzzle. THEN, OUTA NOWHERE… Grunt. Shriek. Bash. Crash. Ook. Ook! Splintering logs, Trees shocked into tatters, whole hillsides collapsing, desperate flocks of rhamphorhynchuses exploding out of the under-growth. Getting far away. Pit-falls and spear-lined tiger traps you expect at every turn. You can watch out for them and quicksand and tsetse flies and leeches, if you only keep your eye on the ball. Twenty ton colliding venomous monitors, or chuckawallas, or whatever they are, are really too much. Beyond reasonable expectations. Call off the pic-a-nic. Sound the air-raid siren. All hands on deck. Titanospheric spinning grape-like gnarled bunting texture, too close.  Sure enough, one of the lizards in torque, flipped a smaller bit of itself–a small useless arm, a tail tip, a hind leg spur, whatever, right in here with us for a second flashing sparks off the rocks! The cold blooded monsters continued their thrashing and bawling and subsonic croaks and spit blasts, spewing torrential fountains of personal effluents, splashing and ricochetting, arcing among our hiding boulders. Ewww!!! We quivered and threw ourselves on the ground crying and screaming in frustration and tore our hair and clothes, a little too enthusiastically, apparently, for soon we were there in the cleft of the rock naked as jay-birds. By then, one of the great oafish behemoths was lost to the world and the great bellows of his lungs accordioned less and less as the light also ebbed. At last the fountain of blood sprayed the underside of the canopy rather than rain down. The bloodied ‘victor’ hissed off into the great stewing jungle to nurse it’s wounds among breadfruit and cold water. The stark naked girl gave me a look as she disappeared into the current.  Missed me by that much.