Smoke Break

I stepped out into the oppressive, bullshit sun. 99 degrees today. You know ,they say that high temperatures can contribute to rises in violence and aggression in humans. I was definitely boiling in more ways than one. Shit, shit, and more shit. Tired of answering the same preset group of stupid customer questions, fed up with calls from my boss, yelling in his incomprehensible Turkish accent because he was in an airport. Basically feeling done. I shut the door behind me and lit a cigarette.

What happened next was all prehistoric brain jelly and ape reflexes. I saw a lizard, about the size of a mouse, slink at breakneck speed underneath a steel plate covering a water system access hatch in the sidewalk outside the store’s back door. Reflexively, I felt a hatred for it for hiding from me. I leapt into the air, my flabby body grabbing rad air as I shouted, “I HATE WHEN SHIT HIDES FROM ME.”

I heard a tiny crunch as I landed. Remorse lasted for a dim moment, as I squinted in the atomic sunlight and lifted the plate. There he was, the poor bastard, not flattened, surprisingly serene looking, but with a bit of gut burst out behind his front leg and an eye that launched a good foot or so. He was undeniably dead, laying in a position not even a lizard could enjoy. My remorse quickly died as my mind raced to justify this cruelty. Normally I am not one to kill an animal, but for some reason this little guy pissed me off.

I slid him out into the hot sun of the bare, open sidewalk with a stick. So he would bake. So he would stink. So the ants would find him quick and leave nothing but bones.

“That’s what it feels like to be a human,” I said to the lizard corpse as I bent over it. “Every fucking day.”

I put out my cigarette and went back inside to slide up the front gate and deal with the sea of disgust that would overflow back into my store.