Before, it used to be half past one. Dead of the night as other humans liked to call it. But not my humans. They are so lively at 1. It is endearing to watch them make unfunny jokes and laugh at it till tears rolled out. But after a point, it gets on your nerves. Sure, I need my nightly entertainment. And the boy and the girl give it for free. But I also need time for my own activities, viz., thudding along the window panes, making musical sounds, dancing on the dark walls and jumping from one human property to another with my mates. A very busy time I have in the night.
Only, to do any of this, the humans should switch off their beastly lights and go to sleep. Unlike them, I don’t prefer having an audience for my performances. I need perfect calm around me. The only chaos that occurs will be what I create. That’s the rule. That’s the only rule. But do the humans pay any heed to it? No. They put off their bedtime further and further away, and I have to wait, tapping my tail on idiot spiders’ web. Oh yeah, this house is full of them. I suspected if the boy and the girl were raising them. You hear about pet parents on the radio – or whatever the medium they use today. I am only a year old and already in the prime of my life; so the radio should be ancient to me.
But we live by history passed on from generation to generation. And some time in the mid 1900s a lazy ancestor stopped taking notes. We stopped finding out what’s new with the world. I do hear dull-sounding words like internet and smartphones (even with smart in it, that’s one dumb coinage). But they don’t interest me. I’d rather the humans bought a radio, if those things still exist.
But these two do carry with them some oldfashioned habits more to my taste, like reading books. From books. Not those unsmart phones. I told you my humans were a precious lot. Only thing I disapprove is their late hours. Because it makes the important being here –ME – wait. And I don’t like waiting. I figure I told you that before. But that’s how much it affects me.
And now the girl has taken to keeping awake for long, long minutes after lights off. The boy’s no trouble, drifts off easily and makes funny sounds. I do like funny sounds in the background. But the girl’s turning this side and that for hour after hour (my indignation allows for minor exaggerations) and what’s more, she’s taken to watching me!
That’s right. She’d suddenly open her eyes at 3 in the night and look at me, amused. As if my acrobatics are anything to laugh at. But these two make and laugh at the poorest of jokes. So laughing for them must be like breathing for the others – totally involuntary. Now I have to wait for the lights to go off and for this insomniac to go to sleep. I’ve actually taken to chirping lullabies for her without making it too obvious. I don’t suddenly want the radio people to poke their mics at me and ask me how I feel about being a singing lizard. I hear media today don’t need your answers. They poke the mics and supply your answers too. Very kind of them, I think, doing your work for you. I wonder why my humans don’t like them.
Just as I finish this thought, I find the girl has finally gone to sleep. I can say when she really sleeps and is not awake with a thousand thoughts popping in and out of her head. It suddenly becomes very peaceful – her face and mine. Well, for different reasons. For her, it really must be peace, and for me… freedom. But at times that she’s awake, I do like that she looks at my eyes and talks to me when there’s no one else around. She must fear the radio people so. It’s nice to have these conversations. Though I am pretty sure she doesn’t listen to a word I chirp. And I do not like it that she’s now taken to calling me Lizzie. Not only is it very unoriginal (duh, a lizard called Lizzie) but it sounds like I am my five year old grandma, who is dead!
Oh would you look at the time! Right, I gotta go now. My playmate’s come. From the other room. We neighbours are very chatty in the night, another quality my humans lack. I think with the radio, the neighbours too went away from this world. People have strangers living next to them, not neighbours.
Oh, didn’t I say I was going? Hard to stop a busy mind like mine at 3 in the night. Must be the same for my sleepless girl.
Story of a lost journalist 