Around 6-ish yesterday evening, Arky started to bark. It wasn’t his usual bark – as he has a couple of styles. One is his attention-seeking bark (single barks with seconds of silence in between, cause he waits to see if his last bark has got me to come to the door) and the other is his bird distracting bark (quick and angry higher-pitched barks at a bird that is perched on the roof, cause he’s jealous that he can”t get up there too). It wasn’t either of these, instead he’’s barking ultra-fast and rather manically – with the next bark coming out before the first bark finishes. I decide to investigate.
I go to the side of the house, near the clothes line. There he is, staring one on one with a lizard. Like, staring it straight in the eyes and getting his barks out consistently. I laughed and exclaimed – as it was funny but not. He sees me and goes nuts. It’s his big chance to show his stuff and be a real smart-ass in front of me, as far as he’s concerned. What does he do? He jumps the poor lizard. I scream at him. Cause I have just witnessed a full pounce (!) – (he’s learnt something from the cat at previous house perhaps).
(Note: this lizard is not to be confused with Bexel, who I’m afraid had passed about 3 months ago due to natural causes.)
My screaming just provokes him more and he starts to really get into it: wrestling and nipping at it. My initial fears of the lizard biting arky were gone, as Ark clearly showed no fear and was in it only to win – there was absolutely no hope for his placid opponent. I sure as hell was not going to come between them.
What I was seeing was making me squirm; it really was quite terrible, so I left them at it and went inside.
I wondered whether Arky would eat him. If he did, it meant I wouldn’t have to feed him at least. I called Boy and told him we had a backyard battle, colosseum-style, at that moment.
I imagined Ark dragging the Lizard around the yard by its practically detached head victoriously; and as I had a cousin coming over for coffee in a short while, this would not have been a good look. I closed the kitchen blinds and living area blinds so the slaughter would not be on display.
I had asked Boy on the phone (very nicely) to clean the eventual mess when he got home, cause it wasn”t going to be me.
I didn’t hear a peep from Arky for about 2 hours. He was no doubt tired from the fatal wrestling match. Later on that night, when the deceased was taken away, and it was safe to draw back the blinds, perky arky was there at the door in all his Roman glory.
Nah, not really. He just looked as cute as ever, leading me to believe that he had perhaps called his twin brother to do the fighting and killing for him.
Posted by livien 
Posted by livien 