A Little Help :: Sixty Nine

In consideration of his tight situation, I dubbed him: Winnie the Lizard.

Wood you like to hear the rest of the tail?

Alex and Maria found the lizard desperately wedged in the wood post. Maybe he followed a cricket in, but got too fat to retreat? Everything was against him... the too small hole, the direction of his scales, the drag of his hanging body, while he tried to keep his head on, how much of him was exposed to birds, cats, heffalumps.. It was a perilous scene. Alex reminded us, "We can't tug on him, or he could drop his tail." Even our talking was causing him to play dead, so we sat around, writing notes, and making as little noise as possible. After some silence, Winnie resumed his struggle against the post, wriggling frantically, trying to get a leg up. Then he'd slump, as though from fatigue. The sun was setting. Alex and Maria went in for our space heater, and using an extension cord and a chair we got him warmed up. He was revived, and managed to free first one hand, then the other.

The effort was exhausting, and besides panting, he was limp, again. This was when I began considering the difficulty he must be having keeping his back end high enough so that he wasn't injuring his front end. Even though touching him obviously caused him panic, Alex and I decided to risk the trade off and try giving him support and leverage. We moved in some scraps to raise his tail and legs.

Just as we expected, poor Winnie played dead.

We waited, quietly.

William fed us the spaghetti dinner he'd made.

Then, Winnie sprang back into action.

And...pulled through!

Hello, friend.

And that is the rest of the true tale. The End.


Some people care too much. I think it's called love."
~Winnie the Pooh
With Infinity More Monkeys, a picture a day.