Lizard High

If you asked me where I thought I would be at 31 years of age I certainly wouldn’t have said dead. That was never my intention. I’ve never been plagued with a day of ill-health or suicidal ideation a day in my life. But here I am laying cold on the floor of

an International Harvester school bus. I collapsed half way down the aisle, facedown in a puddle of what I hope is apple juice. I think it was my heart. Now I’m trapped, floating above my body, waiting for someone to open the door. I thought ghosts could go through walls?

My disembodied spirit hovered past the windows, watched the world beyond them slowly change from the one I knew to something broken, confused. Instead of buildings, giant eggshells filled with scaffoldings stood. Here were lizard dogs, there owls with empty eyes. The bus stopped.

The door opened. Thousands of little lizards ran out the door with little backpacks on their backs. They even have reptile school? They seemed to take to their human predecessors. Ironic. Reptiles dominated the world in the past, and now they have returned stronger than ever.

“Dude.” I’m nudged hard out of my trance. The reptiles morph into teenagers. On their way down the hall, Jessica and her friends roll their eyes at me and laugh. I preferred when they were scaly and small. “You high?” I still feel the pain of rejection to prom, “Hey, Jessica!”

Fitting that all the cool kids at school were monitor lizards: cold blooded, basic. But I knew something they didn’t. I felt my legs slowly wrap around the group—the last thing they saw was my menacing Burmese Python head, fangs bared, as they experienced collective asphyxiation.