#ANYWAY. grabbing you by the shoulders. do you ever yearn to bury your canines deep as you can and feel the flesh tear beneath them

[tigersizedmonitorlizard]

Many people don't realize this, but a lot of things can be true at once. The sky is blue. Blue is relative term, and the sky only appears as such due to the scattering of particular wavelengths, and even then only sometimes. Blue is real and the sky isn't.

See? It's not difficult.

These were the thoughts crossing my mind as I stood in the museum lobby, patiently watching the comings and goings of all the days' attendees. It was friday, field trip day, my favorite of the week! It fascinated me so to see the human children, small and loud and squishy as they were. To think they became the lanky, well-upright things that escorted them around...I couldn't even imagine. It was just like the primate evolution diorama behind the ticket desk, only in hyperspeed.

A couple students stopped in front of me and ogled for a minute, then scampered back to their line without glancing at the plaque. This happened a lot. I liked to think about what my plaque looked like, especially when people came by and ignored it. I pictured it deep back with gold-etched letters, in some neat and legible script. Shiny, despite it all, enough to see oneself in the reflection. And descriptive! Oh, how descriptive it must be, because after all, there was so much to describe. But at the end of the day, I had never seen it, positioned as it in front of my feet.

The crowds thinned as the day waned, and I turned my mind back to the sky, visible in slivers through the atrium. Today it was the same shade as the fish printed on the map someone had dropped on the floor in front of me, although gradually darkening, as it always seemed to when the humans left for good. I wondered, in which direction did the influence run? Did it turn to night for their absence, or did they flee it? Whatever the answer, it was never shared in my earshot. I was simply left to wonder.

During the nighttime, it was always just myself and my security guard. She walked around a lot. Sometimes she sang. I didn't see her, or hear her, very often, but the museum was large and visitors were recommended to set aside three to four hours to see all the exhibits fully, so I understood.

During this nighttime, however, something was different. There was an intruder. I had heard twice the protocol for this, as it pertained to a visitor-heavy daytime, but never what to do if the museum was empty. Or, almost-empty. You understand.

The intruder didn't look human. Too tall. Too long. It paced outside the doors for a moment before seeming to commit, clawing through the glass like it was a well-worn map in a preschooler's hands. The noise was instant and shattering, and segued into the immediate screeching of an alarm, but the intruder didn't hesitate as it stooped through the doorframe and into the atrium.

"Hey, you!" My security guard had arrived and was shouting, from the very opposite side of the lobby. She held her walkie-talkie in such a way that I realized it could, in the darkness, appear to be the form of a weapon. I thought this was extremely clever, and made a note of the strategy for later.

Unfortunately, the intruder did not seem to be as impressed, as it only snarled and spat a little. It reminded me loosely of the ancient reptile statues I was fairly sure lived on the level above my head. Sometimes children carried very small and soft-looking versions of them, from the area they called a gift shop, and they tantalized me greatly. Did they have soft iterations of me? I had never seen any. But if not, why not? What would it take to merit such delightful imitation?

My security guard was backing away as the intruder got closer, predator-slow and breathing heavy. The claws on its hand-arms clicked against the tile floor with what I felt was an excess of melodrama, and it tail swayed hypnotically, oversized scales playing a soft clinking noise beneath the wailing alarm. It ignored my security guard's orders to stay back, to stay put until police arrived, to exit the costume. It just kept walking, and I could practically taste its sense of smug victory.

It broke into a run as my security guard turned to flee, and in the same instant, I heard the sound of dice clattering against tile. 9, said the voice behind my head that was also my own, mixed success.

You and the monster deal harm to each other.

I didn't hesitate. I exploded off the pedestal and into the intruder, ramming it into the self-serve ticket kiosk. The kiosk was smashed beyond repair; the intruder, unfortunately, was not. It hissed and lunged forward, slashing my sides with its claws and succeeding in piercing one of my shoulders entirely before I could bite the arm in question. The sensation was unpleasant and very much irksome. But, nevertheless, fixable.

Within seconds it had slid its claw back out and retreated a few feet, wary now. I was not a threat it had accounted for. I was not as helpless as my security guard who, I noted approvingly, was nowhere in sight. The intruder lunged for me again and this time I was ready, darting to its right and snapping my jaws where I expected its leg would be.

Success! My teeth sank easily through flesh and well into the bone, nearly meeting again in the middle, and the intruder screamed. Loud enough to drown out the still-ringing alarms, and to even obscure the sirens that I assumed were accompanying the flashing red and blue outside the shatttered doors. As the excitement wore down, I began to feel uncertain. This had been very spur-of-the-moment; I had attacked without thinking, already a horrible faux pas on my own part. Perhaps I had also made a grave miscalculation of intent on the intruder's part, and the entity I gripped did not deserve my wrath

[pardon me], I said aloud, teeth still firmly locked in the intruder's leg. [we may have gotten off on the wrong...foot...ah, if you can understand me, stay still. then i will let go and we can proceed with civility.]

The intruder snarled again and thrashed about trying to find purchase to further claw into my sides and tail, which I took as a reassuring "no". It was a crude miscalculation on its part, too, as the struggling nearly tore its own leg from my grasp. All at once I let go fully and then, before it could writhe too far away, lunged in to bite whatever I could reach. That turned out to be its flank; all meat, no bone. I ripped a gaping mouthful of muscle out of its side but it tore itself away and began to flee, limping rapidly towards the doors through which it had broken in.

The doors that were now, unfortunately for the both of us, filling with the silhouettes of police. The lobby was still dark, illuminated only by the car lights outside. I considered for a moment returning to my pedestal, resuming my pose, burying myself back within mundanity. But, no, wait. That wouldn't work. The syrupy, steaming pulp of the intruder that was still sludging out of my jaws wouldn't go unnoticed for long.

I knew what that meant, then. I needed to flee. The police were moving in, only occupied for now by the intruder having gotten its claws on a few of them. Still, I couldnt help but waver long enough to look at my plaque. That tantalizing mystery which had defined me for the years I'd stood. It had to be good. It had to be poetic. It had to speak to my grandiosity, elegance, power, poise.

It read, black letters on a white-beige backdrop, "'Steampunk Lizard' Donated 2008".

Well.

This sucked.