Crocodile Dreams

In the early afternoon a cool breeze raises white caps on the ocean before rushing busily inland The palm trees respond with broad circular gestures and their lower branches echo this wavelike rhythm by turns revealing and concealing the cool shade and patches of sunlight below the forest canopy Light escaping from a perfect blue sky sends sharp shadows flickering from branch to branch as patches of ragged sunlight chase each other back and forth across this delicate web of tropical plant life Meanwhile a short distance away a crocodile is dozing in the hot afternoon sun She is completely still but from time to time her heavily armoured eyelids blink open and just as quickly shut In that instant the light reflected from the precarious world about us is lost in a tunnel of reptilian darkness stretching from this moment back to the beginning of time