“Conversations with an Iguana”

by Andrew Meisner

Marine iguanas are algae-consuming reptiles endemic to the Galápagos Islands. They are classified as ‘Vulnerable’ by the IUCN. Of course, you wouldn’t be able to tell that to an individual marine iguana, especially not the striking young male that you see before you, sunbathing atop his favorite seaside boulder.

If you tried, you would first run into trouble at the word ‘iguana’. The lizard would sit serenely, eyes closed, enjoying the cool spray of surf against his face, and would ask you, bemused, why you called him that. Iguanas, you see, do not refer to themselves as such; the name is a purely human invention. By expecting the iguana to understand the term you would have committed an anthropocentric faux pas. Clearly you did not bother to ask an iguana what it prefers to be called, so he would want to know where you got the term.

At this point, you would be forced to admit that, as far as you know, ‘iguana’ is an arbitrary word that people use to refer to his kind. This would be embarrassing on two counts: first, it would reveal that you aren’t entirely sure about the etymology of the word ‘iguana’, and second, it would force you to admit that you spend significant time talking about iguanas. So much time, in fact, that you know the word by heart, and expect others to know it as well. Why do you talk about iguanas so much? He doesn’t talk about you at all.

The word ‘reptile’ would introduce a similar set of problems, but, in the end, the biggest sticking point would be the word ‘Vulnerable’. At this word, a knowing smirk would spread across the bulbous snout of the self-assured iguana. With the gentle patience of one who is speaking to the impossibly naive, he would point out the calmness of the ocean’s waves. The most oblivious of the island’s residents could see that there are no impending storms to worry about. Even if there were, he has ridden out plenty of storms in the past; he knows how to handle them. As for Galápagos Hawks, this male is comfortably outside of the bird’s prey-size range. Perhaps if he was sick and isolated, he might have reason to worry, but he is not. He is perfectly healthy and his place within the colony is secure. The sun is out, he has plenty of food, and he has his favorite rock. It would be difficult to imagine more accommodating conditions.

“Is it possible that your statement involved a little bit of projection?” the iguana would ask. “Should you really be calling anyone else ‘Vulnerable’? You cannot hold your breath underwater for more than 90 seconds, much less an hour. Do you know where on the ocean floor to find the best algae-covered rocks? Could you dive there even if you did know? Do you have powerful limbs and claws, specially adapted to navigate the island’s rocky shores? Most importantly, where is your colony? You are a stranger in this land, relying on foreign words and notions, and you deign to classify another as ‘Vulnerable’? Do you even know how you got here?”

You absorb this speech with a mixture of annoyance and begrudging respect. You can’t help but admire the lizard’s confidence, but of course you know that you are right. They are classified as “Vulnerable”, and he’s being pretty condescending about the whole thing. This lizard can’t even regulate his own body temperature, and he’s trying to tell you that you’re the vulnerable one? How do you begin to navigate the knowledge-gap present in this conversation? How do you explain to a lizard that the irresponsible actions of large governments and corporations in faraway countries are changing the climate in a way that will increase the frequency of El Niño cycles, devastating the population of red and green algae that the iguanas prefer and replacing it with brown algae that they cannot eat? Or that it is a matter of when, not if, the next major oil spill will occur and that when it does, these lizards will have no defense? How do you explain that you don’t have to dive for food, but can simply pull out your phone and, with a series of finger movements, cause food to come rushing to you?

You think all of this, until the iguana arrives at his last question.

“Do you even know how you got here?”

This question washes over you in slow motion and before you can fully process it you feel the seeds of intense discomfort. This discomfort feels silly, because of course you know how you got here; it would be ridiculous not to. But… for some reason, your memory retrieval seems a bit slow. You try to help the process along via simple deduction.

“Well, we’re on an island, so I came here on a boat…”

You don’t remember a boat.

The discomfort rises to panic as you realize that you don’t remember a sea-plane, a helicopter, or a long swim from the coast of Ecuador either. You don’t remember taking any of the steps that would be necessary to arrange such a trip, nor do you remember arriving, alone or otherwise. You have no idea how you came to be in the Galápagos Islands.

“Just think,” you tell yourself. “You’re experiencing a momentary bout of forgetfulness, but any second now your memories will come rushing back to you.”

You might believe the part of your brain that is saying this if it weren’t for the wild fear coming from deep inside of you: from the part of your mind that is older than rational thought, and which still operates on instinct.

You decide to attack the problem from a different angle. If you start by remembering why you came to the Galápagos, perhaps the ‘how’ will follow. Start with the reason you left home.

The second blow hits you like a punch to the stomach. You don’t remember your home. You don’t have a clue where you're from. You don’t think that you were born in the Galápagos Islands, but you aren’t sure where that belief comes from. You double-check your recollection of the conversation to this point to confirm that you have been speaking English to the iguana, but rather than helping, the necessity of performing this check only confirms the bleakness of your situation.

You look up at the marine iguana, who has been placidly observing your realizations, giving you time to catch up with the situation at hand.

“I think I have amnesia,” you say slowly. “Do you know how I got here?”

The iguana looks at you and blinks. His deep black eyes express the pity that one might offer to a dog who does not yet realize that its owners have abandoned it: a creature clinging desperately to threads of hope which have already been severed.

“I know that you are, and I know that you are here,” the iguana replies. “Look around you.”

You turn and survey the surrounding island for the first time. You see the gravelly beach stretching behind you, and the peaks of the island rising up a short way off in the distance. You see dense shrubby greenery beginning at the beach’s end, and you see the vast pulsing ocean encircling the small island. You see a long uninterrupted horizon stretched out over endless water. None of it is familiar. It is a view that you have never seen before. Most important, though, is what you do not see. You do not see any signs of civilization. You do not see a hotel, an airport, or a dock with a boat. You don’t see any luggage at your feet, and you don’t see any companions who might have come here with you. You do not see your footprints in the sand behind you. You never walked up this beach.

“How long have I been here?” you ask unsteadily.

“You know how long you’ve been here,” the iguana insists. “You remember it.”

You are unmoored. You check your pockets and find that you have no wallet, no phone, and no keys, though you would have sworn that you were carrying all three. Despite your certainty, you find that you have no specific memories of what they might look like, or where they might be. Your legs give way, and you fall to your knees. You don’t know your name. You don’t know your nationality. You don’t know the color of your eyes, whether you are married, or how old you are.

You came into this conversation knowing exactly three facts. You knew that marine iguanas lived in the Galapágos Islands, you knew that marine iguanas ate algae, and you knew that marine iguanas were classified as “Vulnerable” by the IUCN. And now you know a fourth fact. You know that the entirety of your existence has consisted of a five minute conversation with a marine iguana on this beach. This last fact comes into conflict with the other three.

“Is anything that I know true?” you ask, mostly to yourself. “Are these islands actually the Galápagos? Does the IUCN exist? Do other humans exist? Does algae exist?”

“Algae exists,” the iguana replies, but he offers no further comfort.

The severity of your situation reveals itself to you slowly. You cannot rely on any sort of existing infrastructure to provide you with food and water. For all that you know, you are the only person on this island. The only person in the world. You would love to believe that there are cities and countries out there: a vast, sprawling, global network of humanity, equipped with cars, planes, houses, hospitals, restaurants, air-conditioning, purified water, and a million other conveniences all designed to exempt you from the unforgiving whims of nature. You would love to believe in a worldwide legion of people, seven billion strong, any one of whom might be on their way right now to extract you from this deserted island and return you to your rightful place within society’s shielding embrace.

But if those people exist, why can’t you name one of them? Or picture their face?

Unable to process this line of thought, your focus gives way to more immediate concerns. The sun is going down. You are probably going to be here, at the very least, overnight. You can figure out how to leave the island tomorrow. For now, you will need food, water, and shelter. Coconuts and fish might sustain you, but you have no particular skill in finding or acquiring these things. You don’t have a knife or a fishing pole, and you wouldn’t know where to begin if you had to construct these tools yourself.

“You don’t even have proof that fish and coconuts really exist”, your brain reminds you, unhelpfully. You believe that they do, but you also believed that you had a wallet and a phone.

You are an infant in this world. You can only confirm the existence of what you see in front of you. The beach, the rocks, the iguana, and the sun. You have no shelter, no supplies, and no strategy for how you might leave the island.

Formidable as these pragmatic threats might be, they still somehow feel secondary to your existential threats. You exist, yes, but how? And why? As far as you can tell, you came into being, spontaneously, with a head full of dubious beliefs, and an overpowering desire to chat up a nearby lizard. Why did you not come into the world as a blank slate, gasping for air and searching for answers about your new environment? What cosmic trick decided to expose you to the harshness of the elements with a flight-or-fight sense dulled by the unearned confidence of apocryphal beliefs?

You get the sense that your life is not your own. You feel the powerful influence of unseen rails and invisible guiding hands which have pushed you into this interaction. The spontaneous generation of a fully-functioning human body and mind suggests order and, likely, a designer, but what kind of careless creator could you be dealing with? This ‘God’ has seen fit to outfit you with the minimum possible toolkit to deal with this world. You have no history, no nationality, no sexuality. You have no opinions, no hobbies, and no skills, no friends, no family, and no agency. You are functionally a puppet on strings: here only to play out this mystifying conversation: perverse entertainment, perhaps, for a higher being that you can’t possibly hope to understand. What happens, you wonder, when your God becomes bored of its plaything?

            You exist, for now, in a vacuum, with no way to learn more about the rules of this world except through continued existence. Will the powers that created you intervene again? If this universe can provide you with pre-prepared beliefs and ideas, it could just as easily take them away. At any moment your mind could shift. You could forget the last five minutes. You could be overcome by a whole new set of beliefs about who you are and where you are from. You could be instantly transported to an entirely new location. Not even the next second of existence is guaranteed. Anything that can be made can be unmade. Your consciousness could vanish, or you might disappear into nothingness just as suddenly as you appeared. All that you can be sure of is that you are here, now. Against the cosmic threats that you face, there is no viable defense. You are critically endangered.

You stand and see that the iguana has turned to watch the sun as it descends below the horizon. You make your way towards his perch, through the tide pools that separate you. Without specially-adapted claws and limbs, the wet rocks are difficult to navigate, but eventually you make your way to the iguana’s boulder. You sit beside him and watch the sun set together: one creature sure of its place in the world, the other, highly Vulnerable.