The Call of the Wild?

There is no boredom like rural boredom. The heat avails little entertainment.

But certain wild pigeons which live in our roof amuse me greatly. During the day the resident couple go flying around with other wild-pigeon-friends of theirs, often returning to array themselves in a line on our roof,scanning the landscape, cooing commentary to one another. The amusing part is, whenever they see a person walking towards the house on which they are perched, they get all upset and fidgety, like "what's that human being looking for in these quarters?" Any sudden movement makes the whole flock of them fly for their lives. At any rate, they always take flight before anyone gets close enough to demonstrate how harmless he/she is. In their heads, it is THEIR house, we are the unwelcome pests.

It just goes to show you. All those travel brochures talking about tourism as a response to the call of the wild? They don't know what they're talking about. Take it from me: the wild is not calling you, or anyone. In fact the wild doesn't even want you anywhere near it, or even looking at it for that matter, because you're probably up to no good, and it's not going to be grateful for any good you may attempt. And if you mess with certain wild, it'll kill you.

Mid morning. I hid from the harsh sunlight and struggled to stay awake by reading outdated newspapers in the verandah.

Along came a lizard too big and too fast to be a common gecko. The very look of it spelt "wild." The alert eyes in its raised head depicted a decidedly predatory creature. Its rough scaly skin was at once beautiful and alarming. Using clawed feet at the ends of squat legs, the animal moved in sharp bursts of speed, coming to sudden dead standstills in which it seemed frozen on the spot, only flashing its forked tongue at the world.  I was oddly entranced by this ugly and yet rapacious hunter, entranced for a brief instant.

And then I realized that the animal was closing in on a brood of grazing chickens with each burst of speed. So I got up to chase after the animal, it raced towards a nearby tree, and that was the last I saw of it.  As I circled the tree to try and see it so I could know where to aim my missiles, it too was circling the same tree, ensuring it kept the tree trunk ever between us, climbing the trunk the whole time! I could hear its claws scraping the trunk on its upward way, it could hear my feet running about in circles around the tree. Soon it was too high up to follow, and I hadn't even seen it, so I gave up. Let's just say that lizard outwitted me entirely.

Nature is the artwork of GOD. The birds, the fishes and all the animals are of particular beauty, with minds of their own besides, to think their own brand of intelligent thoughts, to live their lives and bear young after their own kind.

We serve an awesome Creator.