( The Gecko )

The gecko visits my place around three o'clock every afternoon. And I think he's been doing this long ago. But I didn't notice him before.
Since the beginning of the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, my life has been stagged very poorly inside my shell. And it is known to all of us that, in the realm of infectious diseases, a pandemic is the worst case scenario.
As I have spent almost four months in home quarantine, I have become very much familiar with the furnitures, the walls, the ceiling fan and many more subtle things around me. When lockdown hit, I found myself suddenly with more free time than I’d had since childhood. There were no handshakes, no in-person introductions. 
And I gradually have discovered that, too much freedom can depress one heavily. I also found myself becoming very hopeless day by day due to this serious progressive captivity.
The coronavirus hit us by surprise, and consumed us within months!
But luckily in this utterly boring life, I have found this little gecko as a living companion of mine among the non-living ones.
In this one kind of lost life, this little reptile is the only creature who reminds me everyday that it is three o'clock at afternoon. Though it's not that I'm not afraid of him. After our first meeting, I can remember, I hated him very much. I was pretty uncomfortable seeing the patterns on his body. But I really don't know whether he was afraid of me too after discovering me.
The gecko used to roam about my writing-desk and generate a strange sound from his throat, seeking for mate. It was the signal of spreading genes.
That sound used to affect me in a very strange manner. I used to ask myself, 'do me too want to sound like this little creature?'
I think each and every thing of our daily life creates different sounds. The favourite poems, the favourite novels, the last bottle of Tennessee whiskey, the half-eaten chicken sandwich thrown into the waste basket, the Ford Figo sleeping there inside the backyard garage --- everything probably has different sounds and meanings. Each of these things is probably the result of a deep hunger. Probably, the hunger of existence.
As the night got darker, the entire first floor became part of his empire. He used to roam around without any dispute or fear. But whenever he came in front of my eyesight, he used to hide himself from me. And I also used to do the same thing without knowing the actual reason. But probably both of us were unable to understand each other.
I don't know if he found his mating partner. But I think he did fail to do so. Because often I heard that alien sound several times coming out of his throat. And after a few days, we gradually became accustomed to living with each other. Thus, gradually we gained a respectful respect for each other.
But despite all these things, the feeling of embarrassment continued to be generated. We were often shocked to see each other.
Perhaps, the factor of natural selection was the only responsible for all these staggerings. Though I am not sure yet about this.
There is pretty uncertainty both in the past and the future. To me the present is only certain. Everyday, I just roam around my house, cross the corridor and go to the roof and watch the city struggling to work in its own normal way. For me, all of these have led to a feeling of having a fog over my brain, one that can’t be shaken by just smoking cigarettes or drinking whiskey or watching boring t.v shows. I don't know when I will be able to get out of this box.
And I even don't know if I will be able to come back even if I get out. Because, many are leaving but not coming back.
Everything is significantly more dialled down, so instead of an all nighter in the library-room followed by a wonderful day in the sun, there’s a constant sense of stress that is never fully alleviated. 
My neighbour, Mark Bagley, 45, is a night driver, cabbing a double-decker 60ft truck for a firm. His usual route is the 340-mile return journey from Chard to a Palletforce distribution centre in Burton upon Trent, where he can drop off or pick up vital supplies ranging from bread, flour and fruit to industrial supplies.
Each way takes about three and a half hours, depending on accidents, bottlenecks and congestion. Covid-19 has emptied the roads, reminding Mark of the big open countryside of the US where the only other vehicles are the tractors and combines slowly moving through the crops. Now it’s completely a different world. 
The news channels are showing the graphs of death rates which show both the smoothed number of deaths each day but now also the rate of change in that number.
And the business of dealing with dead people is also in full swing.
The calendar has become almost useless. The weeks have become meaningless. And the weekends have turned into zombies. Probably, our habit of putting a value on everything makes those things meaningful to us.
As the gecko was the second living object present there on the first-floor, excluding me, it used to re-create time. And so I became able once more to understand the meaning of time. Otherwise, its value would have come down to me.
I don't know where he came from. And even I don't know how he became so much fearless to visit my place.
But later I was able to guess what the actual matter was.
Basically we, the human beings, have occupied their lands one by one, day by day. And thus, we have made them expatriates in their homeland.
Now they come to us with their demands for food and sex. They have nothing to lose. And that's why their hearts have become bold.
And that's why they are never compared with human beings. Rather, people do compare themselves with them.
We just become afraid of seeing them and kill them brutally nothing but out of deep fear. Because brutality always arises only from fear.
A rumor was spread a few months ago that, a perfectly healthy gecko was being sold in the markets at a very high price.
Legend has it that gecko meat increases masculinity and vitality. And that's why I consider human beings the most coward elements of Nature. Human beings are always afraid of getting lost over time. Or they probably are afraid of that they will not be able to enjoy all the pleasures of the world. I really don't know which one is the correct answer.
But I am pretty sure about one thing that, some people have deep doubts about their masculinity. And that is the only reason why they identify an heterogeneous animal as a bearer of masculinity.
And so a large part of the animal kingdom has been included in this long diet of human beings day by day.
But that is not the actual issue. The issue is the gecko. Gradually the relative value of geckoes were increased throughout the continent of America. And as a result a lion's share of people became extremely eager about catching and domesticating geckoes. Some people started feeding them by pretending to be gecko-protectors just in the hope of selling them on time. Although over time the gecko rush came to a standstill, fear and greed remained. And that's why I can say for sure that whenever everyone finds out about my little reptile mate, opportunists, specially will start to deposit themselves on my doorstep. That's why I didn't tell anyone about him. But I doubted how long I could keep him a secret.
Geckoes can't keep themselves a secret ever. They have to make sound to keep themselves alive and announce their existence. Whereas we are, of course, unique creatures. We do not shout for our existence, rather, we live so we can scream for ourselves. More interestingly, there is no need for us to shout. But despite I think we probably do shout just to justify our greeds.
But when a pandemic hits the nation and when we become prisoned in our own boxes, then only we become able to find ourselves shouting day and night in front of a mirror. We can no longer think of ourselves as separate from those geckoes.
Instead we get more scared whenever we see them changing their skin-colour. Even many highly educated people often forget the science of geckoes' adjustment of their body coloration in response to light and background conditions. And we all continue to think of them as our enemies.
And we also must know that they change their colour when they are afraid of us. They just want a little sympathy from us.
And there are so many shades in our character too. Although we do not change our shades out of fear.
In my childhood, my parents used to tell me that they would change colour and suck one's blood. And in order to stop sucking blood, they were even stoned to death. I really don't know what they thought of us. I really don't know if they were vampires at all.
But as I got older, I saw more terrible vampires than them! But I could not throw stones at them. Probably, I was unable to do so, or, I am perhaps also a coward like the others. Really, they were much more strange creatures than those geckoes.
I really feel great myself whenever I think about that gecko roaming on my writing-desk, my wallclock and the walls. The gecko had become a watch to me. Yes, I was not selfless. Throughout the day, he wandered around the walls like an alien planet of an alien solar system. He made me forget the mundane aspects of time.
But unfortunately that watch did not last long.
My mother comes to visit the first-floor on every evening. And this routine did not go unfollowed that day either. I was on the roof then. And she found him sticking on the wall. Immediately she screamed in fear. And the neighbours gathered around the house shortly after hearing her screams.
Probably some people's eyes became shining with greed. Though I can't accurately guess the number. But I can't blame mother.
Even I am an arachnophobic. My senses stop working whenever I see a spider. Actually the thing is, we are unable to understand each other's language. And so we become strangers to each other.
And as human beings never failed to hunt, so they tried to catch him to maintain that continuity of glory. And again I became lonely.
Now I roam around the first-floor and try to count the hours, the minutes and the seconds separately.There is no one to tell me the time now. I keep counting time fast so that it runs out quickly.
By noon I become very restless. I think again and again, if I could hear the time, at least once! I sit there hoping to hear the gecko just for once. But he doesn't do so!
The collectors wanted to keep him alive because he was valuable. But he died, crushing all their hopes for the best.

( Abhra Ghosal )