ArcaMax

A-five-six-seven-eight.

A homeowner cracks the front door to retrieve a package. The sodden summer air crashes through the entryway like a wave. The homeowner breathes in, letting the warmth fill her air-conditioned lungs, soaking in sun to combat the stain of blue monitor light. The fine hairs on her arms elevate. She closes her eyes. Big mistake. Huge.

A lizard darts inside. Maybe it's a different critter where you live, but here in Florida, it's most assuredly a lizard.

A-one-and-a-two, the homeowner whips around, elbows tucked, jazz hands to the side. Why, why, why!? Where did it go? What does it seek? Doesn't it know there's nothing for it in this domicile, nothing to eat except all the other insects and crawlies that have snuck in since summer's humid dawn? Doesn't the lizard know that each summer, as many as 10 scaly brethren per home starve to death in corners, becoming brittle skeletons in the manner of a prop from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney?

She flings the door shut, advancing in a swift pas de bourree. She sets eyes on the Cuban brown anole, invasive in more than one way. She feels relief that it is not an Asian water monitor, a species that can grow up to 6 1/2 feet long -- oh God, what? Should one of those enter unannounced, the homeowner would simply pass away, lying as fixed as a lizard skeleton until dissolving back to dust.

The lizard and the homeowner lock narrowed eyes, the room thick with narrative tension. She gently places the package on a table and glides toward the invader in a chassee, step-together-step, step-together-step. She wills it to stay still so she can jut out a defiant jazz leg, steering it toward the door.

The lizard balks! She can almost hear a cackle! The homeowner and the lizard engage in a call-and-response musicality, bodies moving in opposition, challenging each other with artistic grace and fury until the lizard swerves. It executes a stunning grand jete with a raw contemporary twist, a-three-four-five, landing vertically on the wall.

It glares back.

Bested, she pirouettes to the kitchen to retrieve a plastic cup. There is only one method to get a lizard out of the house: an elaborate, homemade mousetrap with as many moving parts as possible. Arms in fifth position, she reaches for a souvenir tumbler that once held Hurricanes on the streets of New Orleans. She contracts into her abdomen, crescent-shaped with yearning. She rustles up a stiff cardboard flyer inviting her to a free seafood lunch at which she can plan her own funeral. Dramatic backbend of agony and despair!

The lizard repeats its run to the end of the proverbial stage, grasping at the air for applause before slipping behind furniture legs. The homeowner mirrors every move, toes extended, feet flexed, shifting with the beast in tandem, flailing the end-of-life planning mailer and slamming the cup in staccato beats! Get! In! The! Cup!

At last, the homeowner shuffles in reverse, cup and flyer limply at her side. One. Two. Three. The lizard is nowhere to be found, a specter, a ghost, a memory.

Breathless, she turns down the thermostat and dabs the sweat from her upper lip. She knows she has lost; she will see this creature again, either leaping angrily toward her face mid-nap or crispy and expired. "I wanted to help you," she whispers to the crevices. "Turns out, you're the one planning a funeral."

She sits on the couch, leg folded in envelope, clutching the cup. In the next room, a rustling comes.

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Stephanie Hayes is a columnist at the Tampa Bay Times in Florida. Follow her at @stephhayes on X or @stephrhayes on Instagram.

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