What is a salamander? I asked myself. It occurred to me it might be something like an axolotl. I had no faith in this though, for most times I have thought something could be like an axolotl, it's turned out that it wasn't.
But an axolotl is a type of salamander, so I was right for once.
The fire salamander has golden stars all down its back.
I am reminded of the beautiful but lethargic skink that spent last Wednesday, and until Thursday afternoon, resting on the paving bricks outside our back door. She had orange markings down her back, looking something like a zipper. The markings were wider at the level of her back legs, and tapered to quite small at the end of her tail. Her eye glinted like the head of a pin.
She was seven bricks out from the back door, seven bricks in from the wall. That is, about a metre out from the corner where the door meets the wall. Her tail was slotted neatly into a groove between two bricks. Her head was at 5 minutes to the groove. During the course of her stay, her head moved to 10 minutes, then 13 minutes to the groove, but other than this she did not budge.
I became quite solicitous of her, stepping softly, asking her questions, waving my finger in front of her head. I told her I believed she might be dead.
On Thursday she disappeared. I'm still watching, but all I see are dead leaves, that look like her.
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