I ate a decaying cow. It had fallen down a hill, and was stuck between rocks, its head twisted round. It had been there some time. I tore at its distended belly, made an exit for the gases. I stuck my whole head in, felt it deflate until its innards pressed against me and I wore them like a mask.

A noise from behind. I withdrew, turned, raised on hind legs. It was a reptile swaggering along, great tail swishing the undergrowth. A perentie goanna, to be more exact, Varanus giganteus, though I wasn’t thinking in Latin tags at the time. Or in words at all. It was just like me. I hissed, before I realised this was no competitor. It wasn’t exactly like me.

My life as a lizard, Crossed Genres Magazine

Read the full story at Crossed Genres magazine.

There is a moment in David Stevens’s “My Life as a Lizard” (Crossed Genres #15) when the protagonist laments, “Why do I keep doing shit no one would expect me to?” It’s a moment of pure honesty from the narrator, as he isn’t talking about his actions in that moment. He is bemoaning his entire existence; every decision that has led him to the climax of his piece. His problem, as he sees it, is not that his brain is having trouble readjusting to life as a human after a period spent as a lizard – it’s that he’s the sort of person who volunteered to become a lizard in the first place

Review by Charlotte Ashley in Apex