Suspended in the moist air above Orchid Pond hung a cluster of small, brown orchids, dappled freely with spots of gold. Clinging lightly to the back of one of these blossoms, a brown-spotted chameleon watched as a bright blue-and-red fish flopped from the water of the pond onto the moss beneath the orchid tree.
The chameleon had seen this same fish many times before. It had no intention of venturing closer, for it had vivid memories of an encounter with this grumpy adversary when it had been but a young reptile. It was older now, and experience had taught it to beware this creature, even though it was twice the fish's length.
As it watched, the old fish flopped twice and came to rest under a liana leaf which was burdened with the weight of a caterpillar nest. The chameleon also knew about the newly-hatched caterpillars for it had dined on several of them not an hour before. Its eyes blinked limpidly, and it turned on the blossom, searching for a patch of sunlight on this damp, drippy day.
Memories were not a natural part of this chameleon's makeup. But experience taught frightful lessons, and these lessons, and the results thereof, were imprinted clearly and distinctly in the reptile's tiny brain.
A year and a half ago the chameleon was an embryo, bright green, encased in the confines of one of a clutch of three cream-colored eggs. The eggs had been laid in a hollow, vertical crevice in a flame tree on the edge of Orchid Pond and had hatched, producing three identical, fully developed miniature green chameleons.
The two siblings had soon disappeared, and the remaining hatchling had survived to become the mature chameleon on the brown orchid cluster. He was a master of disguise and was as intelligent and wary as was the old fish.
The reptile could change his coloring to simulate those of his surroundings, being innately endowed with color genes and instincts not necessarily associated with conscious thought. If he moved to a brown tree trunk, soon his color would be brown. If he jumped onto a green leaf, soon green would flood his body. Never instantaneous, the color-changing process took several minutes, and was nearly imperceptible except to the most studious observer.
He could adapt several colors in the range between green-to brown-to dark reddish-mahogany, and he could even nearly achieve a yellow if necessary.
These changes in color were usually subconscious, although he could control them at will, and his camouflage would unerringly match his immediate environment. The orchid blossoms were his favorite haunt, for he could become invisible among them. Instantly alerting his consciousness in the chameleon's small brain were recollections of his first encounter with the blue-and-red fish.
It had happened a year earlier, when the reptile was just coming into maturity. He had flourished for the first six months of his life on the innumerable insects and worms populating the area around his adopted orchid tree and had grown fat and sleek on the juicy bounty of his prey. He had seen, one day, the old fish jump out of the water in just the same manner as it had today. He had scurried off his perch and hurried down the tree in hopeful and anxious pursuit of the luscious-looking repast.
The size of the fish was quite obvious to him, but the flip-flops the shiny body made in its progress up the moss carpet had stimulated predatory instincts in the reptile and had made him incautious. He had thrown himself into a long, sailing dive from a low branch and had landed squarely on all fours by the old fish, braced for action.
The surly old fish had spotted the chameleon coming, and just as it landed, had surged around in an extraordinary leap, turning his head toward the approaching missile.
Consequently, when the chameleon landed, the two opponents were side by side, facing in opposite directions. As the chameleon made an ineffectual grab for the fish's long tail, he was surprised to feel the close, tight grip of blubbery lips engulfing his own slender tail from one side.
Instantly the chameleon's body gave a lurch to rid itself of the constricting grip, and as it did so, a second protective reaction came into play within it. The tail, fat and juicy at the thick end, broke loose from him with a clean, sucking noise, and remained wiggling and twitching in the mouth of the old fighter.
Wobbling its bloody stump forward in comic disgrace, the reptile made a speedy escape. As it hastened across the moss and up the tree trunk, it saw the old fish drop the tail and flop once to a better position facing the fat, bloody end of the member. With a benign expression, the old betta grabbed the end of the tail in his flat-tire lips, and proceeded, with seeming relish, to gulp his still-wiggling banquet.
The chameleon gave a shudder of disgust, and proceeded slowly up the trunk of the tree, leaving a thin trail of pink blood in its wake.
Soon the wound had scabbed over and slowly the tail had begun to regrow. It had taken several months for it to achieve its previous length, and the incident which caused its loss had been imprinted forever in the chameleon's subconscious. Now he knew to be cautious...especially with gluttonous fish.
The skin on the tip of the chameleon's brown nose was beginning to itch; he moved to the branch of the tree and began scraping the side of his head, by his mouth, on the rough surface. As he rubbed, the skin broke loose and began to curl back and away from his mouth. He was beginning the third molt of his exterior skin, which was shed every six months, leaving in its place a new, lustrous and more sensitive one.
Over a period of several days the old skin, being rubbed and scraped against many rough surfaces, would peel away in large, translucent flakes, and he would be left with renewed vision and vigor and stamina. Even his eyelids and tiny toes would shed their skin, as would the suction-cup depressions on the bottoms of his feet.
The old skin would float away on the breeze or be washed away by the rain, soon to disintegrate into nourishment in the dark, moist mystery of the soil on the banks of Orchid Pond.
Disappearing into shadows once more, the faint ray of semi-sunlight where the chameleon had found scant warmth faded silently away, leaving him once again in shade. He slithered his long body across the brown orchid blossom and scurried in a wagging run to come to rest on a dazzling, light-purple orchid a few feet away.
His eyes were still on the leaf where the betta had disappeared, and he was expecting the fish to reappear momentarily. It had been under the leaf for a good length of time; although the reptile was innocent of the meaning of time as such, he knew that the fish must soon reappear and flop back into the water. He had witnessed this act several times previously.
Sure enough, as he watched, the shiny body of the old fish flopped into view; as it did, the chameleon saw another movement on the moss nearby.
A colossal bullfrog had been sitting - unnoticed by either the reptile or the fish - several
feet away from the liana leaf. As the fish flopped into view, the frog's muscles grew tense in anticipation of a leap, and on the second flop of the fish's body, the frog heaved itself from its perch.
The gaping hole that was a mouth snapped shut with a wet, clopping sound, missing the bullfrog's nonchalant prey. The old fighter's blue body broke easily through the surface of the water. As the frog landed, empty-mouthed, a shadow slid unexpectedly over the watching chameleon. His brown-speckled camouflage had been slowly starting to recede, changing into dark green, for he had intended scurrying quickly to the blade of the orchid leaf. His attention captured momentarily by the drama below, however, he was conspicuously obvious on the light lavender orchid blossom.
A stiletto-shaped rapier speared his side, and he was tossed into the air. He flipped once and was caught between the sharp blades of the beak of a mynah bird and carried through the air to a tall flame tree nearby. Here, on the edge of a nest high in the tree - in fact, the very tree of his own birth one and one-half years ago - he was ripped unceremoniously into four pieces and fed, piece-by-piece, to each of four fledgling mynahs. The tender fruit of his fleshy limbs and trunk provided delicious morsels of nourishment to the young birds, ready to make their dark debut into the hierarchy of life on the banks of Orchid Pond.
