45. Salamander

I saw another miracle today. During a rainstorm, a salamander adhered itself to the outside of a basement-pane. Its orange underside was almost red. Its throat pulsed against a flattened water-droplet caught between throat and glass. Its shiny small black eyes blinked. Once. Its four-digit hands and/or feet were perfectly original, delicate, serviceable, and real. The texture of its wet black back, on the spectrum of roughness, lay between that of lizard and cat's tongue. The salamander chose not to speak. It interrupted my life, having launched a surprise-attack. The salamander, except for the pulsing and blinking, remained immobile, calm; it was non-violent and awfully actual, demonstrating once and for all that words can refer to things. The salamander had defeated Jacques Derrida without even trying. Indeed, the salamander existed, and Derrida did not. Sight of the salamander made me by turns giddy, astonished, reverent, calm, curious, wistful, covetous, and sad. A salamander stuck itself to a window where I live. Its underside was almost red, its digits delicate. What a day. What a very good day indeed.