This is where iguanas go after the tail trick fails.
This is where iguanas go after the tail trick fails. LUNAMARINA/gettyimages.com

We must consider this one moment in the violent encounter between a raccoon and an iguana. It happened in the middle of October in a parking lot in Boca Raton, Florida. A human taking a cigarette break was responsible for transferring the isolated encounter from the wild world without end to the endlessness of cyberspace. As we all know, the types of encounters related to conatus (the effort/drive/will to keep it together) in the animal kingdom, of which humans are a part, number four. There is the encounter that is good for all involved (mutualism), the encounter that is good for one side (appetite), the encounter that is bad for one side (destruction), and the encounter that is bad for all involved (spite—this last one is almost only found in the human world). In the video, the raccoon experiences the second type of encounter, and the green lizard the third.


The most important moment in this encounter is when the raccoon pauses while in the process of destroying the iguana and, for a moment, reflects on something. The raccoon falls deep into the thought. The moment before and after this fall, the raccoon is not inward but completely outside of itself and focused on the object. The raccoon is thrown back into itself because this old iguana ruse has come as a surprise. If all worked well, the predator would get the tail, and the tricky lizard could say: "You can have it, eat it, and goodbye." But this did not happen. The raccoon can't make sense of it, this slithering thing. Where did it come from?

The raccoon tries to come to some understanding. But it finally gives up and returns to the business of destroying the iguana, which seems not to be fighting for its life, nor pleading for its life, but, like that moment of Jesus on the cross, is crying to the God of Lizards: "Why have you forsaken me?"