Bangkok Residents Stunned as American Man Declares Himself 'Lizard Whisperer of Sukhumvit'
By JOHAN YIVES JOHANOPOLIS, EDITOR-AT-LARGE
BANGKOK, THAILAND — Emergency services were called to Sukhumvit Soi 11 on Saturday afternoon after a shirtless American man claimed he was attempting to “negotiate a truce” between a monitor lizard and a 7-Eleven delivery driver.
Witnesses described the man, later identified as 42-year-old Eugene “Skye” Maddox of Portland, Oregon, as “serenely confident” and “possibly on mushrooms.” Clad in hemp shorts and a hemp necklace, Maddox reportedly spoke to the lizard in what he claimed was “interspecies vibrational tone language.”
“He kept saying, ‘I am of the earth, like you,’” said Nong Wirot, the delivery driver, who maintained a professional distance from both the reptile and Maddox. “Then he tried to feed it a mango he’d already bitten into.”
The monitor lizard, roughly 1.2 meters long and visibly unimpressed, eventually fled into a nearby canal. Maddox followed, declaring he had “been chosen as an emissary to the scaly kingdom.”
According to a source at Maddox’s budget hostel, Maddox arrived in Bangkok three weeks ago on a one-way ticket after “receiving a sign” during an ayahuasca ceremony in Koh Phangan. The sign, according to Maddox, was a gecko that winked at him.
Bangkok police briefly detained Maddox for public nuisance and released him with a warning and two bottles of electrolyte water.
“This is classic spiritual confusion,” said Dr. Thitipong, local commentator on expat pathology. “It begins with Muay Thai and ends with mild psychosis. Very on-brand.”
Maddox has since announced plans to launch a wellness retreat “based on the ancient wisdom of Bangkok’s lizard population.”
Officials are monitoring the situation but, in the words of one municipal officer, “Frankly, we’ve seen weirder.”
The lizard could not be reached for comment.