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Joyriding with Dragons |
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| By Kenny Young |
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I was going through papers from a box stuffed many times into a bag during the cyclone of the past two years and I came across a pile of hotel receipts. |
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| I have the papers from the den of thieves where he found me. I see the figures on the page and seeing them on paper; pitifully reminding me how much it cost, brings a smile to my lips. |
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| These pathetic numbers don't even scratch the surface. |
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| He found me in a poor hotel with shabby carpet and shady clientele, but he found me with my backbone, with my defiance, with my nerve. |
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| He soared into my life, enormous, mysterious, dark, gorgeous and deadly. Whatever I was caught his eye, and he moved in quickly. He spoke directly to my need for direction and my need for father, and he plucked me up by those weaknesses and took me off in flight. Was I his prey, his child or his toy? You decide, but he held me to him like gold. |
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| The wind in the strata he flies in is powerful, in no time it had stripped me of a little bit of confidence, which seemed to amuse us, because I held on tight and he flew faster and the next to go was my right to speak. |
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| That was a relief, because, at the time, I was tired of hearing my own voice, I'd let him go ahead and speak for me. |
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| This suited him just fine and the next thing I knew, he removed from me my thoughts of me, more like I laid them down, most willingly. He was taking care of me, he said, and I believed him, so while he worried about me, I worried about him, see? |
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| This Dragon was written into my life eons ago, he could not be missed; to avoid him would have been a crime against the Planner, a horror felt by Time itself. I';d rather have never existed than to have missed this flight. At the end of this story, this truth remains. |
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| Oh then I caught a glimpse of this swift and clever transport as we flew over a small lake, a shade of me caught in the talon of a dark and doomed and damned Dragon. Trailing us were what seemed to be Ghosts of Past Passengers and assorted angry Agents of Karma and Consequence, and they were after him, and by god, they were after me as well. |
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| The lake disappeared and with it went my sense of security. I looked up to my guardian and before my questions could move from my eyes to my throat the Dragon sang in the voice of every father. |
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| "Grow up, boy, ignore your eyes, they only seek to tell you lies. I'll make your choices, I'll pave your way, but if I fall, it's you who'll pay, where were you going, anyway, when I looked down and found you?" |
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| "Those thieves you knew are merely trying, but now with me you're really flying!! Hush up child and stop your crying. You'e such a silly fool." |
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| I knew the Dragon was right, I was a fool, and I looked up at his massive wings to marvel in their strength. With wings like that, no ghosts or consequences were fast enough to catch us. |
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| I drew a deep breath and relaxed into the grip of my father-lover-demon, and started to let my mind go. After all, what was I on my own? I wanted to be absorbed by this beast so my weight wouldn';t remain a burden to him, something to be dropped. I wanted to leave myself (which, of course, was useless and only holding me back, the Dragon told me as much!) and meld with him. |
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| I closed my eyes for the last time and just as the final crescent of light dimmed the Dragon sensed his danger and flung me away from himself. |
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| I shouted my curses back into the sky, red-hot arrows flung at the creature for letting me fall. My rage gave birth to my voice once more and I damned him for his very nature |
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| "Foolish child, a despicable untrustworthy creature am I now, and to think I could carry you forever? How could you crawl into my claw and let me carry you anywhere, Evil as you name me? Couldn';t you even believe what your own eyes told you? Look behind me, those are souls in my wake, didn't you feel them brush past you while we were flying? Didn't you hear the screams of those cheated, those who rage against abandonment, craving my grip, lusting for my journey? Were they invisible to you, those once-were's, has-beens and tattered innocents howling as we tore through their midst?" |
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| The Dragon took in a deep breath and spoke steel into his self. |
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| "My flight is solitary, violent and all to long for them to suffer with me, what made you think you were different. No, I fly forward through the past, alone until the end, it's the price I pay for the ride." |
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| My anger fell from me faster than my self could plummet back to earth and I let it go. |
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| "No," I replied as I fell." I didn't hear them because I was pulled in close against your heart, all I heard was it beating a testament to the feeling bleeding being that you are. As we flew through those poor creatures, I didn't feel them brush past me because your wings protected me from them." |
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| In quiet sadness too large for me I asked; |
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| "Have none of your other passengers felt and heard you, or are they too horrified by the carnage your flight inflicts? Are they blinded by the red soaked, organic screams and the electric yellow gnashing of those who put themselves in your path to see that your flight path is, to you, no more alterable than a train on its tracks?' |
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| '"Can you not see that your claws are made for holding and that you at any times may give your wings a rest, that you need not fly full throttle towards that wall called truth, which will crush you with your own speed?" |
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| "You speak of my burden, boy, as you fall to your death, why no curses now why no insults?" The Dragon wondered." You who see so much, but could not keep your mind, You who say so much and could not keep your voice, You who feel so much and could not keep yourself. Were you whole, oh, the places we could fly!!!" |
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| I simply called back "Had I been whole, would you have picked me to fly with you at all? Would I have been content to be a victim to the inevitable carnage waiting us at the end of this flight? Will I even witness it? No, I'll not haunt myself" |
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| My choice made, I turned to face the rapidly approaching earth. Filled with understanding of him yet still unwilling (oh but at times, it's all I wish for) to share in his fate. I can't change his path, I can mourn it, but I don't have join him on it. My love had made his choice. |
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| I crash back into reality, with a hotel bill in my hand, a drying tear track on my cheek and I knew suddenly, joyously, painfully (such SWEET pain, it hurts so much I'll have to keep it), and with continents of relief drifting on oceans of regret; the Dragon had flown off forever without me. |
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| I'll never be able to give to him what he's never had, and what he ended up giving, finally, to me: |
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| Myself. |
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