A Letter to a Friend of Yore

There weren’t always dragons in the valley.

We came out of the sea. Initially, we lived in caves, which was rather claustrophobic.

Scouts went out to find a place where we could live and grow, but somehow I got left behind when they left that fall.

Perhaps I was frolicking by the sea and was not aware the others had gone.

At first I was lonely, but then you came along, my rascal friend. You were fearless on our adventures. I think I was more scared of you than you were of me when we first met. You didn’t even flinch when I roared.

Didn’t we have fun together traveling on the boat we built just you and I?

I tried to tell you we didn’t need a boat, that I could float anywhere—but you seemed to think it was important and brought the sheets from your bed for the billowed sails.

Those sails did get us a lot of attention and respect, especially from royalty and pirates.

You felt like a feather whenever you rode on my tail.

I don’t know where the idea came from that I had magical powers.

I think you started that rumor.

I still have the box of all the things you brought me, but that boat sank years ago.

I have one question, Jackie: Where did you go? Why didn’t you ever come back?

As quickly as you showed up there by the sea, you were gone.

Gone from Cherry Lane; gone from Honey Lea; gone from by the sea.

I was even more alone than before. No dragons, no little boy.

One of the pirates told me what happened to the other dragons.

It was hard for me to comprehend what he was telling me about a giant object that fell from the sky. My first thought is that it had harmed you as well, but the pirate seemed pretty sure only us dragon—which he called dinosaurs, were impacted by the ball of fire that fell from the sky and caused infernos hotter than any dragon’s breath.

It doesn’t matter how magical you feel or how close to the sea you live or how much you love to frolic. When your best friend leaves you, you no longer feel like roaring. Any courage you have disappears. You see the smoke of the fires in the distance and wonder: Why am I still here?

I cried—a lot, and then went back into the cave alone. Exhausted from grief, I slept, for eons…for millennia. There were more years and more tears than I could count.

I lost all of my green scales from grief—leaving me bald; my skin smooth. That must have been what happened to my family and why the pirates thought they were something other than dragons.

I hope you are okay, my old friend. I hope your family has not gone extinct. I hope humans are not reduced to fanciful stories created by imaginations who never really knew you. We knew each other, loved each other. I am just a dragon without scales, without magic, without others like me or humans like you. I may never frolic again, or roar again. I may not have a friend perched on my tail or bring me fancy gifts. But I did have all of that once and am grateful for it.

I don’t know if there will continue to be kings and queens and pirates or little boys. But I do know that life is precious and short and that the planet if fragile.

I do not know what, if anything, comes next. I just hope it has a Cherry Lane, a Honey Lea, and best friends who will frolic by the sea.