Farley

We move like light, at speeds that would make space travelers dizzy with envy, if, in fact, homo sapiens were evolved enough to travel in space. Not possible. Their atomic constitution will not permit it. It is a physical impossibility, rather like time travel. Not happening.

Oh, there are those who have mastered mind and spirit, a handful a millennia. Now, they can travel space and time. But not mere mortals. They’re stuck in an evolutionary conundrum, envisioning abilities to manipulate the time-space continuum, which doesn’t actually have a continuum, but that may be where their problem lies. The imaginations they possess can take them anywhere and everywhere, but they keep getting mired in this thing called “evolution.” Which they marry with biology and sprinkle with physics, as if the fundamental nature of a living thing can change over time. As if they could literally sprout wings, or gills, or something, given enough generations and necessity. If that were so, lemmings, by now, should be able to fly or breathe water. Not seeing that yet.

Truth be told, as soon as the quickening in the womb occurs, every creature in every life evolves. With the exception of those with shortened existences (of which number is beyond comprehension) in a normal course of life a being evolves, plateaus, then devolves. (I cannot tell you how many light years can be crammed in one human’s natural lifetime. This knowledge can fracture a brain.)

But this is all rather irrelevant, except, pour moi, and others of my kind, all of whom prefer not to engage with humanity’s physical world, when at all possible. Which is most of the time. A glacier moves faster than we do, if for some reason we need to make ourselves known to the sentient beings of mundi. It takes an enormous amount of energy to still ourselves enough to be perceived and to interact with human kind. We must really want to, or, more likely, circumstances necessitate the exchange. Because, unlike so many tales of fearsome dragons, we are protectors of life, and are commanded always to intercede on behalf of the soul bearers. (For those who do not know what a soul bearer is, I cannot help you understand. But most likely your quickening was timed poorly. This can be overcome, but it does require great faith. And miracles are of what life is created.)

I spend my days, when the weather is fine, lounging by a sparkling tributary of a wondrous river that pours its springfed waters into a bay that separates the northern Gulf of Mexico from the soft, rolling hills that make up the toes of the foothills of the old mountains called Appalachia. (Actually, they’re not that old, as I was there when they were born, but that’s another tale.). It is my favorite place in this sphere, with huge ancient cypress, towering pines, sweet Tupelo and elm. Willows dance along the banks, and my favorite reptiles, lacertus, bask along the muddy littoral and snow white sandbars as the waters weave through swamp and wood. It is not a place friendly to man, but the locals know it well, and fish it often, as well as undertaking other enterprises under the shaded canopy of old growth forest. On sunny days, it sparkles with reflected water light from the endless sloughs and creeks and springs that feed and nourish the land like the capillaries of a human hand. And if that’s not wondrous enough, beneath this enchanted land runs an illimitable labyrinth of underground rivers and lakes, streams and creeks, flowing with crystal clear water that connects to just about anywhere in the land; indeed, in the continent. I can dive in any one of hundreds of springs and alight thousands of miles away on the top of the geyser ‘Old Faithful.’ That is always fun.

I am not a very large dragon. In my natural (and most comfortable) state, I’m about the size of a ferret, but weigh about six-stone. Yes, we are heavier than gold. But at the same time, lighter than helium. Figure that one out, if you can. My favorite place to lounge, in my favorite place to be, is resting in a hammock of banana spider web, which always annoys said spider. But their weaving is spectacular, and a web, once I have twisted the limbs they are strung from, makes a perfect hammock to lie back in and allow the rising sun to radiate my gold and blue scales. This is fine living, with the twittering of the birds, the soothing gurgling of the water, the periodic kerpluck of a fish procuring a meal. Sometimes, a viper will visit, but they’re always annoyed they don’t have legs, so our conversations tend to be rather short. But regularly, when it’s warm enough, will come Theo, the grandest alligator of this river way, and we will talk about times past, and the wonderous nature of these two-legged soul bearers and their ability or inability to meld with their environment.

So it was, on this early October morning, having just roasted a plump acorn for a snack, and the sun shimmering nicely off my irridescent coat of armor, and my pondering how wonderous existence is, when everything is just so, that I abruptly found myself launched through the air and plunging deep into an eddying pool at the edge of the river. In the millisecond it took to orient myself - I suppose I had dozed off — dragons are notoriously deep sleepers — my eyes flew open in time to see the bream scatter, the shellcrakers dart under submerged logs, a catfish laugh and a couple of water moccasins give me the evil eye for disturbing their fishing grounds.

I’ll admit, I was stunned. So much so that a black fish thought I’d make a tasty snack. He was wrong, of course, and by the time I erupted from the water the bream and catfish were dining on his fried remains. (Don’t feel bad for the black fish — they’re parasitic opportunists that will depopulate a river of all beneficial creatures in the time it takes a moon to wax and wane. Little Darth Vader’s of the estuary, they are.)

I stopped mid-air, dripping water, and took in my hammock still zinging back and forth and, right next to it, a wee soul-bearer of wheat-colored hair, in pajamas dotted with little dragons with a blankie that looked suspiciously like a very fine Venetian lace tablecloth clutched under one arm. Its rich white-cream complexion was muddied where it was dragging the ground. The little being was squatting by the creek examining a silvery mussel shell. No, now a frog caught his eye, and he dropped his blankie as it jumped away. I heard the frog say, “Get away, you little pipsqueak,” as he hopped three feet up the creek’s edge.

The little pipsqueak went after him, remarkably graceful for one so small. “Come ‘er,” he said. “Come, Mitter Toad.”

Well, Mitter Toad was having none of that, and he jumped away again. I was still suspended where I stopped, taking in this unusual spectacle, not too concerned at the moment, considering a mini human had appeared quite far from civilization, as civilizations go. But this all changed in a hurry, ’cause as Mitter Toad and Pipsqueak were playing chase up the creek bank, beneath me in the water quietly cruised Adidas, the most obnoxious (and immoral) gator to ever slander the river. He was heading toward the tributary, eyeing a little tow-headed morsel with only his eyes and nostrils above the water.

I was in front of him before he knew I was there. “Forget it, Adidas,” I said, putting one tiny, golden claw on his snout.

His slit eyes went from locked on little tow-head to looking into mine. “Bugger off with your unnatural self, Farley.” And he plunged beneath the surface and torpedoed toward the little one.

Unnatural self? See, it’s slurs like that that create discord and disunity. Why, just because I operate in opposition to the known physics of this realm does not make me ‘unnatural.’ Indeed, given my composition, I am as natural as the sun, the moon, the stars. I have enough radioactivity churning inside of me to power a submarine, is that not natural? I mean, a submarine isn’t natural, but it’s made of natural things, even if those natural things might be forcefully cobbled together. Does that not, ergo, mean it’s natural? I can grow and change like the trees, move with the fluidity of water and travel the edge of light. How is that not natural? Why is it if one is a little unusual for their environment, they get labeled with derogatory terms? Or, more importantly, why am I letting some insult to gatordom affect me? Now that, indeed, is a good question.

It was just about then I realized Adidas (so named for his preference in shoe eating) was launching himself with his thunderous tail toward that little soul vessel, and I snapped to. Before his jaws could crash shut, I had him by the tail, jerked him out of the water, thrashed him to and fro about a dozen times, then launched him across the river. He sailed like a scaly, thousand-pound anvil, took out the tops of a few trees and landed with a resounding thud about two-hundred yards away. Meanwhile, Pipsqueak had tripped, fell upon Mitter Toad, and was getting up with an annoyed amphibian in his little hands.

“Hey, Pip,” I said, from atop a blooming ginger lily - one of my favorites of the blooming world - while Mitter Toad struggled in his grasp.

“It’s okay, Mitter toad. I won’ hut you.”

Mitter Toad let out a deep, bull frog protest, and I could hear him muttering, “Shoulda stayed home. Missus tol’ me not to go out this mornin’,” while his front pads pressed against Pipsqueaks fingers and his back hoppers dangled past tow-head’s knees, trying to dislodge himself.

I plucked a stamen from the lily and was using it to try and dislodge a teeny piece of roasted acorn from my side teeth. “HEY, PIPSQUEAK…”

The little one heard me this time, and turned his attention to, well, Yours Truly. He stared at me for a moment, with Mitter Toad drumming his front toes on his hand in impatient disgust, then the Pip’s lovely blue eyes widened and a delighted smile spread across his face. He dropped Mitter Toad and reached toward me with amphibian-slimed hands.

I zipped around behind the flower, then peeked over it. “Pip, didn’t your momma tell you toads can give ya warts?”

His smile wavered, then he shook his head. “No. No wats, see.” And he stuck his hands out and turned them over, then back up. He smiled again, and reached toward the flower, bending it toward him. I was already on another flower a foot away. He was puzzled, then looked around, caught sight of me. I put one claw up and waved it back and forth.

“Negatory. You wash your hands in the creek. Then we’ll talk.”

Mitter Toad piped up in disgust, “I ain’t got no warts. I’m a BULL FROG.”

“Not relevant,” I shooed tator tot, who was almost a gator tot a moment ago, toward the creek. “Go rinse your hands.”

Amazingly, he complied. As he crouched down and wiggled his hands in the water, I was again momentarily stunned. What was he doing out here? Now this was puzzling. Then my next question was, how was he seeing me?

True, teeny soul vessels often see things not visible to their matured (evolved) versions, but, as I was unprepared for this encounter, I wasn’t sure what he was seeing. While the little vase was momentarily distracted by the gurgling water, swishing his hands, picking up sand, dribbling it out, I looked over at Mitter Toad, who was hopping back out of the water and pulling his dignity together.

“Good morning, Toad,” I said, “Would you be kind enough to tell me what I appear like?” I made my best poise on top of the flower. Just then a honeybee buzzed by and I was sore tempted to snatch that wondrous pollen from her legs, but thought better of it.

“I’m a BULL FROG, Farley. You know I’m not a toad. Why do you insist?” Then he let out a croak loud enough to raise an entire chorus on the other side of the river.

“Well, that’s brilliant. What’s, your entire clan out this morning? Nothing like disturbing the peace. No, really, how do I look?”

He cast his wide, marble-like eyes on me, flicked his tongue and snatched an unfortunate roving water bug, and swallowed. “You look normal to me.”

“Which normal? Squirrel? Otter? Woodpecker? Please don’t tell me ’possum.”

“You look like Farley. You know, like a skink and a jewel beetle got together, ate one too many fireflies, stuck some catfish whiskers on your face and suckered some alligator turtle out of his spines. You are glowing a little more than usual, though. I’m outta here.”

“No, wait. Wait, wait, wait..”

“Whatdaya mean, wait? I’ve had enough human encounters for one lifetime…”

Just then Pipsqueak turned from the water, spied me and his Venetian lace blankie at the same time. He wasn’t sure which was more important at the moment. Toad hopped about four feet away, in one hop.

“Hey! Wait!” I zipped around in front of Toad. “What am I supposed to do with him?”

“I don’t know. Finders, keepers.” Then he launched himself into the river.

Now, this was a conundrum. Pipsqueak was almost to me, so I zipped over to a log a little ways up the creek bank. He stopped, clutching his little lace blankie, and looked around, startled. A light breeze stirred the reeds, and I spied my hammock wistfully languishing without me. Then Pipsqueak pipped, and his eyes brimmed with salty water. I guess he finally realized he was alone.

“Pip.” I called lightly, and he turned and spotted me as if I was a 1,000 karat diamond glinting in the sun. He moved as fast as his little legs would carry him up the incline, and I didn’t have the heart to zip away. He stopped about a foot out, then slowly bent over till our noses almost touched. In the few seconds it had taken his eyes to swim, his nose had joined in, and his creamy complexion glistened with sadness. He stared at me for a moment, then tentatively reached out toward one of my mustache whiskers. I turned my head slightly away. It is extraordinarily dangerous for a soul vessel to physically touch a dragon. Aside from the fact that 99.99999% will literally light up like they grabbed a major electrical transmission line, there are the 0.000001% who will not. That’s when it gets sticky. The world is never ready for a dragon-infused mind. For those that survive the encounter, it changes the course of history, if, indeed, the new dragon doppler is able to evade detection to avoid persecution. They are always persecuted if discovered.

“Now, hold on there, Mister,” I appeared a foot away from Pipsqueak, alit on top of a knot on the log, gave him a big grin. Then my grin slowly dropped into a stunned expression.

It had been somewhile since I had been to Yttrby. I was about to have to be there. Actually, it’s west of Ytterby, but that’s beside the point. What is the point, well, it appears Pipsqueak and I were fusing, as evidenced by the dancing blue arc that was running from his finger to my mustache whisker. Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear. Well, this could take a while; he’ll probably be hungry by then. Oh, dear.

I moved a little closer to him, turned and eyed his eye with mine. The bright blue iris was subtly glowing and I could see the glittering swirls forming like little universes in his pupil. “So, Pipsqueak…”

He yawned then, put a fist to eye and rubbed. The blue arc crackled and glowed stronger. We were umbilicaled. “I’m sweepy.” He plopped down beside the log, put his Venetian lace blankie between his head and the wood. “Hey, Pip...” I jumped over onto his shoulder and poked him in the ear with my snout. “Wake up. We have to go.”

He brushed his ear absently, then his hand dropped with a deep exhaustion. “No, Pip, you gotta get up. Come on…” I grabbed his ear with both clawed paws and tugged mightily.

“Owwww. Dat hut. ’Top.” He pushed himself up, hands on ground, rear in air, as though his head was too heavy for his little body. Our arc was creating coils, and branching off at both ends, creating a delicate yet unbreakable webbing between us, around us. We didn’t have time for this.

My abode was quite a distance up the creek. The creek glen inclined for several hundred yards through thick wood that canopied over the water like a green, leafy tunnel dotted with lilies and jasmine, banks edged in lime rock mosaiced here and there with fossilized crustaceans. Then the terrain leveled softly, the wood thinned, then opened onto the edge of a pasture, a blotched patchwork of deep green, light green and varying shades of yellow as the season commanded. This was the eastern meadow of a small wildlife officer’s ranch. My den was nestled on the edge of his property, though I had been residing here way longer than he had. And actually, through the muscadine vines, I’d heard he’d sold it to some purveyor of seafood and sickness down on the coast. I hadn’t time yet to sort that out, if only because those were human affairs, and I had taken great pains for a thousand years to avoid all of it.

’Til now, evidently. I looked down at Pip, enmeshed as he was in the glowing azure of combining essenses, and felt a great weariness overcome me. I thought I was through with this, at least for another thousand years. But now that Lady Fate, well… I won’t say it.

Currently, my priorities were as such:

Get Pip, somehow, up the creek. This was important, as about midway through our meshing, a storm will arise, and the last thing a wee soul bearer can bear is a straight-line storm. Shelter is imperative, because if the fusing doesn’t kill him, well, the storm will. And I, for one, will not be responsible for that. The problem is, if I were a nuclear submarine, I’d be listing about now, given this primordial process is like birthing a new world. I will need reinforcements.

I glanced at the sky. Still deep, clear and blue. Good for a moment. But every moment weakens me, and I won’t be able to ride the edge of light to Yttrby, which means little Pipster here will need a sitter, and I will need a surrogate. Our essences, more intricate and delicate than an orb weaver’s web, but with more tensile strength than titanium, were beginning to envelope us, and it took quite an effort for me to peel away from the Pip far enough to attempt a whistle.

I stood up on my back legs, scrunched closed my eyes, drew in a breath so deeply the trees near us rustled with the rush of air, and emitted a pitiful, “Pffffttttt.” Oh, how deflating. Again, in with a rush of air, concentrate! And, “PFFFFTTTTT.”

“My, Lord, Farley, what on earth are you doing? And what is that you have there?”

I popped open my eyes and there stood Theo. Grand! “Theo! I need your assistance!”

“Would that, perchance, be the little person Adidas attempted for breakfast?”

I looked down at Pip, fast asleep with his golden head nestled comfortably on his Venetian lace blankie. “Aaa, yes. That would be him. Would you be so kind as to help me get him to my den?”

Theo grinned, a grin toothy enough to fill four orca mouths. Next to him standing there, our log looked like a twig. He looked at Pip, then looked at me. “And you can’t carry him why?”

“It’s a long story, actually, short story. But no time. A storm will be here soon and he needs to be in shelter.”

Theo looked at me like I’d lost it, which I had, in a way. I bounced over to him, straining the essences and my reserves. Theo could not see the essence, so he could not understand. “Look, I just need you to carry him up the creek and to my ravine and I can get him from there. Can you do that for me?”

He was quiet for a moment, then burst out with a tremendous laugh that shook the air around us. Jurassic Park had nothing on his laugh, which kept coming, roiling the creek and startling the birds from the trees. I failed to see the humor. The little bugger Pip stirred in his sleep, then settled again while leaves drifted down around him. Theo was still chuckling, over the worst of it, when a sudden, ear shattering crack splintered the air. He stopping chuckling and tilted his head toward the sky. Still blue. “Holy moly. What was that?”

“Can you help, quickly, Theo?” Another crack shattered the air as a bolt of lightening out of the apparently clear blue sky struck a pine across the river. This jolted him.

I couldn’t awaken Pipsqueak, but could manage tugging the Venetian lace blankie open, wrapped it around him and hoisted him in his beautiful sling up the side of the log. Theo rumbled over and stood next to it then dropped on his belly, and with some extraordinary effort, I was able to hoist Pipper’s up onto Theo’s back, where the space between his spines created a rather stable cradle. The sky was now crackling more rapidly and tremendous dark clouds were forming in the distance.

Theo swam up the creek rapidly till it shallowed, then ran with us until it deepened again by the pasture. On the other side of the pasture the terrain rose rather steeply to my ravine, where water sprung pure out of the rock and formed a small waterfall that was the spring head of this creek. He got as close as he could, then plopped down in the shallows on his belly, so I could slide Pipsqueak off his back. The storm was upon us, and I ran like an ant carrying a flower blossom on its back, thanking Theo as he turned to rush back to the river. I made it in my den behind the waterfall just as the bottom fell out of the sky.

**********

I wanted to sleep as he slept, in his dreams of creation, this little golden-haired, blue-eyed soul vessel, as the essences glowed from blue, to white, to gold. I fought the sleep desire, like a disabled sub fights its sinking, as I hurried with the speed of a glacier about my den. It is a perfect orb of quartz, except for the floor, which is slightly concave. My nest lies in a smaller, perfect quartz orb lined deep in layers of snowy egret down, in which now lay an evolving dragon doppler. The desire for me to curl up with him and succumb to the process was brutal.

But first, a fire, so that my little doppler doesn’t freeze. I hopped up on a ledge of gold and ducked into a smaller orb wherein lies what remains of my last trip to Yttrby. There is not much here. Let’s see — a dollop of antimony, a few pebbles of carborane, a couple queen’s sapphires. They were looking good. I picked one up and popped it in my mouth, along with a glass orb of neon. Very crunchy. I was really craving some cobalt, and as I shuffled through my tortoise shell of pebbles and stones, a faint green glow caught my eye. Yes! A pea-sized bit of radon. I sucked on that like a mint, then dropped back down, gathered some wood from my wood pile and arranged it in the shallow hollow that made up the fire pit. The sub was not listing for the moment.

Now, to muster the strength to light it. Our essences were growing hot white, my den was shaking from the power of the storm, and lightening flashed bright through the water fall, casting the whole den in a flickering, ethereal glow. I briefly bade Theo well-wishes he was home, and felt my throat click and burn. Out with it! And a fire!

That done, I gathered a few quail’s eggs from a nook beside the stream, as well as an old green Coke bottle of goat’s milk from my neighbor’s goat, Nana. She would come to see me from time to time as I passed the pasture, and last week advised me to take some, as I would bring her acorns, which she loved, and sometimes hemp, which she loved even more. I said I won’t drink it. She said make cheese. I said cheese is not for dragons. She said take it anyway. As Fate would have it, I did. And here we are.

I plopped the eggs by the fire, loosened the cork on the Coke bottle, and tucked that near Pipsqueak. Our essences pulled strong at me to join in the slumber of dragons, but I resisted. I was not quite done. As I sat awaiting the egg shells to splinter, the tiredness returned, and I was trying to remember what else it was that was so important I do before succumbing.

I looked across the fire at Pipsqueak. I know he has a name, but we hadn’t gotten that far before the current started. I know he has to have people, and I could not help but wonder where they were. How had he got to the river? Are they looking for him? Or is something worse here going on? He looks well cared for, and what mini vessel carries around a Venetian lace blankie? I thought of Venice, and the dark times when I was last there. The soul-bearers were persecuting other soul-bearers over a difference in vases, over geometry, geography, over the location of one space rock to another. Brutal. And Essene, the most lovely of golden dragons. I have not seen her since then, when she fused with a Venetian then spent decades working to keep him alive. But he perished rather young - too much in his mind, I suspect - and she retreated to Oklo to grieve. It takes a long while for a dragon to get over grieving.

The egg shells started to crackle, then, and I picked them out the fire and peeled the dotted carapaces from the edible. I ate the shells. Calcium is always good buffering. My belly rumbled and I belched a tiny green glowing puff of vapor, which the essences quickly enshrouded with fine lace-like strands, absorbing them. The white hot glow of the strands were shimmering, and an amethyst hue appeared at the edges. I had little time to remember what I am supposed to do.

I thought of Tekel, dragon extraordinaire. His last doppler, a young vessel of the Mongolian plains, evolved to rule almost two entire continents. It was extraordinary, what he achieved. There are so many. Arcturus (King Arthur.) Symphod (too many pharaohs to name.) William (me.) Levant (a water dragon in the middle east!) Basok (still loves vodka.) Pereen (there was an ark involved.) Pereen!

I arose groggily and set the eggs next to the bottle of goat’s milk. Pipsqueak slept the slumber of the gods. I struggled against the essences, to the golden ledge. All my bounce was gone, so I somehow clamored up, one claw in quartz at a time, and sort of slinked over to the shell of stones and started flicking them with ten-ton claws. I had so forgotten the inertia of fusing. There, a speckle of boron. I picked it up between two claws and rolled over, the essences growing stronger, glowing more fully amythst, morphing into violet. If I was sucked in before getting a message to Pereen, there was a high likelihood I would never return and the little soul-bearer would never be found. There are critical matters to be tended to when fusing, and typically dragons within a realm will feel the process beginning like a hair standing to static electricity. But I am the solo dragon in this realm, the closest being in the tundra (Arok) where she delights in the lights of the auroras. She could possibly hear me, especially if the land is frozen far south, but that is not likely this time of year.

I stretched hard against the essences for a silvery disc of xenon and popped both it and the boron into my maw as I was being dragged toward sleeping Pipsqueak. In a flash, a flame of brilliant blue launched out of my throat and screamed through the air, through the waterfall, sheering tree tops and shattering the storm’s lightening into a million pieces of light. I felt the cool smoothness of the quartz, the softness of the egret feathers, the warmth from the fire, the sweet breathing of little Pipsqueak. The storm raged thunder that shook my den and rained hail that drowned the sounds of the water. Vortexes formed and gashed massive angry scars into the earth. I felt my body curl up against the little soul-vessel, my eyes drew almost closed with an exhaustion of melding worlds, and the essences formed a solid light about us and glowed a violet hue unseen for two-thousand years.

As my submarine settled on the bottom, I wondered what awaited when we awoke.