Heroes of The Valley

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. Some people still don’t believe there are any here. However, over the years, Sun Valley's population tripled as the Tessies took over the rest of Los Angeles. Tessies are the trillionaires who inherited the city at its worst. In 2025 the advantageous Geoff Bellazzo and William Yates purchased the bankrupt city. Angelinos spent five years in terror as sickness, and famine plagued the city. Employment dropped to single digit numbers, families were abandoning their homes and adapting to multigenerational living accommodations which no longer carried the stigma of moving home to mom and dad.

Despite ample land to cultivate food and livestock, the city imposed strict regulations on citizens attempting to combat the food shortage. When the public schools lost their funding parents attempted homeschooling. Unable to regulate the curriculum, homeschooling became an offense punishable by up to 1 year in the Raynestores Facilities. Education options were sparse, if you couldn’t afford to attend one of the Yates Private Academies, your other option was the Elias Monk Public Works Academy, an elite program for physically and intellectually gifted individuals.

Geoff Bellazzo was the founder of Raynestores Corporation. In the five years since the first plague, he amassed a fortune of 4 trillion dollars. He used his fortune to buy all the public utility companies in an effort to ration the resources and prevent a long term shortage in the future. His 4 trillion turned to 8 trillion. Meanwhile, anyone caught harvesting the rainwater would be sentenced to 5 years in the Raynestores Facilities.

Almost overnight every store, product and service sported the Raynestore symbol. I have never been to a Raynestore factory, but apparently the conditions are so abhorrent people have fallen over from exhaustion, dehydration, and hunger. They work 80 hours a week for food and housing vouchers. Unfortunately, these vouchers were performance based with unattainable quotas. However abusive the conditions, citizens of Los Angeles found this to be a glimmer of hope in very dismal circumstances.

The Tessies were in a way heroes to a city that was hungry, thirsty and tired. The idle hands of the citizens now had purpose and believed they were achieving their goals in saving the city. Meanwhile, Sun Valley just grew more and more crowded, hungry, thirsty and tired.

Fearing a revolt, the Tessies placed checkpoints throughout the canyons surrounding the valley and that’s when the rumors of Dragons in the valley first started to spread .

First, there was the historic 9.5 mag earthquake.This record shattering earthquake caused a massive landslide down Malibu Canyon making it almost impenetrable. Skeptics dismissed the earthquake as a natural disaster occuring as a result of climate changes. However, if you were on the Pacific Coast Highway that day, you know what you saw and it wasn’t an earthquake. I happened to be on the PCH that day and I know I saw the Raynestores crane rising from the Getty Center gripping an enormous purple and green abalone egg.

“Did you see that?” my younger sister Anita excitedly shouted from the back seat. “Maria, did you see that?” She repeated. “STOP TURN AROUND.”

“See what Anita?” All I see in the rearview mirror are rocks surrounded by billowing clouds of dust. “It’s a landslide.We need to get home before the coast is crawling with emergency workers.”

“Turn around Maria, please. It will be worth it.” her brown eyes sharpened in toward her nose.

“Fine but I'm not driving back that way, I will pull over and you can show me.” I threw the car into a uturn and parked on the shoulder. Before I could even turn off the ignition, the glimmer of emerald and amethyst twinkled in the sun.

“I told you. Maria, what do you think it is? Think it’s fossils? Anita was 12 but had yet to be burdened with the insecurities of most preteens. She had an earnest demeanor and eager imagination and as her big sister, I fought to protect her from a world determined to beat that spirit out of her.

“Maybe, maybe it’s a Dragon egg.” I teased, but in my gut, I knew that wasn’t a fossil. I knew it was something important.

We pulled up to the driveway and our mother rushed towards us. “ Mijas, Estaba preocupada.”

“Mama, we saw dragons.” Anita blurted out as she hopped out of the car.

“ De qué está hablando, Maria?” I could feel judgment from her glare. “There was an earthquake in the canyon. It’s all over the news. I thought you got stuck in the landslide. Dragones? eso es una locura.”

“I'm not crazy Mama. Right Maria? You saw them.” The joy on Anita’s face deflated.

“Anita, you’re too old for this nonsense. Go get ready for dinner.” Our mother dismissed Anita’s disappointment and turned to me. “ Maria, you need to stop encouraging her.”

“Why? What if we did see Dragons?” I argued half joking. “Mama, why can’t you just let her believe in something cool? Why are you always a sábana mojada?”

“I already had to deal with one daughter coming home crying everyday because the other girls were mean to her. I just want her to be normal, Maria. I don’t have the energy to baby the both of you.” She muttered something in spanish as she turned toward the house.

“ So not like me?” My curt tone stopped my mother in her steps.

She turned to me and from the calmest voice came the ugliest words. “No. Not like you Maria, I need her to grow up and do something productive. Things are hard enough and you getting kicked out of school made them harder. I need her to be normal. No hablando de dragones.”

I wish I could say it hurt, but this occurred every day between us. I was a disappointment to my family, a burden. I couldn’t keep a job. I couldn’t find a husband. I was loud, clumsy, and too weird for my mother’s liking. Last year was the final straw when I was kicked out of the Yates academy after only a semester. My mom worked every day for 3 years at the Raynestore facility for lottery vouchers for me to go to school. Her heart was broken to find out I was expelled. Then, she filled her heart with resentment when she learned I was kicked out due to my lack of structure and my inability to fall in line with the other students.

I tried to hide it for a week. Visiting museums and coffee shops around the campus. However, the official letter of separation came in the mail before I could intercept it from my mother's hands. Fortunately, I was at the Getty the day she called me home, not knowing that was one of the last days it would be open to the public. Mamma lived in Los Angeles her entire life and never visited the Getty. That day I arrived home prepared to face the brunt of her anger. I walked in the door with my argument of defense lined up in my head and ready to roll off my tongue. She was sitting in her recliner with her magazine. She didn’t even look up to greet me. She silently shamed me. I felt every ounce of disappointment wash over me when she said “We will talk about it tomorrow”. I cried myself to sleep that night.

Now, I work for my mom’s food truck, Silvas. One of the few means of self sustainability allowed in the valley. Of course all of our products come from Raynestore, but we are allowed to keep the meager profits. Licensing, insurance, permits along with maintenance costs chew up most of the money we make. However, we are able to put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads for now.

My mother’s work ethic is unmatchable. That woman will work to the bone to provide for the family. Our father left before Anita could stand up on her own. Mamma provided for us, and I protected Anita. My older brother Desi enlisted in the Monk Academy when they shut down his school. He would have been valedictorian of his class and the first person in our family to graduate high school. Desi was sharp, fit and charming. We fight the way siblings should, but I love Desi and I miss him every day. He is allowed two weeks a year to come home and visit. He brings home coffee and rations from the campus and sneaks me fantasy novels which I started sharing with Anita when she was old enough to enjoy the mystical tales of adventure.

One particularly hot morning, about a week after the Malibu earthquake, Anita and I were on the porch reading her favorite comic books, “Cecily Siren”. Suddenly, at the end of the drive a familiar voice shouts “que par de nerds?”

Anita throws down her comic and races to Desi who greets her with open arms. “DESI. DESI. DIZZY DESI.” She squeals as he spins her around in a circle off the ground.

I’m caught off guard because Desi had only recently visited and wasn’t due back until the holidays. “Please don’t tell me you got kicked out.” I joked as I reached in for a hug.

“No.” He replied with a mischievous grin. “I quit.”

Desi mirrored mammas work ethic, and quitting anything was way out of character for him. He answered the confusion wrapped around my face, “Something is happening Maria. I need to be here.”

I suspected the “something” Desi was referring to had to do with the earthquake and those giant rocks pulled from under the Getty.