Mercury in Cancer

“There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. But, that doesn’t mean we always got along. In fact, there wasn’t any magic left when the Twitter wars were followed by actual wars. We fell prey to advertisers. When I was a kid, we all thought California would fall into the ocean. We had no idea the fault is the gate of hell. I don’t believe all the religious cult mumbo jumbo, but hubris is definitely at play. There was even a billionaire who thought he could colonize Mars! Now, we’re food for a predator. I’m doing a poor job explaining the shit world you inherited, so if you don’t understand something please stop me and ask. It all seems so chaotic now. We were angry about fucking pronouns, for Christ’s sake. Somehow, we unleashed the leviathan. It all seems trivial looking back.”

Jake searches desperately for the right words, but he is no scholar. In fact, he is a schmuck that works three part-time jobs and thinks it romantic to partake in “van life”. The first dragon sighting occurred the year his daughter was born. For this, he grapples with the new world. He feels helpless, but foolishness overpowers the helplessness when he realizes how ill-prepared he is to raise a child who may be eaten alive. We all know children are resilient. But, Jake is not a dragon slayer, and the children run slowly. He has real problems to contend with now, and it is obvious that he had been fucking off long enough in life.

Sarah has heard her dad ramble on like this many times. She never got baby-talked, and she definitely doesn’t know what Twitter is. But, she clings to her father’s every word, because she is still too young to know how big of a dipshit he is. She is too young to remember anything about the way things were. To her, watching grown-ups drink and scheme by a fire at night is education.

Perhaps, it’s the booze that has him loose-lipped this evening. They haven’t had any for some time. As their small group drinks, they brainstorm contingencies. Subways, caves, and military installations are all mentioned, but the majority of the time is spent on a castle in Kentucky. Jake has heard rumors, but that’s several states away and the owners are supposed to be cultists. He heard they even make sacrifices. Food and water are more immediate, and the focus quickly shifts back to supplies. When you’re swiftly thrust back into the stone age, certain luxuries go away.

For instance, there are plenty of rumors about the leviathans. This is the more suitable term now because, without the internet, vast amounts of people cling to religion. But, there is no research whatsoever on dragons. Some believe they hibernate for long periods while humans repopulate. They are the ones old enough to remember Mathew McConaughey's movie. Others think it’s the final judgment. Wild variations exist between the two theories. We do know that they don’t like noisy cities because that’s where they hunted first. Granted, all of those people living on top of one another might have been a dinner bell, but we lack any real understanding of what these things are or want.

To Sarah, when her father says "magic" it isn't abstract. She may never know who Elon Musk is, but, for her generation, astral charts and zodiacs are all the rage. In fact, with all the myths and prophecies it's hard to discern fact from fiction. Information doesn't move as fast as it did.

In haste, the campfire is extinguished as a pale of water is thrown on it. Silence... the leviathan.