Scarlet Skies

There weren’t always dragons in the valley, that is, until there were. It’s strange how things like that happen. One minute, something’s there and then it isn’t, or in this case, the opposite may occur. One day, a normal day, dragons aren’t real, they’re mythical beasts mentioned only in the tallest of tales. Legends of swords and castles, knights and duels, heroes and villains. Battles to the death.

Then, the next day, a day that you thought would be just as normal as the last, becomes not quite so normal. On that day, the blue sky that’s always been blue turns a dastardly shade of scarlet. The green of the trees that have always been green curl up into themselves, turn grey before turning to ash. The ground that you once stood on, as solid as the beating of your heart, cracks and crumbles beneath you. On that day, the scarlet sky rips open, revealing a new world, or maybe another, very old one, and dragons pour out of the fissure.

As I said, there weren’t always dragons in the valley but, perhaps, there always will be.

I guess I should start at the beginning, before this talk of dragons becomes too much. I can understand how that could happen, there was a time that I too would have been dubious. That I would scoff at the thought of it, but as it is, I’ve lived through the impossible. Isn’t it all rather impossible, until it happens to you? Running a marathon, climbing a mountain, eating fire. As it turns out, all these impossible things can happen, can change the very fibre of your being if you choose to allow them, or, if they invade your world and demand you to stand up, to take notice and live through the impossible.

It started on a Tuesday, long ago. I know it was a Tuesday because I was very bored and waiting for tomorrow to start, or really, just for today to end. While in reality I was sat in my chair, at my desk, at my school, my mind was somewhere else completely.

I wasn’t so much day dreaming as I was exploring. You see, you can explore an infinite amount of things, even if only in your mind. This particular day, for instance, involved the possibility that, puddles weren’t just puddles, but rather, doorways. Not the kind of doorways you knocked upon, ones that opened and closed the way that ours do. No, they were the kind of doorways that only allowed entrance to some special few. Those who could truly see that there was a doorway at all. They were usually no more than six, wore wellington boots and had an insatiable habit of jumping in the biggest puddles they could find. Sure enough, eventually, one would slip through and enter a world unlike their own.

This may well have been what had happened to the dragons that came pouring into my world, our world. Maybe they were out there, searching for a doorway to somewhere else. Maybe they too were day dreaming, exploring, before they came upon a small rip in the fabric of their world and decided to take a jump into the unknown, just in case.

Maybe they had become bored with the never-ending prospects of swords and castles, for they were forever getting cut and there are only so many castles one can burn to the ground. Maybe they were sick of the attitude of the knights, weary of the mindless duels they fought. Perhaps these dragons, as fearsome as they may seem, were tired of being considered the villains, when there were so few heroes about. It may be that they now found these tall tales, these legends, tedious. They are tall themselves, after all and our version of events must seem rather small and single minded. They bear the weight of legends that have been told about them, that may not be true.

Me? I can only speak of what happened to me, and one particular dragon I met, but close as we are now, his story would never quite match my own. For we do not know each others minds.

I say it’s time for him to tell his own story, don’t you agree?