Dragon Boy Scene 1

 This writing is in response to this contest: https://vocal.media/challenges/the-fantasy-prologue

Let's take a stab at it shall we? This is the first draft.

Dragon Boy

There weren't always dragons in the valley. The words of my father rang in my ears, "as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we shall not falter..." but his voice trailed off. It had been such a long time since I was at church. The sunlight and the wooden pews. That was before the monsters came. They came in the windows, slowly, like tiny mice, and picked us all up and carried us away.

Currently, the mice were clinging to my clothes, about a hundred of them, their tiny teeth biting into my linen jacket and pants. The linen was made for me by the monks at the mission, they had worked for days. Before I headed out on my horse to get to the valley, they gave me about 80 mice in a canteen and told me to let them out, at just the time when I approached the valley.

The mice then went about climbing up on my clothes, each of them grabbing part with their teeth until they hung on me, like armor. That was the plan.

I stood there, next to the horse, with an armor of mice.

I thought of mice and lions. I thought about the story of the mouse getting the thorn out of the lion's paw, of some story when I was a kid. I thought of lions and lambs. 

I guided the horse slowly down the hill, the mice silent and clinging.

Fernando told me they were magic mice and that when we got to the bottom of the hill, they would run and create a rainbow barrier around me while I went to steal the Dragon's heart.

We did reach the bottom, and the mice ran and encircled me in a more stunning way than I could have ever imagined, a rainbow bubble shooting up from the ground and hanging around me, a forcefield of beauty. 

I came up to the sleeping dragon and tried to take his heart, but it was already taken. 

Color Coordination

"Have you ever seen a fan stop?"

"What?" I said, so frustrated I could spit. I stayed there listening, not because he was holding my arm, but because I had already been pulled into the magnet, the black hole of this situation. At this point I was caught in the moment, a chunk of debris in a puff of smoke, caught on camera.

The train flashed by outside, and the lights and the moving cars played shadows across his face. His icy blue eyes were wild.

I sighed.

"A fan, a fan," he said, letting go of my arm and waving his hand in quick circles. "Once it slows down to a stop, it kicks back, just a hair, the other way. That's what this is, it's just life, stopping, then kicking back just a little, it's physics somehow."

"Okay."

"Like life is all this momentum, just couldn't stop all at once, not just stop, there's still some motion left." He was looking out the window now, his voice being drowned out by the train a bit.

I set my wine down on the glass coffee table. I knew what he was talking about. I had seen the tiny hand prints that appeared on the glass moments after I cleaned it. I heard the doors slamming when there was no wind, the closet door open after I had just shut it. The towels rearranged in the bathroom, etc. etc. etc. At least the ghosts liked things color coordinated. 

Tiny Weight

A bird was on the wire, so alone

that he stood out against the brick

and the wire was drooping

from his weight

and the designs on the brick behind him

looked like ancient ruins

and suddenly he dive bombed

to the electric box on the side of an adjacent building

and by that time a low rider was coming down the alley

The Mission Christo church stood on the corner

with its neon and its call to hug the world

the other church nearby

is made of redder brick

and has taller towers

but I am not sure how

Jesus competes

with the neon.

I used to say I liked to save souls and time travel

I thought I was funny, maybe clever

and someone once told me that

something is bad for my soul

as if it was bad chocolate or something

and I am not so sure anyone else

can inform me

about my soul

At any rate, looking out over the lake

with its clear blue

I think I see religion for what it is

I think I see the gypsies dancing

around a fire

I think I burned my hand

If there was a small bird

living in my heart

like a sparrow

it would explain

why it feels like the wires

are pushing down

my arteries

and sinews

stretched underneath 

his tiny weight

Conversation Starters

 Every bar in Arizona has a mechanical bull. 

Tea Tree

I have a tea tree

she bleeds caffeine

I listen to her speak like a babbling brook

with my face under the leaves

sunlight speckles

silence thoughts

with laughter

and strange desires

a woman of the world

sip, sip sip.

Purgatory Morning

Panthers stalking low to the ground

Rubies gleaming in the dark

Faces ripped from the library shelves

Places nouns and people leave their marks

Have you no teeth to chew this gum

to memorize the lines before the show

The junkyard cars rot there like plums

and big fish get caught in the undertow

Raisins thrown across the vineyard as if

to show that time passes here

the wine we drank was sweeter still than mirth

as if we are tasting all these minerals of the earth.

Quiet

The marigold flowers, planted in rows, offered up a stark orange flag.

There is that moment when the summer sun is muted.

The afternoon is quiet.

I notice I am pressing my lips together more, not humming, but holding back.

I don't even know what to say to the woman handing me the coffee.

The morning is quiet.

The people run near the lake, the gleam of their phones lighting up the path

as if they are lighting bugs

some sit in solitude

others gather for a picnic, winding down, it's dark now.

Save for the roar of the lake

the night is quiet.

I went out to see the lunar eclipse

but it wasn't there,

perhaps that's the whole point.

Before Dusk, He Closes His Eyes

The imperfect face of the man, the sun reading it like braille

hard working overalls speckled with flecks of mud

as he sits on the front porch taking one last drink of silence

in the heat of the day before dusk settles in.

When the sun hides, the insects gather to start their screeching.

Their rituals commence in a thousand layers of sounds.

Later at midnight, there are no disturbances, just the rustling wind

as he walks to where the East-bound road meets the winding 

gravel that shoots North toward Memphis like a weaving

snake making its way to the underbrush.

These summer nights in Mississippi can cause a man to dream.

Are you feeling free?

There's a lot of cars on the street. Each tire seemed to be rolling over the left part of my chest, making me shudder and feel like a pile of gravel. Listening to the white noise, I stood there like a marionette in a denim jacket, waiting for the bus, under the shadow of the sign at the Pawn Shop. Forty dollars was in my pocket and I sighed, thinking of the watch. The woman with the dark hair and huge marks on her face was friendly, kind of coughing and laughing as she took it and gave me the pawn ticket. Under the glass was all manner of trinkets. On the walls hung power tools. In the windows were musical instruments, including a shiny flute. I glanced at it as I left. The two twenties sat together in my pocket, under my fingers, like two shoes in a box.

The cars kept coming. Each one was a different color, and every driver was in a different mood. You've got the guy jamming out to Middle Eastern rah-rah pop music, extrapolating sound waves as the drummers whir up a frenzy. There's the sad woman staring straight ahead, her old hoodie hanging on her like she's on a clothesline as she clings to the steering wheel as if her hands are clothespins. There's the used car salesman with shiny hair, sitting up and driving the car with dealer plates. I even saw a cop car, with a woman with aviator shades and a very blank expression.

The cars were red, maroon, blue, grey, purple, big and black. 

The watch was shiny, I think of it now and the sun glares in my eyes as I look up the street one more time.

The bus is late. But really, I don't know what time it is anymore. 

A string pulls my arm, and I turn.

Change

Changing my mind like a change in wind

a mile of moments that never begin

because it's all happening at once

each inch

overlapping the distance

each blink

overlapping the eye

Running the machine making animation

cartoon characters pacing 

growing fat and thin

each frame

overlapping the film

each smile

overlapping the mouth

because we laugh

as we know

real change takes time

There is no change left

I am still the same as I always was

Absolute Truth is a Play

The performers step out into the lights, their shoes in calculated footsteps

which they've done many times before, each time learning 

until the performance is perfected.

Yet there's always a choice when they reach the table:

knives or apples?

The actors need knives to cut apples, but they could just as easily use their teeth

to take a bite.

Violence then, does little to solve a problem but often creates more.

So are these truths?

Is this absolute truth? The performers walk around the table,

in circles, like dancers,

as their legs cast shadows in the strong lights from overhead

I see one actor squint his eyes

as if narrowing them to make a decision

He takes an apple from the table and throws it into the air,

by the time the apple comes down

gravity has shown us

all we need to know.

Figure Skaters

Figure skaters spin faster

than the slippery fists of muddy fighters

flicking the plastic Bic lighter

can't make the flame rise any higher

than the stars burning in the sky

the streetlights too they glow and hiss

shining down and casting shadows

the blacktop lifts underneath the roaring vehicles

that slip past

in the night.