Cigarettes and Dragons

Clouds loomed and roofed their houses. Threatening and versatile, they flittered back and forth before settling for the previously twilit world of rocky streets and silent chatter. They promptly jumped into the scene of old kingdoms and scary dragons – flippant, daffy lads running helter-skelter, prepared to stick their tongues out for the pouring rain. They were spindly kids with toothy smiles and lisps. Their room lights flickered. They whispered conspiratorially. They drawled with exuberance, inspiring hullabaloo. They were the kings and queens with sly faces and party hats.

But there was this person who was – almost – inexpicably sad, but not ostensibly so. He breathed fire, but he wasn’t a dragon. He didn’t want to be slain, so he remained inside. This human had uncanny eyes that searched the night and peered out benignly at the world of kings and queens. Outside, the magic struck like lightning. Inside, it was jejune, similar to the eeriness of black-and-white films. Inside there was the cryptic, playing with puzzle pieces and keeping his wings huddled closed to his outline. There was warmth – it sizzled, especially when the hellish summer came. But there was also cold – that was when he needed to breathe more, live, and shiver out his own hearth unwillingly.

The rain was adamant. Drops fell down and the days seemed to go by swiftly. Cars rarely drove their way in the streets and coffee shops either had plenty of people milling about or none. It poured while the men worked and the women watched their children sing their songs heartily. It poured while cigarettes were lit and screen doors were fixed.

It was dull, and it matched the person’s atmosphere. But there was somewhat a brilliance in it – a spark igniting, a shadow searching, a glint in a little girl’s eyes. It was eerie and cold, but it was also new. The floorboards creaked as they lazed around, still, but the way people forgot about it was nice and gratifying in a way too inoffensive to understand.

The person’s face was ashen, stiff. His lips were painted blue and his forehead furrowed time to time. He was hiding, a wool blanket stretched across his wings, a discarded mug of cold hazelnut coffee in reach. The curtains were drawn, the windows tightly closed like they should have been. But he could still hear the pitter patter of the rain, the merrymaking of the people. His stomach churned as the shadows played with him, taunted him with silence as if to say are you cold?. But of course he was, apparently they were there just to bully him.

His eyes roved over the shaking sight of the walls around him as he bit down on his lower lip to refrain from cursing. He liked to recoil from the abandoned ghosts of the paintings and collages pinned onto the walls, but now he’d like to look. He raised a lithe, bony finger up to a family, traced their outline, and wished he knew them. They looked warm – the thought of it made him flinch, because he knew their story; their life and their death. He knew the history of these walls, he knew them although he wanted to obscure their voices. He had the power to, but he could not do it.

He gnawed until blood came from under the skin. He muffled his screams until he couldn’t anymore. He dove into insanity, dementia if you will. But he couldn’t die, mustn’t die, for the world will combust if so. And he willed himself to do it for the bubbly kids outside his share of the world, for the good man and his pregnant wife, for everyone who deserved it.

Kids. Reckless, joyful kids. Their innocence and freedom was beauteous and too sweet to be a piece of comical information. They gripped their swords and roared like lions. But they can be pliant and yielding, naïve to the evils of the otherworld. They knew of dragons, but they knew not of angels. Especially the ancient angel who worked like Atlas, carrying and holding and knowing. There will be a time he will break, and he must with finality, sealing his and your fate with a touch of secrecy.

Shhh.