The dragon smiles at me. It bounces to the music while children play underfoot. It does not devour them. It refrains from stomping about and blowing fire at wayward passersby. It is tame. Tired. A degenerate reflection of what it once was. No longer majestic and terrible. A circus attraction. Wings clipped, stricken to paved parking lots and child saliva - to the rough and rigor of playful children who will never fear it. The forgotten ghost of a monster. Bouncing. And smiling at me.
***
We’re driving across the bridge and into downtown New Albany. I can already see the celebration below us - all the curious people milling about; the smiling, stupid-happy couples and intrepid tykes; and everyone else. There is a song stuck in my head. It won’t go away.The words just dangle from the interior surface of my brain, and I’m reminded of them every time I look up.
I don’t care
I’m still free
You can’t take the sky from me...
My companion speaks up.
“We’ll be landing soon. Hold on.”
His name is Mike. He’s eccentric in the way that rabid fans are eccentric. He had given me some obscure science fiction program to watch that very week, and the opening song of each episode was still ringing in my head.
Take me out to the black
Tell ‘em I ain’t comin’ back...
We park a mile from the festival. It’s getting to be that time of year, so we bundle ourselves up and start walking. A few feet ahead, three women approach. Young. Impressionable. Extremely overdressed. They strut like queens; like they’re the pinnacle of planet Earth’s creation. All fancied up and knowing as much, they’re not looking at their shoes, but ahead. They’re nearly passed us. One of them trips on her high-heel. She blushes hard, but smiles anyway. We don’t say anything. We just keep walking.
Along the way, we pass the Pantheon, a modern edifice dripping with the old Roman physique. The round columns make the colonnade look mighty and majestic all at once. I mention this to Mike. “Those tables and chairs came from Target,” he says.
Take my love
Take my land
Take me where I cannot stand...
We come to a veritable river of people, churning with fountain drinks and much delight. We wade into the current, and let it take us. Down aisles and past tents and makeshift booths, barbecue pits and people selling shit you’ll never need. I stop at a charity booth trading pamphlets for pennies and dollars. A young girl begins some predetermined speech about “generous donations” and “making a difference,” but she stutters over her tongue in the process. The pamphlet reads: “Make-A-Wish Foundation - Making Dreams Come True.” I give her all the money I’m carrying. It won’t be enough.
We continue on, and I take a moment to look around. To see all the little things we never notice unless we’ve got a reason to. Pigeons gathering on the blacktop to eat spilled funnel cake. A woman crying silently to herself on a park bench, hiding her face so that no one will notice.
These are the half-truths. This is the temporary deviation - a perpetual dose of life among the surface to keep us from falling into crazy. It’s the realization that the stage of civility is not without its trap doors, that we’ve been cast into a role that suddenly doesn’t seem so unknown to us. It’s like when a person, while talking, ejects a small morsel of food from his or her mouth. All the parties catch it, but nothing is said. Nothing is ever said. Perhaps we prefer to keep the façade, because exposure is such a dangerous enemy, and we can’t see over that hill. But we revel in the reality of it all - that what we might believe we’ll never see has already happened somewhere.
Burn the land
Boil the sea
You can’t take the sky from me...
We trek down a wide slope and into a colorful land. Kids toting oversized, stuffed bunnies. Rides spinning and spinning and parents complaining about gas prices. Pre-pubescent teens chattering on cell phones and loitering in collective groups. This is where my story begins, I tell myself. This is where I start writing. And then I see him.
The dragon smiles at me. He sways and bounces and peers over the crowd. I imagine him eating the festival-goers with much delight, setting the tents and booths ablaze and soaring overhead like he’s king of the clouds again. I imagine the books that are written. About the great and marvelous day the dragon came alive and made his peace with the earth that chained him for so long. We can relate. Being blown up and deflated and blown up again - year after year - the fake smiles filling up and bouncing so that we don’t have to. So that we can stay right where we are, and never have to go anywhere we’ve never been. Civilization is the gentle bastardization of living. When the necessity and the desire for survival end, we create a pretentious sense of purpose. We pretend to enjoy caramel corn and pumpkin ice cream and chatting with that old friend from high school, because it’s easier than quitting our jobs and driving to L.A. and finally realizing our dreams to be filmmakers. Or astronauts. Or self-sufficient souls living peacefully among the hills and mountains of Montana. My dream is to write this story.
Nearby, a small child loosens his grip on a round, red balloon. His father scolds him for not paying attention, but the child’s glowing eyes tell me that he wanted to see that balloon soar. It rises quickly into the chilly air - up and away and fleeing from the surface as hard and as fast as its helium soul can carry it. A suicide run, maybe - but only that balloon can say for sure if the ride is worth the cost of admission. And if it believes enough...
Have no place
I can be
Since I found serenity...
The dragon watches the balloon, and smiles.
You can’t take the sky from me...
