I Could Never Kill The Dragon

I knew the dragon lived in inside me. I had known it for years. A combination of heart burn whenever I was upset, and a thrashing around feeling in my solar plexus, whenever I felt anxious, told me it was still very much alive. But I had never expected it to manifest quite like this.

I mean it was an ordinary day when the postman arrived.

The letter was just addressed to my first name, no designation, just Anna.

Anna, a perfectly simple and ordinary name. A name that one does not associate with dragons generally.

Their women were usually mythological princesses or virgins or designated females sacrificed to save the village. And, we are told, they were always eaten by or taken by the dragon externally!

But to have one live inside you, to have felt it as an egg, then a hatchling, then beginning to grow and stretch, to flex its wings, to blow its hot breath, to occasionally stomp around. That was different.

Was it looking for a way out?

Who knows? 

I think I invited it in but that was long ago, I can't exactly remember now

No-one — and I mean no-one has a dragon living inside them. It is just not something one has ever heard of. I know this is what you’re thinking.

Anna is my name.

It is a simple name that should suggest a simple nature; I am anything but simple.

My start in life was not a happy one, not the kind you think someone called Anna should have had. So one day this dragon just entered my body and was growing there, magically of course, as we all know dragons are only magical beasts.

Peope won't believe me so I don't tell them. 

I mean do they have a dragon curled around their heart to protect it, to stop it being broken any more. Probably not I think.

In this way and this way only, I may be wholly unique but also the dragon  keeps me safe and itself safe at the same time.

Dragons were hunted to near extinction many years ago. Several people are to blame for that, not least George — who they sainted for the massacre of dragons. Just one, not likely. Genocide it is called, a mass extinction perhaps, probably the first wholly man made one, although I know we are now entering another whole era of mass extinctions. But enough of that.

My dragon is safe inside me.

I am telling you now because I want you to know about dragons. They never ate their virgins. They protected them from a patriarchal society that would enslave them as brood mares and servants to men in one form or another. No one ever knew how happy the lives of those women were after they entered the dragon’s lairs because no one ever dared to find out- so all the stories, written by men, were made out to be horrible. But that wasn’t true. The histories of all dragons are more about misunderstanding.

I mean how misunderstood can a dragon be!

I think the film How to train your Dragon had it nearer to the truth and it took a scrawny little boy to show how all the huge males had too much muscle to hear properly or to be able to listen to anything they did not already think was true.

I digress.

The letter came addressed to Anna.

I did not know the handwriting so I opened it gingerly, and as I did so a quick dark hand dragged me back into the envelope, and into a past that I thought I had escaped. I was trapped and utterly shocked to the point that I was immobile, frozen solid with fear.

The dragon woke up immediately, sensing that my heart was once more in danger. It raged and blew fire inside me so that I thought I would die of the heat, but instead it heated me up with it, and then suddenly my voice found its word.

‘No’

I shouted with full force, the rage now pouring out of me, fire from every pore. Steam would have been visible if it had not been magical, but it was there from every orifice. I was mad and getting madder by the moment.

‘No’

There it was again, this time more confident and more self assured. I was allowed to say this now. I was no longer a child and no longer needed to submit.

Once more

‘No’.

The envelope that imprisoned me began to smoulder at the corners. The hand, which held me tightly in its grasp, began to twitch as the heat from my dragon’s terrible fire-breath made it impossible for it to keep hold of me anymore.

AS the hand finally let me go, and the envelope turned to ash, I slipped to the floor and lightly ran to freedom once more, the dragons wings propelling me along at speed. I now knew I would never need to be afraid again. After all, I have a dragon living inside me. He is curled around my heart to keep me safe. And that is just what he does.

So you don’t believe in dragons — what do you know!