The dragon
The dragon slept in the heart of the mountain. It dreamt of rivers of fire and molten flesh, that transformed the valley below into a lake of blood-red flames. It dreamt that the moon caught fire and broke into pieces, which came down in a red rain that wrapped the earth in a burning veil. The huge, yellow claws of the beast opened and closed, opened and closed. Whole worlds cracked in that grip: in the fury, and the power, and the boundless hunger of the dragon.
Down in the valley silence ruled. A few lost birds flew over and sped away. Nothing much larger than ants and small spiders moved about, always hunting for food that was becoming ever more scarce. A handful of trees, which hadn’t burnt down to their roots, stood black and charred - dead and waiting for a touch of wind, which would free these ghosts of once proud trees, and deliver them in a cloud of ash. There was no wind though. There was only silence; only the shadow of the dragon that slept in the heart of the mountain, high above the valley, where it dreamt of eternal desolation.
The dragon’s hunger was all-embracing: big enough to reduce the whole earth to ashes, if the power of the fire-born beast could equal its rage. And maybe, with all the time it had at its disposal to grow stronger and stronger, one day the earth would be torn apart into fiery shreds. The dragon dreamt of such an inferno, and the dead valley below was a testament to its awesome and still growing power.
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It is night. It is raining. The night reeks of petrol, of hunger and all the dreams that never come true. The clouds lie low. The stars have been hung inaccessibly high and are no more than a desperate supposition: something dreamt up in a children’s tale. Sometimes, there is the sound of hurried footsteps but it always fades away in mere seconds. Everything that moves makes haste and knows itself to be prey. The occasional car speeds by, with hungry yellow eyes that tear the night apart, for the briefest of moments. The rain caught in the headlights looks poisonous. Hold out your hand in this yellowish mist and your skin will burn, and the flesh will turn red, before it blackens and glides from the bone like burnt paper.
The man lies in a porch. The two men who put him there earlier have long gone and are now looking for other prey, in another part of town. If the man ever did possess a watch, a mobile phone, a wallet or jewellery: no more. Even his shoes and his coat are no longer his. The hunters are good at their job. Blood trickles down from a corner of his mouth. His left hand opens and closes, opens and closes. He doesn’t hear the cars anymore. He doesn’t feel the rain. All colours are lost to him. Everything flows away, into something that might have been a door, or a vortex, or the true heart of night.
The last thing the man sees is the cheap and fading tattoo on his lower left arm, that he acquired, years ago, in a foreign land. The dragon moves and breathes, whenever the muscles in the man’s arm move and his hand opens and closes, opens and closes. Then, in those last moments of confusion that resemble the purest light, the man opens his mouth one last time. He starts to say something - and then everything dissolves.
Everything is dark now. The dragon moves no more. All what remains is the night.