When I went to bed that night I still felt a bit unsettled. I always needed ages to get
over a confrontation, even the type that most people would classify as only a mild
misunderstanding. I lay awake for what
felt like hours, but just when I thought I would never sleep suddenly I was
standing in an enormous elevator. Puzzled,
I looked around me. That was when I saw
it.
A dragon. A big red dragon.
He stood on the other side of the elevator, watching me through
narrowed, yellow eyes.
Although he
seemed dangerous in a quiet sort of way, I didn’t feel in fear of my life. Nor did it seem all that surprising when he
said to me, “Hello,” and thus proved himself to also be a talking dragon.
“Hello,” I answered.
When I tried to smile this made him eye me with yet more suspicion, so I
stopped. “Um, are we going somewhere?” I
asked him.
“No. At least, not
yet.”
“But we might?”
The dragon clearly didn’t want to answer this question. When the silence seemed like it might stretch
into eternity, I told him, “I don’t understand why I’m here.”
“Because I wanted to know something,” the dragon replied. He gave me a speculative look. “Do you know who I am?”
“No.”
“Hmmmn,” he said.
“Aren’t you going to tell me?”
“No.”
“Okay,” I answered, relieved for some reason. “But what is it you want to know?”
“Your secrets.”
“I don’t have any—at least, I don’t think I do. Other than the boring kind, I mean.”
Amused, the dragon replied, “That’s where you’re wrong. Your secrets are the type I find most
interesting.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because,” the dragon said, “they aren’t the kind you keep from others—they’re
the kind you keep from yourself.”
“And what are those, exactly?”
“That you don’t love them.”
“Don’t love who?”
The dragon shook his giant, scaly head. “You’ll have to answer that question for
yourself. But when you do, remember
this: love is a gift. Not a right.”
“What are you talking about?” I demanded, only to find
myself in a field of flowers. The dragon
had gone. When I looked up into the sky
the sun nearly blinded me.
In the morning I didn’t remember this dream until I was sitting
at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee.
What had gotten into my psyche, I couldn’t say, but I hoped my
subconscious had worked through whatever issue was bothering it, because I
didn’t want to see that dragon again.
Ever.
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