The red dragon

As I look now, out of my second floor window, I can see the first mountains of the ancient kingdom of Wales, climbing into the horizon.
They are out there, across the railway tracks, down the road of terraced houses, across the dunes and over the estuary.
Today I can see white crests breaking out where the river meets the sea and, still further out, crepuscular rays beam between cracks in the cloudscape, illuminating foreign beaches or sand banks.
Wales is a whole other country, and I can see it from my lounge. I’ve never been there and yet it appears quite a walkable distance away; drowning in mud, quicksand and saltwater not withstanding.
It seems a place of mystical and magical possibilities. What secrets might it hold? What ancient power may still be locked within those mountains? Their national flag has a picture of a dragon on it! How much more mystical can it get?
When last I thought like this, I resolved to journey there.
In order to aid my flight to this land, I spent all evening watching the dance of the insect-chasing swallows as they glided over red-tiled roof-tops and swooped at speed across the road below.
Then I watched the glossy winged gulls as they flipped and flapped their huge spans and took off from chimney pots and railway sidings. And I spied the arcing flight of the pigeons, glancing branches and telephone lines but still flying straight and true. If these rodents of the skies can do it, I reasoned, then why not I?
So, once the sun had descended into its nightly cradle and the moon was safely ensconced behind the sinewy clouds, I slid open wide the huge window in my lounge and clambered out onto its narrow ledge. Someone had painted the ledge cream, and I found that comforting.
I took in deep lungfulls of air and bent my body backwards, stretching my arms out as I went. I then began to move them in a routine flapping action and my joints cricked and cracked under this unusual motion.
I then held one of my deep breaths, counted to three and prepared to step forward, off the ledge. I strained and I struggled but each time I tried, something, some primal fear deep within, wouldn’t let me go. Wouldn’t let me leave the ledge. I felt like some fledgling who couldn’t depart the feather-lined nest.
Perhaps it was for the best, I thought. I’d probably just collapse, sprawling, in the garden below.
But then a remarkable thing happened. Through a crack in the ever-shifting night clouds, I saw a strange shape flit across the face of the moon.
“A dragon!” I exclaimed and, without second thought, leapt into the summer night.
What happened next is still difficult for me to understand or make clear in my head. I remember though, quite distinctly, my body rising up, and it just kept on climbing.
The railway and road went by in a flash, and I was soon swinging out towards the river. My shadow fair whizzed across the beach and I felt the air temperature cool as I reached the water.
All I could do was flap my arms and head on towards the far side of the estuary and the north-east coast of Wales.
I must have been mere minutes from the Welsh border when suddenly the temperature around me rose quickly. Flame crackled close to my head and I was forced to dive down, close to the spraying sea.
I twirled and wheeled my body like it was some top secret fighter plane and was amazed to see the scaled body of a great red dragon flapping above and snorting its fiery breath in my direction.
For a large beast it flew superbly and soon headed me off in my quest for the coast. A crackling wall of death halted my progress and I banked sharply as my progress to the sandy shores of Talacre was blocked by this boiling curtain of flame.
As I scrambled to avoid a scorching end, my course brought me into the path of the ancient beast itself. The dragon reared and roared at me, swinging a blistering claw in my direction. Its breath, all sulphur and inferno, wilted my resolve. It landed a bloody smack and my body sailed backwards at an astonishing rate, across the ten or so miles of water that separates Merseyside and Wales.
And that is the last thing I remember about my encounter with the red dragon of Wales, the great guardian of its borders, repeller of English invasion.
I awoke the next morning, scratched and sore in the branches of the apple tree that grows in my front garden.
I was lucky to survive my encounter with the dragon, that’s for sure. But every now and then, when I gaze from my lounge window, I still get the urge to make that short trip across the water to visit those Welsh shores.
Not by air, though. Next time, I’m going to swim for it…

Dragons

I remember the dining room in my parents’ house.
Growing up, there had been a beautiful upright piano standing against the white wall. One had to pull the chairs away from the dining table in order to gain enough space to play the thing.
I remember the upholstery on the mahogany stool, covering the seat cushion. An ornate design, it was almost oriental in its floral pattern and, as a young girl, I would trace the stitching with my small fingers. I would do this while I looked at and learnt my scales.
My mother would sometimes come and watch me at the piano. This would last a short while, before she would idle to the window and stare at it all, that green world we’d cultivated.
I can see her now, a never quite finished cup of coffee hanging loosely from one of her fingers. On Sundays she may sit instead, with a glass of red wine.
I would watch her while my hands leafed through the sheets of music my teacher had set for me to learn. She would never stir unless I stopped making noise, so I always made sure to accentuate any rustling of papers, any shuffling of my bottom on the seat.
My father never came into the room while I played. I was never sure he heard me play yet, often, as I would retire to my room while the table was set for tea, he would call out to me upon opening the dining room door: “Bravo, Lizzie. Bravo.”
And that would be enough to send me racing upstairs to curl up on my bed, my smile beaming, my little heart dancing. To see my father was something rare and, to be acknowledged by him, rarer.
One summer, when I was just eight years old, I was taken ill with a fierce fever. I was aware of very little during those two weeks and mother told me, years later, how I had come close to death.
I had often thought I saw a dragon in those days. I remember, a dragon whose shadow blistered the walls. Whenever he came, the room choked in heat and I would perhaps see the black slither of his tail, or his nostrils blowing out arrogant trails of smoke.
It was after one such struggle with this dragon that my father came alone to sit by my bedside. My mind had cleared and I was quite lucid, though too weak to raise a hand or open my mouth.
He sat there, just staring. Staring at me for a long while. His poor eyes seemed to be tracing every inch of my blanched face, mapping the contours of my cheeks and the patterns of my freckles.
I raised my eyes to meet his gaze with recognition and saw plump tears slowly well there, then trickle across his face and drip down onto his lap.
He sat there, perfectly still and upright, as if he were attending an important speech, or meeting a client in his office. Every inch of him remained stoic and exact, except for the slow-filling pools of his eyes.
My little heart danced there again, and I longed for him to hold my hand and stroke my hair, and not to stop until I fell fast asleep.

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Hope you enjoyed the tale. This one is not unrelated in subject: An unquiet