Dream of the Dragon

Month: January, 2012

January 3, 2012

Sand tears and cockatrice kisses.

by Justin

MJ #3

Chicago visited the streets today. The wind off the ocean gusted at 40 mph and drove the temperature into the low 20s – enough to bring the first real nips of winter. The 10-foot spray of one inlet’s fountain lost its symmetry, bending hard to the south as if its hose were kinked.

A stone fawn (kissed by a cockatrice) crouched behind the weathered picket fence of a small yard, looking out across the street.

The following small sign marked the entrance to a restaurant, hailed locally as a great seafood dive: “Future National Historic Site.” It’s simple enough to be overlooked, as respectable and unassuming as a monument marker. But it inspires so many questions! Has this site been recognized by some national committee, and now it just awaits some formal opening? Are papers processing? Is someone betting that something of great historic significance will happen there? Did someone from the future plant it as a joke? A fortune-teller’s prediction? A prank? Where can I buy such a sign?

Odds are there was some famous landing of early settlers thereabouts, now celebrated by cheap drinks and seafood. The sign offered no elaboration.

Icarus cries sand tears most days – the product of launching himself wide-eyed at fallen frisbees. If he fails to catch it out of the air, he jumps into the beach itself with equal abandon. After each attack he coughs up a handful of slimy sand and his eyes are ringed by little crystals. The tears show up hours later, most often after a nap. Usually it’s one for each eye, a mixture of sand and salt water that solidifies at the edge of his tear duct like a soft stone.

This evening, for the first time, a sand tear formed and rested below the center of his eye.

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January 2, 2012

Contained by Invisible Fence.

by Justin

MJ #2

Lit by the golden glow of magic hour, even a porta-potty can look beautiful. This one failed to reach those heights, but the proud branding on the side shone just fine: EURE. It is a glorious thing to have one’s last name plastered across public toilets. It means what it means, okay?

Construction in the neighborhood was particularly ominous as the holiday made it all look like abandoned projects. Tall pine trees had been cut down, stripped, and split into logs no longer than 6 feet, creating a wooden rail along the street. The nearby warning sign on a faded-orange excavator showed a stick figure sprawled out after improper operation.

This particular street, after signs labeled ‘Gold’ and ‘Green’, terminates in swampland. Many of the corners warn of dead ends, some going so far as to say “NO TURNING SPACE.” One such street ended in a small footpath across a beautiful private canal, then emptied back out into un-dead-end streets.

Most striking and resonant, though, was the following sign, white text on blue: “Dog contained by Invisible Fence.” And then a phone number should one wish to install the same trickery. Icarus, free of said fence, was particularly restless on that block. It’s hard to spot the edges of an invisible fence.

When I was nine, my next-door neighbors had such a fence, marked by frequent white flags. Their dog, some kind of rottweiler mix, would surrender to instinct periodically and chase animals past those flags and into our yard. He would only remember the penalty of crossing the barrier once the passage was complete. And then it was nearly impossible to get him to cross again and go home.

The final slayer of this text-heavy walk was an old, rusted truck and its license plate:

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January 1, 2012

It’s a space station.

by Justin

MJ #1

Unseasonably warm weather and very little wind coming off the ocean in Virginia today. After a flurry of seagulls crossed between two oceanfront hotels (a constant occurrence), three smaller birds flitted across the sky. They appeared at precise intervals and followed identical flight paths. Then the gulls dominated the scene again, diving toward vacationers eating on the boardwalk. Three such small birds did not reappear.

Above that, a cloud-colored moon sat low on the horizon.

I have not seen the moon in the sky at 11:00am in ages. I couldn’t distinguish the half-moon from the few wisps of cloud crossing in front of it. It seemed as translucent, sluggish, and shapeless as the clouds. Ten minutes of staring confirmed it’s fixed location, and its singular moonliness. Then the following snippets of dialogue played out in my head:

G: It’s nothing. Just a wisp of cloud.

B: It’s moving fast, against the wind.

O: That’s no moon, it’s a space station.

Of course, right? The moon melting into the clouds on a sunny day was a rare treat.

Walking back along the same route I’ve taken twice a day for the better part of three months, I heard four children playing in the street ahead. Heard first, because the little boy (outnumbered by the three girls) was sobbing loudly. He was maybe six, and probably the youngest of the lot. The boy had dark hair and light eyes. All the girls were pale blonde.

As I got close, the three girls spotted the dog and were immediately thrilled. They lined up to say hello. This has not happened once here in the three months of daily walks. Very few children are out, and they never rush the pup. They got close to his face, laughed when licked, made the requisite comments about the boniness of whippets, and smiled hard upon learning that he eats quite a bit. The boy, meanwhile, sat on his bike and glared out silently from underneath an oversized helmet. He was not charmed by the dog or the giggles of the girls. To his credit, he stopped sobbing enough to evaluate the scene. But I suspect he resented Icarus for stealing his thunder.

The sign above the Dolphin Run condominiums was particularly striking today. Maybe because my sister was on my mind.

Make sure to read the breakdown page linked above or check out the previous post for some context. Or don’t, as it probably won’t make this a more resonant read.

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