#ModernFantasy #UnlikelyAlliances #FantasyWithHeart #humorousstories #darkhumor
“I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help myself.” The words scorched my throat as I hunched outside my designated therapist’s window. The union had assigned Dr. Hardley to me, and the window kept us separate. Our kind weren’t allowed direct access, and flame-resistant glass provided extra protection for good ‘old Doc—so the powers that be thought. Let ‘em think that, right?
The sun glared on the pane, ripples of light dancing about, morphing the Doc into a special effect show, her twilight skin and silver-streaked hair blotted with rainbow color splotches. She inspected me from behind thin wire-rimmed spectacles, which, despite their innocuous appearance, contained a video monitoring system that fed a live shot of me to security—just in case. I didn’t think it offered much more protection than the double-paned glass, fire-retardant window-wall between us, but sure, why not?
I had to crouch to get a good look at Dr. Hardley, and I wasn’t sure if that was fear or accusation or something else behind those purple ombre rims. Hell, maybe it was boredom. Therapists were notoriously hard to read. She momentarily tugged a curly strand of hair across her tight lips as she scanned my paperwork, apparently lost in thought for uncomfortable moments while my confession evaporated in the space between us.
Was she even listening? What, exactly, was the Federation paying her for?
Then her voice finally crackled through the speaker, “Why do you think you can’t control yourself, Jim?”
And that was the billion-crypto question. About time she got to the point. Why? Why did I persist in consuming something so awfully bad for me? Something fatty. Something gorged with cholesterol. Something that might just push me into full-on heart disease if I didn’t get a grip, and that wasn’t even the worst of it. The eating. It was morally reprehensible. Despicable even. I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror anymore. I shook my head and snorted, ashamed. Ashamed for what I’d done. For the lack of self-control, hell, self-respect. I slumped in my spot, wanting to disappear into the concrete.
“It’s okay, Jim,” said Hardley rather monotonously as if she’d practiced that measured, unemotional drawl a million times over. That irritated me. “We all do things we don’t understand sometimes. Let’s look at the latest incident and see if we can get to the bottom of your why. If we figure out the why, we’ll have a better chance of controlling the behavior.”
The scent of over-boiled hot dogs drifted through the courtyard as I considered her question. Just beyond the tree line and spiked iron pulsar fence guarding our little “office,” street vendors wrapped up for the afternoon, and the smell of meat byproducts made my stomach gurgle despite their questionable freshness.
Talking about this wasn’t easy. Talking about personal matters, in general, wasn’t easy. I was taught to be tough. Strong. Someone who could handle my own shit. My throat tightened like a red-hot poker got stuck in my larynx. I blew breath through my teeth. “I’d had a hard day,” I remembered, “and went to the park on 7th and Central, you know, the entrance with the Mortimus and Jaw Bones statue?”
Hardley’s face softened for the first time since we’d met. “Yes,” she said, nostalgia warming her tone, “I know it well—a landmark moment in our history. I remember the day Mortimus and Jaw joined forces, and the relationship between us changed forever. But there’s still so much work to be done.” The weariness in her was palpable, from the droop of her eyelids to the drag of her voice.
Clearly, Hardley was a woman who had been worn down over time. Perhaps we all were, but at that moment, I realized her monotony wasn’t disinterest or a mask for fear but life-long tiredness from trying to negotiate our societies’ strained relations. Her rehabilitation skills put her squarely in the center of this mess, piling her with unfathomable expectations to smooth over a millennium of hard-wired beliefs and behaviors. She slid her runaway glasses back up her nose. “But go on, you went to the park, and…”
“I guess I was a little stressed out.” The sunlight bounced off the windows and danced over me, lighting me up, beautifying in a way I wasn’t worthy of. “Mirna just told me we hadn’t conceived. Again.” My voice cracked at that last bit. I wasn’t sure how I was going to hold it together.
Hardley’s dark eyes flooded with sympathy, wide and consoling, breaking through any monotony I’d detected earlier. “I see,” she said, “And I am so sorry for your loss. That’s an unacknowledged grief for many, especially for hopeful fathers, if—”
“Yeah, yeah, it is what it is,” I said, “I don’t cry over broken eggs,” and just then, my voice faltered, despite my attempt at nonchalance, giving me away. I quickly continued so as not to give Hardley an in, “Anyway, I was just sitting there perched on the overpass—that stone bridge about a hundred paces in from the entrance when I spotted them. A dad, two kids—boy and girl—and a mom. They seemed so happy. Mom—”
“Mrs. Nia Hasgrove,” Hardley interjected. “It’s good to humanize them.”
“Nia,” I continued, and that boil in my throat doubled like a fire-start lighting up my belly. “She was laying out a red checked blanket, unloading a picnic basket filled with sandwiches—peanut butter and strawberry jam from the smell of it. The guy…” I tried to clear the lump in my throat with a hot, gurgling cough, “I mean, Will Hasgrove, he was playing chase with the little ones.”
“Bailey and Jesse.”
“Yes, Bailey and Jesse,” I repeated, fire simmering behind my words. “They just all seemed so… Happy. Perfect. Like a rosy photograph or one of them old Rockwell illustrations. Pure dream stuff. Funny thing was, I wasn’t even hungry. I just remember the fire in my throat. I unfurled my wings, swooped down, snagged Will, and swallowed him in one gulp. He didn’t even have time to scream, but the kids and the wife, they were screaming and screaming and screaming bloody murder—which, I guess, it pretty much was—and before I even had time to process, I’d gobbled them all down, too. Slurp. Like a pile of gummy bears. Squealing gummy bears, but you get my drift. Humans are so easy to swallow. Not so easy to digest.”
The dragon, Jim, an impressive, glistening, onyx-scaled Terososips—one of the largest and most powerful breeds used in the UDSR dragon army for air combat for over four hundred years—hunched outside my therapy window-wall and sobbed. Sobbed for what he’d done, sobbed for his lack of control, sobbed for the guilt and shame of it, and sobbed, too, for his lost dream—the family he had hoped for but might never have.
I’d witnessed this pattern throughout my twenty years of cross-species therapy. Humans weren’t the only ones with impulse control issues, and dragons carried the additional burden of evolutionary drives at odds with our new social contract. “Let it go, Jim, let it all go. There’s no shame in crying it all out. It can be therapeutic, especially when you’re taught to be strong and tough.”
Jim buried his thorny black head in his scaly hands. “I just don’t know what’s wrong with me. Why can’t I stop eating humans? I don’t hate humans. I don’t want to be cruel, and for fire’s sake, the kids! I ate children! Children, Doc, children! The horror. I am despicable. Disgusting. A horrid, horrid dragon.” His sobs turned to wails. Rivers of saliva leaked from between his fangs, puddling on the concrete beneath him—we’d tried grassy knolls to comfort our patients before, but my clients kept igniting nearby foliage with fire puffs and burned out our entire recreation area. We’d installed the fire-retardant glass after an unfortunate incident with Dr. Goings. May he rest in peace.
“I shouldn’t even be allowed to live!” wailed Jim.
He was breaking my heart. From his spiked deck to the equally sharp spines over his back and tail, every inch of him trembled. Those mammoth, pearlescent black wings flittered against his sides. He was a dark mountain erupting with grief. Even the newly patched cement beneath him seemed to groan with his weight. “Come, now, Jim. Think of Mirna. She certainly wouldn’t want you gone.”
“She’d be better off without me!” Sparks lit up in his reddening nostrils. The few blanket flowers lining the window-wall, blazes of orange in the otherwise dull courtyard, visibly drooped as if Jim was a hot, unforgiving sun shining down upon them.
“I understand why you think that, Jim, really, I do, but I guarantee that’s not true. Mirna would be devastated if anything happened to you.”
“But it is! It is… so… true!” He snuffed and wailed and blew snot out his smoldering nostrils. They took on a burning coal glow. He shook so hard that the glass wall pulsed between us. The hot, simmering scent of fire breached the panes, and for a millisecond, my pulse quickened. It didn’t escape my notice that a grieving dragon was a dangerous one. For both of us.
I leaned forward, trained detachment giving way to genuine concern. “Listen, Jim. It’s not your fault. You are fighting against thousands of years of instinctual predisposition. It was only fifty years ago that humans were the dragons’ mainstay. That’s not long in evolutionary time. You’ve got to give yourself a break. This isn’t about willpower. Or weakness. It’s much more complex.”
“Yeah,” he blubbered.” But we didn’t know you humans had feelings back then, either. Now we do. Rudimentary, yes, but still feelings. It makes me feel so awful to know what I’ve done.”
“That’s right, Jim. You didn’t know back then, and change takes time. Not just for individuals, but for society to adapt. The Peace of Mortimus and Jaw is still new territory for all of us. We can’t erase centuries of animosity between us overnight. We’re going to have kinks to work out and that’s why you’re here, with me, working through this so we can all live together in peace one day. You conquer this, Jim, and you’ll be an example for the rest of your kind. A new standard of human/dragon relations.”
Jim didn’t seem affected by my speech and kept blubbering. “I mean, stop eating them for the sake of humans, sure. But I can’t even stop eating them for me. They’re so unhealthy. I mean, look at me,” he poked at the flab on his impressively scaled stomach. “I’m so fat and blubbery. I huff and puff when I go airborne these days and can barely fly for a few minutes before I need a breather! I wouldn’t blame Mirna one bit if she left me. Found a fit Wyvern or Draco to replace me. Hellfire, some days I can barely get my fat tail off the ground!” His sobs turned into what sounded more like a growl. Or a stoking fire.
“Be kind to yourself, Jim. I know it’s hard. But none of us are perfect. We all have issues of some sort. You can’t define yourself by one aspect. And like I said before, you’re fighting not only against your genetic impulses but a whole load of biochemical reactions you can’t control without help. And I’m here to help you, Jim. I’m right here.” I hesitated, then decided to share my own, albeit less murderous struggle. “Heck, do you know how many times I’ve tried quitting coffee?” Correction. Less murderous for others. Possibly a killer for me.
Jim shrugged but kept on sobbing, head buried in his clawed hands—a living oxymoron of strength versus weakness.
“The caffeine. Foof, Jim. It amps me up and makes me all jittery until I crash. I swear I will quit for good, but I wake up tired with a big day ahead of me, and there I go again, reaching for a latte. It’s so easy. There’s a coffee shop on nearly every corner. Same with humans. We’re easy access. We’re all over the place. We don’t even come with warning labels. Caution: consumption of humans may cause high cholesterol, heart disease, or premature death. It’s not easy when your environment is set up for failure. Our culture doesn’t exactly support our success. Same with the damn coffee. No one tells you a cup a day can raise your A1Cs. It’s loaded with sugar and calories, and Jim, sugar’s a killer. I’m officially prediabetic, and I know better, Jim. I do. But sometimes, I just feel like I need that one more cup. Hell, I had one this morning.”
Jim stopped trembling. The window wall between us stopped pulsing. He turned his massive saliva-stained snout, peeked over his claws, and peered out with his slatted yellow eye. It dilated to a big blackness as he pinned his gaze on me.
“You did?” He snuffled.
“Yes, I did.”
“How long have you tried to quit?” he asked, voice softening.
“Years,” I admitted.
He blinked and whistled through his nose, still the color of hot coal. “That’s a long time, Doc.”
“Quitting is not as easy as one thinks.”
“You got that right!”
I felt something shift between us—a connection forming despite our biological differences and historical enmity. In that moment, I made a decision that might seem reckless to my colleagues but felt absolutely necessary for Jim’s recovery. Perhaps for the recovery of both our nations, dare I be so bold.
“I tell you what we’re going to do, Jim. You see this?” I lifted my empty vanilla caramel mocha extra hot extra froth double-shot whipped latte cup at him. “This. This stops today. You and I are going to make a pact. Buddy up. Support one another.” I set the cup on my desk, pressed the remote, and the window-wall between us slid open.
The parting glass exposed Dr. Hardley’s fleshy human scent. Sometimes, humans are dumb. A lot of the time, really. I inhaled the sweet coffee-tinged aroma, and the burn in my nostrils intensified. “I don’t know if this is such a good idea, Doc,” I warned. Instinctually, I sat upright, in a predatory pose, a quiver rolling under my hide. Damn, she smelled delicious.
“I trust you, Jim. You won’t eat me because you know me. And deep down, you don’t want to.”
Hardley stepped across the partition, silver streak curls bouncing afternoon sunlight, but I registered her like a heat signature: Gooey, tender, fleshy warmth beneath her plasticine jacket, slacks, and loafers.
I gulped down the saliva filling my mouth as she approached. Her scent bore all the nuances of vanilla, caramel, and mocha mixed in with the undeniable tastiness of human. Even though Dr. Hardley was a lean woman by human standards, she still showed a little pot belly under that plasticine blouse, which I imagined would be tasty and tender. Geez. I couldn’t even stop thinking about it. My whole body quivered. What the hellfire was wrong with me?
Dr. Hardley seemed unaffected or oblivious to my desire. I couldn’t even detect the smell of sweat, though her heartbeat seemed to skip now and again. Either her years of therapy taught her how to keep her nerves in check, or she was one tough cookie. It wasn’t any human who’d walk up to a full-sized Terososips unarmed, despite our interspecies peace agreement.
She ambled over and settled down beside me, resting a wrinkled hand on my foot. I towered over her. One swipe and I’d batter her body—she’d be unconscious before my teeth ever sank into that coffee caramel vanilla flesh.
“Like I was saying, Jim. All sorts of things are happening in your body. It’s not just about willpower. I can prescribe something to help you through the worst of it until your body rids itself of the cravings. But your best chance, our best chance for success, is a support system. I am officially yours, and you’re mine.”
She patted my scaly foot, her touch like a fly landing on a brick wall.
“I don’t know, Doc—”
“Come on, Jim. Give it a try. What do you have to lose? Don’t you want to be the first interspecies accountability buddies? Imagine how that will look to all the young fledglings. You’ll be a hero. We could be our own version of Mortimer and Jaw. You and I could make a difference. For ourselves, and for the world. What do you say?”
I shrugged my shoulders. What could it hurt?
“Together, we’ll work through those triggers. Let’s give it a go. You said before that when you snapped, you’d been contemplating how happy the Hasgroves looked.”
“Yeah,” I admitted.
“And how Mirna and you haven’t been able to conceive.”
“Yeah,” I sighed, a trail of black smoke released. “I guess.”
“Do you see the connection?”
Did I?
“I reach for coffee every time I feel stressed and overwhelmed and unable to focus on my day. I desperately want to make a difference in people’s lives, Jim. So much so that I feel like I need that little extra fix to make that happen and consequently make me feel valuable, you know? So, it’s not just about having the willpower to stay away from the coffee shop, but my ability to feel valuable and worthy regardless of my performance. Make sense?”
“I guess.” I flexed my shoulders, my wings reflectively tightening. “I suppose I’m depressed about not being good enough to give Mirna the family she wants. Hellfire, that she deserves. And the Hasgroves were just so… perfect.”
“Does that make you angry?”
I shrugged, rippling my scales. Sunlight lit us both; Doc’s sparrow-boned, wrinkle-worn hand resting on my leathered foot seemed entirely unlikely, yet something about that amber glow catching our skin seemed unifying. As if the light couldn’t tell the difference between scales and flesh.
“Yeah,” I admitted. The bird-like touch of her hand on me reminded me of my desire for a little clawed hand in mine, a hatchling of my own tucked beneath my wing, Mirna’s fanged grin and undilated eyes gazing at us both like a gentle flame. Satisfied. Fulfilled. Content. My wings constricted at the thought. Why did others have this? Why couldn’t I have this? “You got it right, Doc. I’m angry as hellfire! Seems so easy for everyone else. I see so many other pair bonds having lives and families and fun, and I try and try and try, but it’s never enough. I know I’d be a great sire. I just know it. I feel it in my bones. But it never happens. We’ve been at it for over a quarter of a century. Once, we had a clutch, but not one of them hatched. Not a single one.” Despair welled again, and I thought I might break. Fall apart. Ignite. Burn out the courtyard. Blaze until I simmered out and died. But Dr. Hardley’s hand rubbed the scaly hide of my foot. It was slight, that touch, her tiny human hand not more than a feather’s weight through my tough hide, but it was enough.
It was enough.
“That’s a lot of grief to carry around, Jim.”
The rumble inside of me slowed. “It does feel good to talk about it. I never thought talking could be so powerful. Humans have some sense after all. Thanks, Dr. Hardley.”
“That’s what I’m here for, accountability buddy.”
I sighed. Huge puffs of pent-up smoke circled out of my nostrils and into the air, lazily dissipating in the evening breeze.
I hadn’t noticed how late it had become. The sun melted a brilliant orangey purple over the far treetops, the same color as the flames that sometimes burned inside me, but gentler, more beautiful. Dr. Hardley and I settled into a comfortable silence for long moments.
“It’s lovely,” I said, watching the quarter bulb of light drift out of sight.
“That it is,” said Hardley, her voice lagged in our tranquil moment.
Just then, my stomach rumbled something fierce, and the good ole’ Doc tensed. Her pulse skipped. I smelled perspiration through her wafting coffee scent. With all this talk, I hadn’t realized I’d skipped suppertime. “Oops. Sorry, Doc. Didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“Don’t mention it,” she said, taking a calming breath, pulse slowly returning to normal, as we fell back into silence.
After the darkness settled in and the automatic courtyard lights flicked on, I admitted, “I still want to eat you.”
“I know. But you won’t.” She patted me like an old friend, and my stomach growled again.
“I bet you’re delicious.”
“Friends don’t eat friends,” she said with unwavering confidence.
“Never had a human friend,” I admitted. “You know, humans are a lot more compassionate than we give you credit for.”
“Dragons think humans aren’t compassionate?” She gazed up at me, startled, curious, sparrow brown eyes reflecting the courtyard lights through her spectacles.
“Hellfire. Look what you all do to chickens. Cut off their feet and beaks and throw them in a dark box. That’s some serious reptilian behavior you got going there. You do realize chickens share 98% of their DNA with dragons, don’t you?”
Those ombre-rimmed glasses had slid back down her nose, and she pushed them back thoughtfully. “Point well taken. But you can do this, Jim. You can. I believe in you.”
“You’re right.” I took a big breath of the cooling night air. The lingering smell of hot dogs didn’t even trigger me. Neither did Dr. Hardley’s yummy scent. With the good Doc by my side, I felt confident I could resist my cravings for the first time. Her compassion gave me hope–both for our friendship and my recovery and for our human/dragon societal relationship at large. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt good about myself, but something about her presence told me I was okay. I took a deep breath and let the tension drain from my wings. “Right. I can. I can do this.”
“You can.” Hardley patted me again reassuringly. “We’ll go grab dinner in a bit. Let’s just enjoy the moment while we can.”
“You got it, Doc.”
I wrapped my wing around Hardley, creating a cocoon for her against the night’s chill. After all, I was a bit of a stove, and the old gal had begun to shiver as the breeze set in. But I could do this. I could. All the fire and steam released inside me, and I relaxed into our silent communion.
We sat in tranquil silence until her stomach rumbled like a derailing train. Now it was my turn to tense up.
“Oh, my. Excuse me! I’m sorry, Jim!” she said. “I didn’t mean to tempt you.”
I chuckled, and not a single ring of steam escaped my nostrils. “No worries, Doc. I got this now.”
It felt good, her and I sitting there. Not in a weird, interspecies romance way. I loved my Mirna dearly. Dragons are loyal for life. But in a way where I didn’t feel judged or condemned, but heard, seen, and finally understood. It settled me as if I dug my talons in the black dirt of the earth, putting out fires inside me that had burned for so long.
I don’t know how long we sat there, her and I, our fledgling friendship sprouting new wings until Dr. Hardley said, “Damn it. I really need a cup of coffee.”
I tensed. Silent until a bellow so loud and hard rolled out of me. She cracked, too, and we laughed until our bellies hurt.
“I guess we have a lot more work to do, Doc.”
“Indeed, we do, Jim. Indeed, we do. But we’ll get there. That, I promise.”
She kept saying that it was a choice. Something I could wield, something stronger than the gnawing in my gut, the wiring in my brain. Like it could override the instinct that had shaped my kind for millennia. But if choice was real—if I really had it—then why was I still so damn hungry?
“Just curious, Doc. What do you think about veganism?”
CREDITS: Dragon icon from Pixabay