Personal Fairytale

Three Times the Charm

            Once upon a time there was a girl who couldn’t see well but didn’t realize it. When others fearfully pointed out dragons flying by in the sky she would look up to see only a blurry whirl of motion against a backdrop of blue murkiness.

            Maybe this is why she didn’t notice when a dragon came to live in her attic. Having never seen a dragon nor anything else clearly she figured the crepuscular lump behind the moth eaten divan was a pile of outgrown clothing or perhaps a dress maker’s mannequin outfitted in some gothic Victorian nonsense. Except, sometimes it snorted. And her hearing was excellent.

            One day she clambered up the rickety ladder to the attic. She was on the hunt for her grandmother’s old tarot cards. She hoped to read them as a road map. Not seeing well she could also not see herself. She was lost.

            The attic was dark with only one tiny window and the afternoon was overcast. She tripped over various bricolage and bric-a-brac, whatnots and thingamajigs until she stumbled upon her grandmother’s hope chest. Her grandmother was now long gone and had presumably taken all her hopes with her to the grave. Perhaps her hopes were like seeds that sprouted a garden of marvels and bibelots among the begonias and hyacinths. The girl was lost in imagining this when suddenly she was whipped to attention by a sudden movement behind the divan. Why the mannequin seemed to be slyly scooting in her direction. Well, if it had been a mannequin it would be scooting but it actually seemed to be lumbering. She began to think it was not a mannequin at all nor a harmless heap of clothing but something quite disquieting.

            Of course, being a good Catholic girl she could only guess now that it was a demon aka an invisible embodiment of evil. Not cool. “Drat those tarot cards!” she mumbled reaching for the nearest something that could shield her which turned out to be a Ouija board. She dropped it as if it had burned her. (She had seen the Exorcist and knew no good could come from that!). The thing that wasn’t a mannequin was galumphing closer. She looked about her desperately seeking a weapon or some other defense like maybe a crucifix. But the attic was so dismally dark and with her eyesight she could see nothing.

 Except…by this time the dragon had trudged close enough that even in the miasmic shadows she could tell it must be what others called a dragon. One might think this would have filled her with dread but sometimes naming a fear tames it. But most of all she was struck with wonder as she realized that the foul stench of sulfur she was always catching a whiff of wasn’t from something rotten in her but from the dragon! As she watched licks of flame flicker from his nostrils she understood now that his fiery breath is what had caused the blood to rise to her face all those times…that it hadn’t been her blushing with shame after all! As exceptional as these epiphanies were they were not going to help her fight the dragon.

But actually they did. It was like a light was lit inside her. It startled her and she stood up abruptly, knocking over a brass coat rack which crashed into a ramshackle rocking chair setting it to rock maniacally, upsetting a hatbox where a pandemonium of gewgaws spewed forth, one of the items glinting coquettishly. She was sure it was a sign from heaven because what is the point of a mortal existence on earth unless it was filled with signs and symbols of the divine? So she leapt atop the pile of trinkets confident she would find a weapon, an amulet or anything at all that would help her because though the dragon was fatsome and slow it was bound to reach her sooner rather that later. However, the hatbox had only been stuffed with embellishments gone to rust and other such rubbish. As she was looking away to check on the dragon’s progress, from the corner of her eye she noted the glint again. Was it a fairy? A tiny Dancer? Why, it was a hand mirror, tarnished and down on its luck but she crowed in delight. “Perfect”, she thought, as if she were battling Medusa and not a noxious and conflagrant dragon. She had a pronounced predilection for mixing up mythology with fairytales with religion with science but who doesn’t?

She brandished that hand mirror, making it snicker-snack as if it were a vorpal blade. The dragon lunged, she lurched. The dragon plunged, she pitched. Her reactions were quick but there comes a time when one must not just react to dragons but confront them directly. She raised the gloomy mirror over her head then slammed it down, smashing it soundly on the creature’s snout. The fearsome blow caught the dragon unawares because no predator expects its prey to attempt to conquer. The dragon gasped, with pain? With surprise? It does not matter but that when he gasped he sucked back in his own fiery breath. In a flash of flame he incinerated before her eyes, a victim of internal combustion.

The blast of the dragon’s demise felt to her like a thousand flashbulbs exploding. She shut her eyes as she fell over. She lay still for a moment thinking herself: a.) blind b.) dead

 c.) victorious. She knew from her years of taking tests at school, where she had not been able to see the lessons scratched on the chalkboards, that when one doesn’t know the answer on a multiple choice exam the best guess is the third one. Or maybe she was mixing this up with the third time is the charm. Either way, she opened her eyes.

Not only was the dragon gone but the entire attic had been cleared of its clutter. The mementos from dear, dead grandmother- gone. The piles of shabby clothes-gone. The stacks of “maybe I’ll read them someday” books- gone. And to top it off there was now a rather gaping hole in the roof where one lone ray of sunlight shone through. Now that had to be a sign from heaven. She walked into the light singing, “I can see clearly now the rain is gone…” But she was wrong. The lone ray of sun was quickly eclipsed by a cloud and rain pelted through the hole. She laughed however, lifting her face to let the rain wash away the soot.  Soon there would be much to do: 1.) repair the roof  2.) get eye glasses 3.) be brilliant and brave over and over and over again!