Stories About Corn

by Ri, Xesin

  The street was gray.

  The sun’s light was diffused but bright in the misty afternoon. Little holes in the clouds let rays burst out from above. It looked like a hymnal cover or maybe the cover to one of a thousand inspirational books from any number of religions or new age cults that made the millions of “things get better” types of posters, coffee mugs, and a million more things.

  A man was on the sidewalk ahead. He was walking the other way—towards her.

  Houses with fading paint and a few businesses with rusted signs sat just a few feet from the road and the sidewalk. Both homes and walk were behind short front lawns choking in the heat.

  The man was, quite frankly, not an ugly man, not a good looking man, but just a man who looked trapped where he was. He didn’t look that dangerous, but as she thought about it, he was a man and therefore was dangerous even if he wasn’t specifically looking for her.

  But his eyes were down. They were cast just inches ahead of his steps as if he were inspecting the sidewalk just past his blue jeans and gray sneakers.

  He seemed too perfectly apart of the town to be anyone important.

  He looked up and stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of her.

  His eyes said that he’d found her, found her at long last. He stood there, on the sidewalk, just a single choking-brown lawn away. And he was between her stepfather’s home and her, standing with the simplest of gaits; but he might have well been an army then because she had no gun and no knife hidden away in her purse. Even without his big brown jacket, he could have anything on him.

  She continued forward trying not to make eye contact with his staring eyes.

  “Excuse me,” she quickly tried as she got near enough to pass him.

  With a delicate softness she never expected to hear in the voice of the man who would kill her, he said, “I loved you once.”

  She stopped and really looked at him. He drew no weapon. In his eyes was a sadness, a particular sadness, that belonged to only one man she’d ever known and a confidence she had forgotten until she met Ray Synad.

  He stood more than six feet tall.

  He weighed better than two hundred pounds.

  His ugly stubble betrayed the humble nature of his voice.

  His stillness, in the face of the most emotional moment of his life, screamed for her attention.

  “Has my dragon forgotten my name?”

  It was Nicolas. She had gone to California. He had written her that note. She could remember every single word, even the misspellings.

  Maybe I Forgot to Say the Right Things

  Originally, I wrote this in a single evening. Likely that will cause certain problems with my style and grammar since usually for any full five-page piece I need more than a single day in order to do all the planing needed, but I felt a force. I don’t know what exactly I am writing and giving you this for. I still feel a hurt from last Thursday that will not yield. You looked hurt today though. I must say that confused me, I thought you were sick of me and all my stuff. Well, it took me six days to finally eat a full meal and I still can’t sleep more than a few hours. I wake up often in regret and hurt. I know I am just stupid for even trying to be anything to you or writing this but after today I wanted to believe again in anything. Read this if you want or not. Share it, as you like, I know you will as you will anyhow and anyway. I will only say I would rather you didn’t share it with Roger R. I can’t stop you, even if I could, anyway. So, here’s something I wrote.

  Not long ago there was a beautiful, long, black and white shaded dragon. She was slender and sleek. She had a clear heart. She was quick and fast. Nothing could touch her and nothing could hurt her. Over the green green lands and rolling hills and the open meadows she flew. Fast across the earth, over the thick fields, into the deepest, densest forests she ran and played. When she played she sometimes burned fields and farms with her fiery breath or burned the timber the villagers needed to build their homes. It wasn’t that she didn’t feel anything for them, she, that magnificent beast, was smart and understood, but she was a dragon and she had to live a dragon’s life. And she loved her dragon’s life.

  One day a nervous boy, a thinker, a lost heart, a poor soul came into the land of the great dragon. We should say that this boy had long since heard of dragons and had dreamed of seeing one. He had traveled thousands of miles to see a dragon. His hopes of ever actually seeing one had long since vanished. His bright eyes glazed over instead as just began to dream and dream. He dreamed of a great white beast with blazing eyes, fiery breath and large strong wings. Everyone told him that there were no dragons. Everyone told him he should settle and study dinosaurs or lizards or something but not stupid mythological creatures. After a time, on the surface, he agreed. What else could he do, he thought, no one has ever seen a dragon and certainly no one has seen one like the one I dream of. And so, that poor, nervous dreaming and drifting boy set out merely to find a life of solitude without ever catching a glimpse of his dream. But, still, late at night, he still thought about dragons. It was a dream that ran deep in his being that nothing could get to, nothing could hurt, nothing could crush. He dreamed: out there, beyond the clouds, that must be where they are, he thought. Then one day he was out walking in her land. Through those places she played. He saw the scorched earth. He saw the burned villages. Along the road he could see that something had burned a hole in the forest. Something big and something great. His mind ran away with him. He said to himself, “Farran you can’t think its really real or you’re just like they said ‘a silly dreamer.’ So he just walked from that spot towards town.

  On his way he heard the wind rush like he’d never in his life. He yelled ot a man just up the path. “What is that?”

  The man yelled back “It’s her. Look here she comes watch out now.” Faran looked up and there before him, hanging in brilliance against the light blue sky was every dream he’d ever had. She was glorious. Those eyes. The world seemed to brighten. Everyone was wrong. Everything was right.

  The man from the path spoke to him. “Yeah, we like her too.”

  The boy couldn’t believe his feelings. Never had he been angry that another had merely seen a sight before him but today he did. Nicolas wanted to be the first to sight a dragon. To this man this dragon was almost…everyday. How could that be?

  “Please, I need to be going.”

  “She may mesmerize you now son, but soon you shall see what we all see.”

  “Fine. Fine. Good day.”

  “All that day he watched her. He couldn’t forget her. She circled overhead just going about her dragonly business, burning this, swooping low over that. Finally he lost sight of her over the horizon to some place, over the mountains, where he could not follow.

  His entire world was changed. For a week he waited for her to return. He watched and scoured the sky for any sign of her return. The townspeople didn’t understand. They had seen dragons why was this boy acting so strange.

  When she flew overhead a week later he looked into those eyes. He thought, was that a glimmer of memory of me. In her presence he stood proud and tall. His heart raced and raced and when she was gone he would double over almost in pain at the thought that his dream wasn’t really a dream. That there were things as magnificent as her in the world proved everything might really be as grand as he had been told, as a child, by his grandmother. That there was reason for optimism and that there really was something more than the stale life where hurt and rage and violence run through.

  Those in town who heard him speak thought him a fool. He too knew that he had put too much faith into a beast but he didn’t have anything else. He knew well that she could slash him with her powerful claws. Or she might decide to burn him for being too close. He told himself that it was best to stay at a distance and so he did, for a time.

  He worked hard in the village. Never did he chase her. Never did he watch her. He just waited for her to alter the world by her simple presence. But sometimes when she was quie
tly walking through the shrubs, crunching the bushes and the trees as she loved to do, he would just listen to her bellow out a cheerful purring noise. This, so often, was more than enough for him to see her as both magical and dangerous. For whatever reason he wanted to ignore the latter.

  It took him a month to realize that a month had gone by and that all he had thought of was her. It took another month not to think of her so often.

  Again he saw her flying in the clouds. Again he caught a glimpse of those eyes. Again he wondered if she were growing fond of him.

  He told himself that such thoughts were foolish. When villagers asked him why he didn’t live like everyone else and why he didn’t find better things to do with himself he just would smile and think that they had never seen their dreams in the real.

  Time rolled on. Years went by and the magic faded. But he did not forget. Nothing lived up to those little moment when he would see that dragon creeping along the earth. Or standing tall enjoying the wind wisp through her fur. Or flying deep in those oh so fluffy clouds in the sky.

  Oh, he didn’t just sit around. People spoke to him and told him a great many things. There was a whole world out there. Yet, it all faded when he would see a young maiden’s eyes he could help but think of his dragon. He knew she wasn’t his and he wasn’t hers, but it was all in his imagination so he just let himself fall into the madness of loving a dream, no matter how real she was. To him, she was still only a very beautiful dream. He reminded himself of this everyday. Only a real fool would actually think his fantasy was real, he reminded himself.

  On a snowy afternoon Farran was approached by a guild leader and asked to help in the mines. Farran wasn’t doing much but he thought he might. He knew that the great dragon helped the men pull out great heaps of coal, more than they could ever do alone. He knew and he told himself, “Farran, that dragon is a dragon. Magical as it may be you have to remember yourself around her and never, ever let your guard down. She might like you but she could slip and crush you under her toes. She could laugh and burn you to ashes. You must be careful because you are lost in your dreams.”

  So he started working in the mines of the village. The winter brought the cold. The mines held the world dim during the days. He stayed strong against it by reminding himself that he was building character. She worked alongside the men snorting out flame here and there warming his world. He toiled against time. He watched her. Sometimes she looked at him. Sometimes she appeared to make an effort to be near him when she could. He told himself that he was just mad. That it was all in his head. There were other things going on. Maybe she just wanted to consume him. He’d never seen her eat but it wouldn’t be very surprising she was quite a beast.

  When she spoke, she spoke eloquently or she spoke rough. Not only did she breathe fire but also she used words to burn those who were offensive to her. Farran was a good man and a sensitive man so he never worried for a moment that she might hurt him. Besides how could she? Didn’t she see how he felt? Oh, he knew that this was madness but he watched her ever more vigilantly. The more he saw of her the more he liked. He tried, sometimes, with all his might, to hate her. He tried to find things about her that would boil his blood but they never lasted and soon he was himself again, a dreamer.

  Months went by again. He worked hard. He was known to be meticulous and a worrier. Nicolas would spend his quiet hours trying to think of nice things to talk about with the great dragon. He spoke to her of nature. How he loved the sun, the lake, the wind, the rain and the sea. He spoke to her of art. Always, he asked her opinion before giving his own. To do otherwise would be to deny her rightful place as the magnificent creature she was. He would tell her of all the things that he thought might interest her. He tried to learn of things that she liked so that he could speak about them. More and more he was spending his time trying to learn what it was that might make him special to her. He did this despite the fact she was a dragon. He did this despite the fact that there was another for her. But, for all his strength before, he was, now, growing weak for her. He was being pulled by the strong forces of nature.

  It was one day when she beat her wings to pull a great load out of the cave that he finally mentally collapsed. In his eyes those huge wings enveloped him and the cave and the world. Swirls of wind and debris pelted his body until she told him he might want to move. He did after a moment. Those enormous feathers of white and of black shimmering in the light made him breathe in the air as if he had never breathed before. The darkness that had surrounded him wasn’t so bad now. Those tight terrible walls that closed in on him in his dreams were gone. Whatever danger there might be he would be brave to be…to be…to be something to her. Something of value. She really didn’t need a man, he thought. What good is a man to a dragon? What else could he be but what he was though, a dreamer he was. For weeks he had held back.

  “Hello.” Farran spoke in his most eloquent voice. The dragon eyed him as the queer little thing he was. “I know I am kind of a weird thing to you. I think you’re great though. I was wondering. I know when you go off over the mountains you must go to some place and I wondered if we could go together tomorrow.”

  “Thanks. Perhaps sometime we could. Not tomorrow but we will the next day okay.”

  “That would be great.”

  When she flew off Farran’s heart swelled with joy. He wasn’t just some little man now; he had done more than ever before. She might be playing with him but at least he would know more about her. He was no longer nameless or faceless. Maybe he would never be close to her but perhaps he could merely sleep by her paws when the winds were furious in his world. Farran just wanted to be near her on the floor patiently waiting for her. It seemed so foolish but it was all he could really hope for. There was another.

  When she didn’t show that next day Farran was concerned but the next time he saw her he tried again despite the rebuff. “Look, I don’t want to be weird, if you don’t want me to ask you to do things I understand I will just sit here and be quiet for you if that is what you would like but I would really like to see what is out around those mountains with you.”

  “Farran…” She knew his name, he was glad. “it wouldn’t be weird but I think you want me to be special with you and I already have another. But if you see me in the sky don’t hesitate to say hello.”

  “Alright.”

  “But it wasn’t all-right. He didn’t want to be just another man to her. He wasn’t some queer little fellow who couldn’t even get near this glorious beast. He wanted to be at least able to see where she goes. What she eats but she had to invite him. The world had rules but his own rules were stricter. They were designed to protect his fragile soul. Everyone had told him not to worry so much or work so hard. He knew, however, that if he wasn’t careful he might break and that would be so terrible. He loved dreaming. How could he give that up?

  He spoke to that wondrous dragon again and again. He could see that he was getting somewhere; he was convinced, in his madness, that he was more than just another man. One out of a hundred. One out of a million or a billion? NO, he was greater than that if he could win her. But it had to be done right. No lies. No tricks. She had to get something of value too.

  “What’s it like to be a dragon?”

  “You want to be a dragon like me?”

  “Yes and no. I could never really be like you I just have thought about you in the clouds soaring so high that I just think it must be great, the life you lead. Its all just the thrill of seeing through someone else’s eyes.”

  “Oh, I am pretty great to you. You queer little thing.” Those bright vicious fangs showed themselves from under her powerful black gums as she smiled. His entire day was brightened.

  He spoke and he spoke and he spoke. He asked her about everything. Question after question after question about who she was and what she was like and what it was like to be her and where she was going and what she was doing and even, when he was in his most sober, he even liked to hear why he would never be
special to her. Only that was a farce. He didn’t believe that he was just another stupid human. Or some cruel man rallying the village against this beast. How could he be like anyone at all? Wasn’t he near to her heart? Wasn’t he good? Wasn’t he honest? Wasn’t he bound to her? Those things had to count with her. He stroked her fur and listened and listened and listened and tried to make her every moment with him as wonderful as it could possibly be. He gained confidence and got a little careless too trying to match her wit. After a while she had softened up a little but never would she speak about what was beyond the mountains. Never would she take him there on those glorious wings. She would thank him. She would tell him it might happen. Never, though, did it happen.

  Poor Farran, poor, poor farran. Never had he been stronger. Never had he held his head so high. Never had he felt more alive. Yet, he knew there was another. He had to respect this. He had to keep his honor and hers. It was her life to live and not his to take. To do so would violate everything he believed. To do so would ruin the very essence of who he was.

  Yet, didn’t he deserve to be more than a handmaiden to tell tales with? Couldn’t he have a part of her world where he was an equal? Oh, he was no dragon. He was no king of men just a queer little man that wanted into what seemed so big and bright in his dark little life. But, if that was not what she wanted, no, no she had to want more. A dragon’s life is a great long number. There are many magical creatures to meet. Thousands of lands to visit. Sights of setting suns and roaming moons. A dreamer ought to at least be more than a simple stranger.

  It was two months and on the tenth time Farran asked the dragon if there weren’t something that they could do and he was again rejected that Farran lost his faith in her. She was toying with him. Being so much smaller than her how could she not play with him like a chew toy or a doll? Just a queer little man was all he was to her.

  Farran couldn’t hold back anything anymore. He felt like he was dying. Moments of fun or beauty would fade into horrific torture when she would sting him with words or a flaming breath.