The Dragons
Page 9
deep inside humanity; that something had begun to sluggishly stir, something that would have been unimaginable just a short time before.
It must be noted that no part of the public’s response to the dragons was ever controlled, planned or coerced in any way. Every phase, every step forward (and it was progress, wasn’t it, Brethren!) arose from a deep, instinctive place in the hearts and minds of the people. And it was all so mysterious! Like the dragons themselves, which had so suddenly and unexpectedly appeared in our world, our response to their presence, be it the songs, the formation of neighborhood marching groups, or our reluctance to engage with the dragons physically, remained a source of puzzlement not only to professors and pundits, but to us, the participants, as well. Nothing like this had ever happened before: a worldwide movement drawing in millions, then tens of millions, then hundreds of millions of people, all marching, chanting, organizing, and generally acting with an unprecedented degree of unity and collaborative spirit. From what dark, secret spring, what hitherto unsuspected fount of fervor and devotion did all this public ardor stem from?
I mean of course ardor for the dragons. For that was the most striking aspect of what came to be called “the Turning”: our sea-change in feeling toward the creatures. The transformation was so fundamental that it was more akin to an alteration in our physical perception of the dragons than a mere shift in opinion. We simply saw them differently now. Whereas before they were undeniably interesting, but still alien and even somewhat repellent, suddenly they were alluring, captivating. Humanity seemed to wonder now, “How could we not have noticed the luster in those turquoise eyes of yours? Or the way the sunlight seems to spend an extra moment resting on your skin, gently burnishing it—why didn’t we ever see that before? And you’re so quiet and modest, never bothering anyone or anything, when you surely have every right to boast, as clever and charming as you are! See how the birds try to snuggle up to you while you ignore them-- they can sense there’s something special about you!” Yes, there’s no other way to say it: we woke up one morning to find ourselves infatuated with the dragons.
Not everyone cared to go along on the honeymoon. As always when one is dealing with “the crooked timber of humanity”, there were a few contrarians, the congenitally stubborn, who looked on with increasingly dismay as the world they knew was transformed seemingly overnight. “Has humanity lost its collective mind?” famously lamented one prestigious public intellectual on a talk show. But such dissenting voices were rare, and over time became even harder to find. It has been speculated that these unfortunate people suffered from a genetic condition which made them immune to the Eye. Whatever the reason for their recalcitrance, we could not allow such people to abide with us. We had gone too far and risked too much to permit unbelievers to attend our Gatherings. They were driven out—out of the neighborhood, out of the city, out of our sight. Perhaps I should just admit here that tolerance of certain kinds of diversity was one of the more regrettable casualties of the revolution soon to come.
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The first wave of songs that appeared after the Turning were, appropriately enough, love songs. Charming and catchy, they were a bit of a chimera, with one foot planted in the old world of traditional humor and romance, and one in the new world, in which the dragons had become central to our culture. The three songs below, from, respectively, France, Japan, Korea, and Germany, amply demonstrate the international nature of the phenomenon.
France
There's a shop down the lane
Just past the florist's
And they have dragons for sale.
Big dragons, cute dragons,
Plump dragons, shy dragons...
Oh my darling, won't you buy one for me?
Il y a un magasin en bas de la ruelle
Juste après celui du fleuriste
Et ils ont des dragons à vendre.
Des grands dragons, des dragons mignons,
Des dragons potelés, des dragons timides...
Oh ma chérie, ne voudrais-tu pas en acheter un pour moi ?
Japan
Tomoko’s got a boyfriend
But I don’t care.
Chihiro’s super rich
And I don’t care.
Nana’s grades are always top
Yet I don’t care.
Cuz’ I’ve got a dragon
And it loves me.
Tomoko ga kareshi wo tsukutta yo
Demo dou demo ii jyanai?
Chihiro no ie wa chou kanemochi
Ma dou demo ii koto yo.
Nana wa itsu demo seiseki toppu
Hora dou demo ii wa yo ne.
Datte watashi wo dai suki na
Doragon soba ni ite kureru.
トモコが彼氏を作ったよ
でもどうでもいいじゃない？
チヒロの家は超金持ち
まあどうでもいいことよ
ナナはいつでも成績トップ
ほらどうでもいいわよね
だって私を大好きな
ドラゴンそばにいてくれる
Korea
My love has brown eyes
Warm as a summer’s day.
My love has black hair
Dark as the velvet night.
My love has white skin
Purer than snow.
My love has red lips
Red as berries
Red as maple leaves.
My love and I wander to the park.
There we sit, hand-in-hand,
Underneath eyes
Bluer than the sky.
Nne yoja chingunun kalsek nuntongja
Yolm nal cholom tatuttada
Ne yoja chingunun komun moli
Udan pam cholom komta
Ne yoja chingunun hayan pibu
Nunpoda alumdapta
Ne yoja chingunun palgan ipsul
Talgi cholom palgatta
Urinun konwonnuro kologa
Annunda sonul solochabumyonso
Ku nuntongjanun
Hanulpoda tto puluda
내 여자 친구는 갈색 는동자
여름 날 처럼 따뜻하다
내 여자 친구는 검은 머리
우단 밤 처럼 검다
내 여자 친구는 하얀 피부
눈보다 아름답다
내 여자 친구는 빨간 입술
딸기 처럼 빨갛다
우리는 공원으로 걸어가
앉는다 손을 서로 잡으면서
그 눈동자는
하늘보다 더 푸르다
Germany
Where is there to go?
What is there to do?
All the dragons have gone away
Leaving me here with you.
Wohin gibt’s zu gehn?
Was gibt’s zu tun?
Die Drachen sind alle verschwunden
Und sie lassen mich bei Dir bleiben.
Delightful as they were, this was the final generation of songs to not place the dragons firmly at the heart of the lyrics. And they were probably the last ones that a person living in the pre-dragon era would even recognize as being a song: that is, a performative act meant for popular consumption and lighthearted enjoyment.
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For there was a new seriousness in the air, a new sense of resolve. We all felt something momentous had happened and were simultaneously happy and anxious, like a bride on her wedding day. In the parks and on the street, we would look directly at each other and nod shyly, as if we were children sharing a secret. Our excited, unsure mental state accounts in part for the extraordinary millenarian intensity of the songs appearing at that time. “The Dazzle and the Doom”, for example, took our particular city by storm:
The dazzle and the doom,
The dazzle and the doom!
My only friends are dragons,
The dazzle and the doom!
O
ne hesitates to conjecture how the public might have reacted to such a song only a short year before. With giggles, probably, or just bewilderment. But we weren’t laughing.
These works have more in common with Gregorian chants than with popular secular songs. They are more than a little cryptic and well-nigh inaccessible to outsiders. Here are two more:
The end is coming, brother—
Shadows will cover the sun.
Our names are written in water
Oh, each and every one,
Yes, each and every one.
And
The thread of life has broken
Love’s scattered like the clouds
The Eye has set Its Judgment
On us all, us all….
Along with these rather somber tidings came several new developments. The first was that we had begun to carry on singing inside the parks as we gathered in front of the dragons. And this in turn led to an increased formality and heightened sense of communal ritual, because we were now standing and not moving, and we were facing each other. Anyone who has sung in a church choir in front of the congregation will understand. Add to this the sheer power engendered by thousands of people standing in vast concentric rings amidst the trees, fervently and solemnly chanting in unison, with some of humanity’s most historic structures as dramatic backdrop. This was humanity’s nexus now; here was the stage on which the next act would be played.
The second change was that the Eye was becoming stronger. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, but unmistakably stronger. Whether the dragons were at long last responding to us in some way, or whether it was psychosomatic, a form of mass hypnosis brought on by all the abrupt changes in our lives, no one could say. What we did know was how it felt—more intense, emotionally more evocative, longer-lasting. The mental images were more vivid, the sounds more vibrant, the overall psychic impact more powerful. And there was something else, something new. It was vague and nebulous, a shadow hiding in a greater darkness. But it was there. After coming out of the Eye, we would look at the neighboring person and ask, “Did you see that too?” They had. There was someone—or