Art Is An Act of Evolution

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. Not that you could see, anyway. Okay, so I’ll tell you my story, but there are a couple of things we need to agree on before I spill it. Number one is that you can’t reveal my real identity. You need to give me a name. Like Banksy or D*face or Combo. I’m no idiot. Just because a kid is born and raised in the Projects doesn’t mean they’re stupid. I gotta protect myself. And them.

Second, no geographic identifiers. There are already enough locals who know about it. I ain’t doing this to get famous or nothing. The Valley is all you can say about where I tag. The Valley’s a big enough place, and besides, my art moves around, so it’s not likely anybody will ever find it in the wild, so to speak.

Agreed? Okay, then, let’s get started.

***

I’d been tagging for a couple of years. I started out like anybody else. Lifted a couple cans of spray paint from the bodega, climbed out of my bedroom window and went for a walk. All real innocent, nothing to see here, officer. I started with a personal tag, but when I saw what other people were doing, and that I had a good eye for it, I got in on some murals that some people was doing downtown. They paid us like five or ten bucks to fill in backgrounds and shit. I started adding in my own more decorative touch, and the two artists in charge—Bucky and Katrina—they kind of took me under their wing. They called it “mentorship.”

So, after I worked with B&K for a while, I went out on my own. Picked up a couple of small jobs, the back wall of a grocery store by the loading dock, painting "uplifting" slogans on the brick wall at the community gardens. I was building my rep slowly, but I was getting known.

I still went out at night sometimes, though, just for fun. Tagging old buses at the junkyard, and abandoned buildings that were gonna be torn down. Revitalization, you know? I mean, this city has been going down ever since the recession in ’35. I figured if people saw some color and beauty, maybe they’d get around to fixing up the place.

Yeah, I know. Gentrification is a dirty word. But when it’s either drop a bomb on a place and wipe it off the map, or let some rich white folks move in and fix the place up, well…

Tough call, right.

Turns out we don’t need rich white folks around here. Well, their money, yeah. But now that I’ve been tagging, they don’t want to move in. They just drive through in their air-conditioned Mercedes and Bentleys hoping they’ll see the dragons, and drive on out again. The rich folks don’t want to live among the dragons, just gawk at ‘em. From afar. They usually don’t want to take the chance on getting roasted in their cars. The smart ones keep their distance.

***

The first dragon I painted was on a shutdown elementary school. I’d always loved dragons, ever since I was a little kid and my Moms would read me that book, How to Catch a Dragon. I copied the dragon from that book, but different colors, different face. You know, don’t want to be accused of plagiarism. Okay, copyright infringement. In any case, it had to be my dragon, ya know?

Maybe I had some kind of psychic thing going on. Picked up on something in the air. I’m kind of a natural artist. I don’t plan my work, just kind of wing it. Paint-as-you-go kind of thing. Well, it started being every wall I painted had a dragon on it. They just kind of happened. I’d be in the zone, and when I stepped back and looked, there was another dragon.

So, this one night, I was really in the zone. Maybe it was the paint fumes. I totally was out of it. The sun was coming up when I finished this mural I’d started down in an abandoned train tunnel. I was working with just a lantern, so it was kind of hard to see. I was, like, channeling it. So, the first rays of light over the horizon spilled in through the opening of the tunnel, where the sun was coming up. And I stepped back to look at what I’d painted, and…

The wall moved.

Yeah, freaked me out! (Laughing) The fucking wall MOVED! Man, I backpedaled, fell right on my ass on the old tracks. Twisted my fucking ankle and everything. I was on ice for days.

Anyway, I had a headlamp on, but I hadn’t been using it, more going by, like, psychic instinct. I flicked it on, and the fucking wall turned its head, like something out of Jurassic-fucking-Park, and nosed my leg. Then it snorted. Blew fucking snot all over me!

It was an actual motherfucking dragon! I thought I brought it to life, by like, painting it. By wanting it to be real. That was before they started talking in my head. Delusional, yeah.

Naw, not delusional for thinking I could talk to them telepathically. That part was really-real. Delusional for thinking I’d made them real. They were there the whole entire time. We just couldn’t see them.

Until I just happened to freakin’ tag one of ‘em. It had been sleeping down there in that train tunnel, tucked into an alcove-y place so the wall looked solid. Smooth. But it was there. Fast asleep. Until I spray-painted it.

And that was just the first one.

My first dragon.

***

Sorry ’bout all the cursing. I try to keep clean, now that I’m talking to the public. Gives a girl some credibility, ya know? My Moms always complains I sound like an ignoramus when I swear.

You want to hear about the dragons, then. Well, this is what they told me. From the dragon’s mouth. So to speak.

‘Cause they don’t talk with their mouths, do they? They don’t have vocal cords like humans. They roar and rumble and stuff, but they don’t speak. They communicate telepathically. Real good at it, too. I always know just what they want.

Anyways, they used to be the big man in the olden times. Roaming around all those European countries, burning shit up, stealing gold and jewels and shit. Then there was this thing called the Classical Period, near the end of the Middle Ages, when guns started being the big thing. Dragons could pretty well defend themselves against, like, swords and shit. Just, poof! Breathe fire on some dude swinging a puny little metal stick and burn him to cinders. But guns, man. That sucked for the dragons.

They were getting pretty scarce, then. So, they figured out how to do some magic shit—yeah, I know, it’s, like, physics, but I don’t understand how that shit works—and they learned how to make themselves invisible. And they been living among us all this time, only we couldn’t see ‘em.

You know all those stories about people, like, walking across fields and just disappearing, with everybody watching? Dragons. Chomping down some poor bastard. Dudes have to eat, right? And that “spontaneous human combustion,” right? Dragons, burning up some poor old grandma for dinner. And, man, The Bermuda Triangle? That’s when a whole bunch of dragons get together and eat a whole big ship full of people. Not a trace of them left behind!

So, anyways, when I accidentally tagged this one little dragon, it stopped being invisible. And it was pretty awesome, if I do say so my own self. One of my best. And it liked being seen for once. Then its Mama showed up.

Yeah, I thought I was a goner. But Mama dragon liked the way her baby looked, and asked me in my head if I would paint her, too. After that, I had dragons lining up for me to paint 'em. I’d paint a mural on a building or on a bus, and paint the dragon the same. That way, when it’s just lying there up against the side of a building, it’s still kind of invisible. An optical delusion. Until it moves, and then you can see that it’s a dragon. A dragon a’draggin’ its ass down the street. (Laughing)

So, that’s how it happened. People stay out of downtown, mostly, except the risk-takin’ ones. Smart folks keep their distance. But there are other dragons all over this valley, ones I haven’t painted yet. And more keep coming every day. Pretty soon it’s gonna be just painted dragons around here all over the damn place, and no people.

I can live with that.

As long as I got fresh cans of paint, and something to paint on, I’m happy.

Oh, yeah. That’s one right behind you. Don’t move too fast. Nothing to be afraid of. He promised not to eat you.

For now.

***

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Author’s Note: I have challenged myself to write twenty-seven dragon prologues/stories for the Vocal.media Fantasy Prologue Challenge, one for each day the challenge runs. Here's a link to my next entry:

My story Art Is An Act of Evolution was inspired by the Vocal.media article The beauty in graffiti's artform by Novlet Allen. Check it out here: