Polk-a-dot Rubber Boots

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. With their arrival, the Valley is not only a place where dreams die and drunks thrive, but now a place where dragons fly. My everyday life has become a remixed version of d&d called drunks & dragons. Every alcoholic attempting to slay or ride the mythical creature to complete a quest they just discovered they were destined for. That discovery always varies. Yesterday I had a regular at the pub tell me the whiskey whispered to him, when I asked what it said, he told me it was too quiet to make out and that I needed to pour him another. Today Ed told me he saw his quest in the booze he brought back up 10 minutes before, he refused to let me clean it up until he drew his ‘map’ out. And now over half the population has disappeared, drunks and dragons do not mix. I seem to stand alone as I watch everyone marvel at their arrival, unable to contain my raging anger. Their powerful wings could carry them anywhere in the world, to places where drunks wouldn’t try to harm them, to places where dreams fly just as high as they do and instead they flew here. My brain has been spinning round and round like a broken record player and I still can’t make sense of the why. The valley is lifeless. Picture an artist creating a beautiful outline for a painting and then just forgetting to add color, or people, or anything that brings actual joy and fulfillment. That is my home, a quarter finished painting forgotten in the back of a closet. All anybody does here is work and drink and if it were possible, I'd say the lack of actually living our lives is causing the town to fade further. The taste of our food is bland, the music is off key, and every living thing is dead surrounding the Valley except us. I shake my head, physically attempting to shed the tsunami of emotions that crash into me. The strength of the waves grow each time, and as it grows my desire to hold on any harder shrinks. I’m tired. Loneliness and despair slam into my heart causing tears to trickle down my cheek as the water holds me in its cold embrace. The waves crash against my frigid body, showing no mercy. Only as another wave threatens to drown me entirely does the numbness consume me. And when the water calms, nothing has changed, I'm still stuck in this place, too numb to ever escape. I expect the valley to be this way, though that expectation doesn't make it any more bearable. The bright, bubbly girl with her yellow polk-a-dot rubber boots and head in the clouds has been hiding for years and the woman I see in the mirror is just as lifeless as the Valley. Now I'm no drunk who has seen a sign in my vomit or had spirits whisper to me but I can’t deny the pull I've felt since the dragon's arrival almost 2 weeks ago. I fall asleep on a creaky old mattress, listening to the flap of their wings and when I wake I’m outside, fresh earth beneath me, drifting closer to them even in sleep. The dragons are making me have to work twice as hard to shove that little girl deep down inside my heart, I don’t have time for her excitement and honestly I don’t think I could handle another let down. The more you dream, the higher your expectations, the stronger the world can hurt you. Crushing what you cherished until there is nothing left. No dream, not even the arrival of dragons can convince me otherwise. The world is cruel to dreamers, more cruel than drunks and that's saying something. So no, these dragons change nothing, and I will not let them take up a single grain of space inside my heart for hope. I will not.

6 months later

You know when you cry on a page of a book and the words start to fuzz until the ink bleeds on the page making it unreadable? Well, picture the exact opposite of that. The rain is crying on the earth right now and I swear with every drop the world comes into focus. The yellow grass has become greener and sharper, there's orange flowers filling a field that was barren just moments ago and I just saw what could've been a very large butterfly zoom past me. I spin in a slow circle, my eyes darting in every direction, trying to make sense of what they are seeing. I’m still spinning and nothing is disappearing. Either this is real or I've finally lost my mind. The more I take in my surroundings I realize, if losing my mind looks like this, I wish I lost it a long time ago. The sky is devastated as the drops fall faster and harder. With every drop something new surfaces. A lilac coloured tree sprouts before me and I have to tilt my neck up as I watch it grow to full size in seconds. I turn as a jumbo butterfly knocks into my shoulder, only it's not a butterfly. It has arms and legs and glittery gold wings. My eyes frantically chase the glitter till it's gone. I start spinning again, trying to take everything in, but it’s all popping up so fast, my heart is pounding in my chest, and I am drenched. The rain is transforming the world around me, and it’s all in such stark contrast to my everyday life. The shock causes me to slip and when I hit the ground I scream, rocking back and forth. Trying and failing to comfort myself. Wake up right now! Please! I’m squeezing my eyes shut as hard as I possibly can. I can feel how vulnerable I am as the rain pelts my skin. That little girl with her yellow polk-a-dot rubber boots is jumping and splashing in the puddles now. She knows I can’t shove her back down anymore but what she doesn’t know is that she is fragile. My heart plummets in my chest at the thought. If I open my eyes, and all that I've seen is gone, I know that magical little girl with her head stuck in the clouds will be gone too. I only shoved her so far down in my heart to protect her, to protect me, and if that little girl breaks tonight, there would be no parts of me left in the mirror worth seeing, I'd be like all the other people in the Valley. Drunk and dreamless. I know I have to look. To see if my last shards of hope are lost forever. My rocking has turned into shaking as my tears mix with the skies. My mind flashes with the lightning and a memory of my mother plays out in my mind.

I’m standing at the edge of a hill, my little hand grasped tightly in hers

My voice shakes as I ask, “b-b-but what if I f-fall?”

My mom crouches down and gently kisses the tears off my cheeks

She smiles, “But honey, what if you fly?”

The sky screams and I’m back in the Valley. I don’t have my mothers warm hands to hold me through life anymore so I thread my fingers through the thick blades of grass beneath me. I take one deep, steadying breath, and with all the courage I can summon for that little girl that deserves the world, I choose to fly, and finally open my eyes.