The Story of the Green Dragon

A fairy tale for children and adults, too.

The Story of the Green Dragon

 

This then, is the story of the Green Dragon. Once upon a time there lived a little boy whose name - surprisingly - was Littleboy.

He was an ordinary boy, just like anyone else, like any of his friends,except one thing - he was a passionate reader. Littleboy loved reading all sorts of books - books on football players, on bicycles or books on chess.

He also liked reading books of stories that revealed a little bit of the world around him, such as books on history or science.

Most of all, though, he liked reading fairy tales.

During his summer holidays he had his field day in reading, because he could read all books from the huge library in his grandparents' house.

The house was built long, long time ago in the high mountains amidst dense forests. It was a lonely, isolated place and Littleboy loved it very much.

On the hot summer days, he would sit down in a swing hanged on a huge chestnut tree which was planted in front of the house by Littleboy's grand, grand, grandfather for all his family to remember that the tree was there for them to meet together and to speak to each other whenever neeeded.

The chestnut tree was very special. Whoever sat underneath the tree and fell asleep, had very vivid dreams. Quite often, the dreams then came true.

Littleboy's father often teased his mother about how he had this dream about getting married and having a son. Littleboy's uncles also joked about the 'Dream Tree' as they called it, but no one took it quite seriously because most people in Littleboy's family were hard working matter-of-fact men and women who rarely believed in anything they could not grasp with their hands.

But Littleboy knew better. Many times as he was sitting below the Dream Tree he used to watch the dance of shadows and lights as the sun was shining through the green and then colorful leaves. He used to imagine strange faces of strange creatures, dwarfs and fairies, looking down at him and speaking to him in some unknown language.

As it was, Littleboy used to read under the Dream Tree in the silence of the hot summer afternoon and read a book from the huge library.

And it must be also mentioned that he loved lunches with the whole family. All the distinguished fathers and mothers of his large family gathered together in a spacious verandah, they talked and laughed, knives and forks clinked against white China plates, the summer breeze was blowing through windows wide open, and the spotless white curtains were softly whispering in the blasts of hot air from outside.

And then all the sounds slowly, slowly faded into silence, and the tasty smell of food was blown away by the breeze. Littleboy tiptoed out of the house so as not to disturb the snoring sleepers and sat himself in his favorite swing and kept on reading until late afternoon.

Thereafter, the snoring sleepers woke up and started to shout: "I want a sandwich! I want chicken! I want tea!" Littleboy's grandmother appeared and prepared rich servings for everyone.

Now, the library that became the source of knowledge for Littleboy, was a majestic oak piece of furniture standing in one of the back rooms in the house and packed with many beautiful and odd looking volumes from floor to the ceiling.

One day, Littleboy found a very special book inside the library, hidden behind the front row of books. It was a heavy and thick, leather-bound tome, covered with cobwebs. On the front cover was a picture of giant green dragon with fiery red eyes, breathing out green mists of heavy breath.

Littleboy looked at the dragon, completely fascinated, and then he opened the book. He began to read. He was completely taken by the book and went on reading day by day with only short breaks for lunch or dinner. Nothing, nobody could make him stop reading.

And what was the book about? That I cannot tell. For one thing, this story took place long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. All I can say is that it was a book about mysteries of this world. Such mysteries can't be told in this fairy tale, because they are a matter of another fairy tale.

Thus, Littleboy kept reading for many days, and as the summer holiday was coming to an end, so was his reading until one late summer day he found to his utter sorrow that about a quarter of pages were missing from the book. Someone tore them out!

Littleboy couldn't read the end of the story, he did not know what had happened. And, alas, there were yet so many secrets of this world for him to discover and suddenly they were gone. How could that be? He yearned to know the end of the story, but that was impossible. The book was destroyed.

Littleboy was very unhappy, sad and angry at the same time. He didn't know what to do. And, as he sat there in his swing, underneath the dream chestnut tree, his grandmother called him and told him to go out and tell the grandfather that the lunch was ready. Grandfather was out in the forest preparing wood for the coming autumn and winter.

Thus Littleboy jumped on his bike and went out to deliver the message. And angry as he was, he decided to take a dangerous shortcut down a very steep and narrow path that led to the forest where grandfather was working.

Wanting to deal with the business as soon as possible, Littleboy did not hesitate for a moment and rode down the risky path. He was riding faster and faster and all of the sudden, the brakes stopped working and Littleboy crashed against a wooden electric pole at the bottom of the steep slope.

Littleboy lost consciousness. He couldn't tell for how many hours or days he laid in the total darkness. When he came to, he found himself lying on a hospital bed, his mother and father, and grandparents sitting in front and casting worried looks at each other and at Littleboy. When they saw him opening his eyes they cried with joy and started to hug and kiss him with passion. They thought he was about to die. He was found by grandparents' neighbors laying next to his bike unconscious and was rushed to hospital then.

It took a few days for Littleboy to recover. When he left the hospital he seemed fine, except one thing. He completely forgot about the book of the Green Dragon. He couldn't even remember that he read a book.

Time passed. Littleboy was completely unaware of the glorious book that he once read in the past. Nevertheless, he felt he was missing something but couldn't tell what it was, just an omnipresent sense of utter loss and sorrow.

Something was not right and he knew it, but he couldn't do anything about it because he didn't know what to look for in the first place.

Years went by and Littleboy became a Bigboy. His grandfather died one bright autumn day when he was working in the garden. Tired as he was, he made himself a soft bed of colorful autumn leaves and laid down to take a nap. The shadows became longer as the dusk and evening drew near, the leaves were rustling in the soft cool wind, but the grandfather did not move. He passed away with a warm smile on his face.

Soon thereafter Bigboy's grandmother died too, desperately missing her husband.

After the grandparents died, their house became deserted, no matter whoever stayed there. The old Dream Tree started to dry out from inside. New neighbors moved next to the old house, they cut the trees and the dense forest around the house grew thinner and thinner.

The spirit of the grandparents' house was gone as were the days of happy family gatherings on the large verandah, the sounds of clinking glasses and cutlery and happy voices. The spotless white curtains on the windows were stained and yellowish. Bigboy stopped going there, having no purpose.

Bigboy grew up and had some very important things to do, such as dating girls or finding a satisfying and boring job. Time passed, until one night he had a very strange dream.

He dreamed of a big green dragon that was chasing him. And the dream obviously decided to make itself a big nuisance and it repeated with gathering intensity and detail.

Now, the Green Dragon in Bigboy's dream was no fool. He hired private detectives to spy on him. Sometimes, Bigboy was dreaming of being at home, the phone rang, he picked up the receiver and no one spoke. He could only hear heavy breathing and saw green mist and fire coming out of the

receiver. As Bigboy yelled "I'm not scared!" to the phone, he woke up, sweating profusely and paralyzed with fear.

After a series of these worrying dreams he dreamed another, most horrible dream. He dreamt that the Green Dragon finally wanted to meet him face to face and made itself very small and hid inside a golden cauldron filled with delicious soup.

The cauldron was then brought to a big party where Bigboy was also present. As he watched the cauldron being brought into the room he knew this was no good. He knew that under no circumstances should the soup be warmed because the Green Dragon would enlarge with the heat and there would be no escape. But he could not speak a word. The fire was lit under the cauldron, soup started to warm up and the Green Dragon loomed up in all its might and filled the whole

room. People shrieked with fear and Bigboy, scared to death, somehow still managed to escape.

He woke up in horror. After a great deal of thinking he decided he had to see a shaman who would tell him what to do about his dreams. It was no easy task because nowadays there are not that many shamans anymore.

He asked his friends, he asked some foreigners and after a long and difficult quest he finally found a wise old woman who was living behind a small city high up in the mountains, in a cottage hidden in the roots of a big old oak tree.

Bigboy went to visit the old shaman, waited for many days to be accepted and when he was, at last, he told her everything. The shaman just looked at him and said: "Go out from my house, close your eyes, turn around once and then open your eyes and remember what you will see."

Bigboy thanked and did as he was told. And the first thing he saw after he opened his eyes again was a big chestnut tree with green summer leaves. The sun was shining through the leaves and the light was exactly the same as during the childhood days when he sat down in his swing reading the book of the Green Dragon.

He remembered and he knew that it was time for him to meet the Green Dragon face to face either in dream or in reality because quite often, dreams and reality are the same thing.

That night he dreamed of himself standing in a middle of a huge green meadow, soft and damp with evening dew, underneath the sky covered with zillions of bright stars. He could smell the grass in the hot summer night. He could hear the cries of the owls from the huge forest on the horizon. He could sense the night breathing at him.

Suddenly, he knew that it was coming. A small green light appeared on the sky and was approaching very fast. The green light turned into a huge green dragon which loomed high right in front of the dreamer. The dragon looked at him with his fiery red eyes. They were staring at each other, without a word or sound. Nobody moved. Silence. Silence which took only a split second. And then the Green Dragon leaned down and swallowed Bigboy in one quick bite!

Darkness came all over. Bigboy found himself in the Dragon's bowels. He laid there for what looked like ages. Suddenly he was heaved up by a swirl of strong wind and found himself standing on the meadow under the starry sky which slowly started to pale and was giving way to the rising sun. He spent the whole night in Dragon's bowels.

And, as he stood there, in the middle of the meadow, he felt something in his hand. He reached out his hand and found a little green dragon lying still on his palm.

He pressed his palm against his heart and felt that the Green Dragon melted in his heart. As he did so, the sun started to rise from behind the horizon and he felt that swirling wind yet again. He saw that all his past and present dreams and visions of the Green Dragon transformed into letters, words, sentences and then formed pages and he could see as the pages, one by one, flew back into the big leather-bound book of the Green Dragon, the very same book that he once read when he was a little boy.

And he saw the book now complete and he saw Littleboy now coming towards him from the distance. And they stood face to face against each other and Littleboy smiled. They both smiled, reached their hands and touched each other.

The boy woke up. It was early morning and the sun was rising. On his pillow, the boy found a small green leaf. And he knew that he was now whole.

He knew that this was no dream.

 

THE END