… therefore it is
Leo Elsinger
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Leo Elsinger
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~
Somewhere during the ever-lapsing image journey of the night, he knocked on the pedestal of my awareness.
I stared at him for a while, trying to match the image of him with where I was, but obstinate as reality he stayed, staring back with a lightening look that had me yearn for clarity all the more.
‘You’re really here,’ I finally whispered.
The image of the dragon skewed his head and asked, ‘What does the answer “yes” mean to you? And what does a “no” mean to you? You speak to me and I answer. Is that not enough?’
I chose and stepped into the image, walked up to the dragon and touched his leathery, down-covered skin. His breath made me shiver, the shiver evoked a smile, and with an airiness countering the flight response I tried to blow away the primal fear aroused in me, ‘You meet my expectations. Do me a favor and hold your breath when you speak to me.’
The dragon retracted head and shoulders, and with a well-aimed sigh a tongue of flames licked at my suddenly singing eyebrows. My frown of shock worsened the pain.
‘Why...?’
‘To meet your expectations more. It is not me, but if that makes me more real to you, it’s fine with me.’
My hand was floating in front of my brow, worried that it would only add to the pain. My expectations. The dragon met my expectations. But then... ‘Do you possess the magic to make my pain go away?’
His guttural sound resembled a hoarse laugh, yet one that was infused with healing power. The pain vanished, my hand touched, the skin felt smooth, thoughts rearranged themselves.
I looked back in the hope of finding the trusted wall my bed stood propped against, but only saw the landscape of the dragon.
‘Why have you come?’
‘I am sufficiently real to you,’ the dragon sighed in satisfaction, and my heart was instantly aglow.. ‘I don’t appear to just anyone, you know. Your question was good; it confirms my choice.’
His words gave me the courage. ‘If the question is so good, what is the answer?’
The answer remained forthcoming and I searched his eyes. They stared right through my gaze and latched on to my soul. He spread his wings and set me free, and I looked at him, while I carefully avoided the shackles of his gaze. ‘Why...?’
His wings swished toward me, they enveloped my body and filled my nose with the scent of freedom in faraway skies. ‘Enjoy the question, mortal. Enjoy the question. That is my request.’
‘Enjoy the question?’ His eyes pulled at me again, but a slow blink allowed me to see his smile – and I enjoyed.
The dragon now spoke solemnly, ‘Look. That’s why I came. There are not many like you, who can enjoy a question. In thanks I’ll tell you this: each answer, yes even the one I gave and give, confines the essence of the question. Each question is boundless until someone answers it. But the answer is not an answer. The answer is not an answer...’
His deep sigh made my hair flutter. The dragon looked over my head and this time I saw the russet color of his eyes without being bound by them. Not an answer? Could my voice, in that tone, bestow eternal life on those three words? I chose silence so that the dragon would continue speaking.
He smiled anew and then he said, ‘How quick you learn, you mortal. An answer says nothing about the question. An answer speaks only of the speaker and his thoughts about the question. It shows you his impediments. And if you accept his answer, you also accept the boundaries he drew. And the boundlessness of the question dies.’
His final words were so sad, I was stirred. Deeply. In an effort to comfort him, I gazed into his eyes. In thanks, he bound my soul and spoke straight into my heart, ‘And if you accept the answer that I give, you are now confined by unknown boundaries – mine!’
He let go of me, and shaking with relief I found comfort on his wings.
‘But isn’t that what we humans do? We ask questions, answer them, and find another question. It keeps us on edge and purposeful. That’s how we grow!’
The wings rushed up and the support and warmth they offered disappeared with them. The dragon threw his large head back and sent a quaking primal cry around us. I could do naught but watch and wait in the all-penetrating vibration.
The dragon bowed his head. Was he looking at my feet? I counted my toes, for I lacked peace.
I had barely counted to seven when his whisper sounded, ‘Every question comprises the same infinity as the previous one. Go back to your first question and restate it. Refuse all answers. Only then will you achieve true growth.’
‘I don’t remember my first question,’ I whispered at my toes.
Only after I said these words did I realize how apt they were. I smiled.
‘I’ll give you a question, mortal. Tell me what comes to your mind. Do you think you exist?’
I savored his question and beamed. ‘I think I exist. More than that, I think, therefore I am. Isn’t that how they phrase it?’
‘You know, mortal, I’m thinking with you,’ he said with some amusement. ‘And therefore I am, too. But how do you know I am? Or I, that you are?’
Only after these questions did I feel the doubt in my core, and pensively I murmured, ‘Do I... think that I... am?’
‘That sounds much better already,’ the dragon said, relief in his voice. ‘Now, can you hear the boundaries of the answering sentence? I know you hear them. I’ll give you another answer. It widens the boundaries even more but still, it has its limits. I think – therefore it is.’
Incredulously I shook my head, but the dragon kept his silence.
‘That cannot be,’ I burst out. ‘We think of so many things, all manner of conflicting inventions. All this cannot exist at once, can it? Shouldn’t we validate things? Isn’t that what our science is for?’
Silently the dragon curved his wings, until the claws on his wingtips rested lightly on my shoulders. In a tender grip he took hold of me and lifted me up, up and up. The wings stretched; from towering creature the dragon turned into a minor being that seemed to owe its dignity to the size of his wingtips only. I could see the total world, and even that was shrinking. Breathtaking space consumed the world until it was no more than a pinprick, connected to me by two endless ribbons attached to wingtips.
Disbelief does not linger long when lungs are squeezed empty. Gasping for breath I returned in front of the dragon’s paws.
He smiled. ‘Do you think you are?’
I smiled with him. ‘Do I think I am?’ And I added with a snigger, ‘Science could never explain what I experienced just now.’
‘Then, mortal, you remember this. Science is only that part of magic that is understood. Remember this, until it limits you too much. Then return to your question.’
After these words he let me go and lifted off. Now he turned into the pinprick, but this time unconnected to me, and so he dissolved in the sky, and no matter how I peered...
The morning after, I rose from my bed beside the familiar wall. I walked through the familiar hallway and entered the bathroom, only to find that both my eyebrows had disappeared.
My bewilderment dissolved in the giggling question, ‘Did I ever have eyebrows at all?’
~
About the author
Leo Elsinger (1955) spent his life finding logic in magic, and magic in life. Now he is turning both into short stories. He was winner and nominee in several Dutch writing contests and awards, among which the Paul Harland Prize for fantasy & science fiction. A lot of his stories were published in Dutch magazines; this one in 'Opspraak', a Dutch literary magazine.
On special request, he has had several stories translated into English.