The Dragon Of New York: The Primordical Chronicles, #1

By George Samuel

"EY! Is 'dat a frickin' DRAGON up there, or what?": said Every True New Yorker.

 

So begins our anti-hero's journey into the twists and turns of the multiverse, and his and his Wife's induction into the ranks of transcendental shadow-warriors, whether they knew it or not.

 

But, in The War Between The Light and The Dark, the winner hasn't been decided yet.

 

Which side is the Dragon on?

 

And what IS the true nature of Reality?

 

Also: WHY, when you enter a room, do you know that the people within have been talking about you? What's up with that?

 

You want to know the TRUE answers to these questions? Then get this book!

 

If you appreciate Richard Adams, Kurt Vonnegut, "THE LORD OF THE RINGS", "CORALINE" or "HARRY POTTER", then this is YOUR book.

 

This is GEORGE SAMUEL'S first big, big novel. But, having committed himself to telling the True Saga and Lore of the Primordicals, it will not be his last!

 

Discover your own True Primordical Nature! Get this book now!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Artistic Production Services
• Release date: Jul 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215479834

Book preview

Copyright

Copyright © 2021 by George Samuel

All rights reserved.

ANY UNAUTHORIZED COPYING, DUPLICATION, IMPORTATION OR DISTRIBUTION, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, BY ANY MEANS,

INCLUDING ELECTRONIC COPYING, STORAGE OR TRANSMISSION, IS A VIOLATION OF APPLICABLE LAWS.

nO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE USED OR REPRODUCED IN ANY MANNER WHATSOEVER WITHOUT WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION

EXCEPT IN THE CASE OF BRIEF QUOTATIONS EMBODIED IN CRITICAL ARTICLES OR REVIEWS

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author,

except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

STAY CONNECTED WITH ALL THINGS PRIMORDICAL!

VISIT GEORGE'S WORDPRESS SITE: https://primordical.com

ENTER THE UNIVERSE OF GEORGE SAMUEL, AUTHOR:

https://a-snail-without-reins.com/

cover artwork by: chiaracattaruzzi

cover typography by: george samuel/artistic production services

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination

or are used fictitously. any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

produced & Printed in the USA by Artistic Production Services

Preface:

HOW THIS NOVEL CAME TO BE WRITTEN:

"P RE-PREFACE:"

I need to communicate something VERY important to you about this work:  It's a prophecy.

Now, I didn't realize this until afterwards.  There are certain events which appear in this work which were NOT actual at the time it was written.  These details appear in the first draft, which I started emailing to myself and a friend from 2014 to 2020.  But, long before 2020, events forseen in this novel had come to pass.

That's why just decided to issue it, before any more predictions become recollections.

So, keep in mind that this novel is not a work of hindsight, it's a work of foresight.

Good Reading!

So, there I was, sitting in front of my computer in 2014, with nothing particularly on my mind. And then this phrase just popped into my head:

THE DRAGON OF NEW YORK

Well, what's this all about? I, very fortunately, didn't try to understand it. I just decided to go with it, and unpack the reality of what a dragon arriving in NYC would seem like. The situations, the people, the economics, etc..

I sent the first few hundred words around to some friends and family via e-mail. And they said: Hey, this is cool. Are you going to write any more of this? I said I would. So, off and on, I revisited the work. I had a rule: Just write, Brother!

This went on sporadically for a few years. Then Wifey mentioned something which had the effect of exploding the premise of the work, and sending it into an expanse of urban fantasy, mythology, science fiction, satire, philosophy, theology, ethics and quantum mechanics.. And that term she blurted out was:

THE PRIMORDICAL NODE!

"What? Wait. Don't you mean: PRIMORDIAL?

"No, not at all.  You know, 'THE PRIMORDICAL NODE' - the Origin Of All Existences, All Entities. That's where it all starts and ends and whatever...": She said.

And, She's TOTALLY right!!

So, now the book's creation really began to take off. The Primordical Node is embodied in those entities: 'THE PRIMORDICALS', who inhabit the realm of 'PRIMORDICA', a SovereIgn, discrete realm in the Multiverse, of which our universe is just one small component.

And so on. So now you know.

An interesting note: As long as you are on the outside of this novel [not having read it, or not currently reading it] you will see it as a work of fiction, which it obviously is.

But once "INSIDE" - reading it - you just might experience things differently. And after having lived in this work, and having finished it, you may see inner and outer reality in a different light [as well as some places and personages.]

OR, you may just be entertained and that's that. Either way, that's great. And I hope you enjoy this work.

Bon Voyage!!

~ George Samuel, 2022

INTRODUCTION:

Inever considered writing a big novel. In fact, up till now, my writing merely consisted of social media posts and such. So it may seem curious to you that I would choose to write about something which has already been written about by millions of people in billions of words, namely that fantastical and fearsome creature which took up residence on the roof of the Met Life building in midtown Manhattan.

So many have tried to name it, have tried to outdo each other in describing and explaining it, yet one simple designation for him stuck and it is simply referred to as:

T H E  -  D R A G O N  -  O F  –  N E W  –  Y O R K

I think the Dragon itself may have something to do with exciting my muse.. Certainly there have been lots of outward and inward changes in this town since its’ arrival.

But: HOW to write about this? It would be like writing about time, or something - it’s huge and mysterious. Nobody REALLY knows what it is, yet everybody says they know all about it.

Anyway, in order to be able to even get the words out of my head, I came up with this viewpoint:

What if you, the reader, were the ONLY one who was in a cave, or in a coma, and had only JUST now found out about the Dragon?

So: Now, I can fill you in on what you missed!

So here goes:

THE ARRIVAL:

On a cloudy April Wednesday morning at 8:00 AM, the Dragon emerged from a steely gray cloud over the Met Life building and alighted on the building’s former helipad. Roughly 70 feet long from it’s nostrils to the tip of it’s fluked tail, it’s iridescent scales reflecting the rising dawn in stunning aqua and green hues, it trod in a circle like an enormous puppy preparing its’ doggie bed. Then it settled down comfortably.

And among the thousands of True New Yorkers schlepping to work on Park Avenue, hardly anyone noticed, their attention strictly fixed on the other pedestrians, croissants in hand, or just introverted on their endless treadmills of work before them.

This was to change, abruptly.

Those who did notice began to nudge their fellows: Look! Look up there - Is this some kind of promotion or something?

Then the Dragon announced itself - Shaking it’s head and rearing it back to vertical, it inhaled for what seemed an endless time and then sounded its’ call: a rumbling bass note more felt than heard which swooped slowly up to a piercing screech. It sounded this call in its’ entirety two more times, then rested, its’ ‘aerie’ established.

[There had been untold numbers of theories on how sentient the Dragon is, but as far as I’m concerned he did have a look on its’ face.

And that look seemed to say: Here I am, folks. Deal with it!]

Its’ call was heard as far away as Trenton, N.J.!

So now - NYC, the most unique city in the world, has once again trumped all the other cities on the planet:

We are the ONLY city in the world with an ACTUAL, LIVING DRAGON!

THAT’S GOOD - THAT’S BAD

After the soundings that the Dragon made, there were about 30 personnel on the 59th Floor of the Met Life building who were knocked flat, but alive. As they came to, the Dragon leaned over the deck, looked in the windows and, breaking the window panes, reached in with a clawed right hand, and picked out three of them - two executives and a cleaning lady.

Then, The Dragon lifted them up and placed them on the helipad on the roof. Then the Dragon turned its’ gaze to a security camera. Was that a smile on its’ face? Hard to determine. But there was definitely some sort of communication in its’ gesture. The farthest of the three security cameras on the rooftop registered that the Dragon just stared at the three humans. Then its’ circuits apparently ‘blew’ and the image went dark, then another camera went dark, leaving only the nearest one, whose field of view did not include the Dragon, still aimed at the terrified humans standing on the helipad.

Well, some sort of communication must have occurred between the humans and the Dragon. Because the next thing that happened was that the humans fell to their knees, wailing words to the effect of: Please forgive us for what we have done!! We throw ourselves upon your mercy!!

Thereupon, the Dragon gently placed the humans back into the building. Then it withdrew its’ terrible hand, reared back and uttered another deafening roar.

Naturally the media went into a full background investigation of these people—"The Peoples’ Need To Know etc.. Finally it came out that the executives were involved in a huge Ponzi scam, as well as obscuring the evidence of their firm’s decimating a rain forest. Also one of the execs was being blackmailed due to, shall we say, an unsavory involvement". The indictments were sealed. Wow.

And the cleaning lady? Well, she turned out to be an industrial spy for a rival firm! Her cleaning lady guise allowed her to rummage through the desks and go through the wastebaskets with impunity. At least until The Dragon intervened. Oh, And if that wasn’t enough, she was running numbers AND was a big drug dealer in her neighborhood! Holy S—-! I mean, this really happened!

So, HOW did the Dragon know, just having alighted from who-knows-where?

Again - more theories - The Fundamentalists are saying that the Dragon IS the Beast of Revelation and that these are the End Times. But, there are TWO Beasts in the Bible. And the first one has seven heads and the second one speaks about following the first. So our ‘simple’ one-headed Dragon doesn’t match up to either of those. Anyway that’s as far as I’m going to take that topic.

I also entertained the notion that the Dragon is some other incarnation of Santa Claus? ["He knows if ..."] Makes about as much sense as anything else I’ve heard.

MORE LORE:

Now, in the beginning , there were two camps regarding the nature of our Dragon. One is that it is a life=form, the other, that it is a robot. I’m in the life-form camp. Why?

Well, for one thing, it eats and has eaten living things, like brown rice, and the occasional cow. Let me explain:

Re: brown rice: Some weeks after the arrival of the Dragon, the Long Island Dairy industry had become unduly stressed by The Dragon’s occasionally snacking on some hapless bovine. Some brave individuals wanted to try to save the Dairy industry and to see if we humans could gain more familiarity with our Dragon. So they initiated the Brown Rice Project- a huge two-ton cauldron of steamed brown rice, placed in the middle of Union Square.

I don’t know where they got the idea about brown rice. Well, Dragons CAN be considered oriental. But they can just as well be considered European Middle Ages. So..

But the group put up a GoFundMe page, got donations, set up the cauldron, steamed the rice, played a recording of the Dragon’s call and guess what?

It came, landed, carefully smelled the rice, and then ate it all! No humans were injured.

And – this is telling – After having finished the rice, the Dragon turned and then bowed several times to the crowd. Which conclusively indicated it was sentient, as far as I’m concerned.

But, see: EVERY New Yorker will swear that that gesture was addressed to THEM personally... Except for me. And the reason I strongly so is that its’ thoughts seemed to ring in MY head:

GLAD YOU COULD MAKE IT TODAY. WE HAVE MUCH TO DISCUSS. YOU WILL HEAR FROM ME AGAIN IN DUE TIME.

Then the Dragon spread its’ mighty wings and flew off, North to its’ aerie on top of the MetLife building.

So now, there’s the biweekly brown rice offering to the Dragon. But to the wise, the word still is: DON’T GET TOO CLOSE!!

THE RULES!

Yes, Don’t get too close is an obvious one, but here’s another:

"DRAGONS HATE HELICOPTERS!!"

Yes, although we’ve all seen the Dragon playing around like a puppy at LGA and JFK, flying in parallel with the jumbo jets, right from the beginning, it was obvious that HELICOPTERS and dragons don’t get along.

Why? I think that the helicopter looks and sounds too much like a giant insect from the Dragon’s home world or realm or something like that. Initially, all the helicopter traffic downtown was stopped, but interestingly, one owner-pilot had a visitation from the Dragon, who wordlessly told him it wasn’t its’ intention to squash the pilot’s livelihood.

So the pilot did a careful small flight that morning, and the Dragon - who could see his craft from its' aerie, merely watched impassively. The downtown helicopter traffic was gradually increased to former levels and the Dragon just let it be. So, mutual respect is apparently the order of the day now, as regards airspace.

s i d e b a r—————————-

[*n ote: You will notice something in the narration from here on: Certain sections of this work are in ‘present tense’, and some are not. The reason is that I found that my first person experiences with the Dragon appear in my mind, not as ‘recollections’, but as real time experiences. This is despite their having occurred in the past. This phenomenon will be further explained as we continue...]

e n d  s i d e b a r——————————-

THE GENDER REVEAL – Of the PARENTS!

ASpring night in NYC . Nice enough to open the window in my Upper West Side flat and let the atmosphere actually interact with me. Being close to Central Park gives a New Yorker a nice advantage. And acquiring an apartment in NYC which checks off a majority of points is a real competitive sport - a mixture of monopoly, chess and roller derby.

So, there I am, sitting up in bed, reading a book. Don’t ask me what book, because the event which follows - a new interaction with the Dragon - completely supplants anything else in my memory of that evening.

Again, that voiceless voice speaks in my mind. It ‘says’: COME ON DOWN TO THE SHEEP MEADOW. I THINK YOU’LL WANT TO WITNESS THIS UP CLOSE.

The Dragon goes on to ‘say’ that I am a person of trust. Obviously, I’m flattered. Later on, I find out how and why the Dragon sees a deeper strength in me. But I wasn’t ready to receive that Total Truth just then.

Well.: I say to myself: I guess that’s why people are people and Dragons are Dragons.

I tell my spouse I’m going out for some air and space. She tells me to pick up some Manhattan Special Diet Cream Soda and some other stuff while I’m at it. No problem.

I quickly throw some clothes on, and take my smartphone. I somehow know there would be some sort of photo opportunity in the Park. [I momentarily forget that taking a direct video of the Dragon is impossible, due to its’ mysterious control over the electromagnetic spectrum.]

I move closer to the Sheep Meadow, I see other persons converging there, first one or two others, then a few, then scores, then more and more people appear. But I know that I alone am responding the mental summons of the Dragon.  The other people here are remarking on these strange animal sounds emanating from the meadow about 20 yards in front of us. The noise was very obviously what had brought them.

Somehow, without trying, I get to the front of the crowd. That is also undoubtedly the influence of the Dragon.

Wait! Are there TWO different ‘calls’? From TWO different creatures?

My Dragon is there, swaying and undulating, it’s scales, iridescent, changing colors in a fractal display.

And there is The Other!

Was it of the same species, even? This Dragon is somewhat smaller, though still immense compared to most living creatures. It’s ‘wings’ are smaller than ‘my’ Dragon. It’s scales are the color of lead.  It’s call is a subsonic bellow. And it’s ‘dance’ is not graceful or elegant. It’s leaping straight up into the air and then landing and stomping. The ground shakes with each impact, .

And then it hits me! And I don’t need the Dragon to tell me:

’MY" Dragon is the FEMALE of the species! And the new arrival is the MALE!

I’m dumbfounded.

So what happens next?

Well, my original idea to record the event has vanished, undoubtedly by the power of the Dragon. But ultimately it was also my intention to honor their privacy. Yes, I had the privilege of witnessing the conception of their child. But video recordings? Obviously these are not possible due to the Dragons’ electromagnetic powers, which play havoc with all complex electronic devices. [Though there are a few old school photographic film records of the Dragon.]

HOW DO DRAGONS MATE?? VERY, VERY CAREFULLY!

The dancing subsides . The Dragons circle each other as they playfully feint back and forth. The stupendous force of their limbs is nothing to THEM , though there is enough energy in a single ‘love tap’ to knock down a building!

They jump on each other like a pair of puppies, if you can envision a pair of puppies about 70 feet long, each weighing something like 30 tons!

Then, they separate. Yes, it’s the original Dragon who is the female. You can tell because she’s the one who’s playing coy. The male rears up on his hind legs and struts around, then stomps back on the ground. We feel his impact shake the Earth. He does this a few times as the female patiently looks on.

And then... They converge. And then:

No one remembers!

What?

Yes, it’s been established that the Dragons DO value their privacy - to a fault.

I guess they did want us, and especially me, to know that they were conceiving a child. But they didn’t consider we needed to know the messy details. Dragons are in many ways more modest and civilized than humans. Some might even say they observe Victorian Decencies.

But back to the consummation: So there we all were, standing around like a bunch of dummies, with no Dragons in sight. So, what had just occurred?

We were to find out in a few weeks.

HOW DO YOU HOLD A BABY SHOWER FOR A NEWBORN DRAGON? [part one]

Weeks go by. Everyone is writing and blogging and podcasting about their absence. Have they gone back to their own dimension or whatever? What IS the gestation period of a Dragon? Does Chaucer mention this? Or Pliny The Elder?"

And so on and so on.

s i d e b a r  —————————

Don’t you really dislike unanswered questions?

We will go to any length to fill in the void of something unknown. We will ransack any info or lore or fevered personal visions and biases, just to have something make even the flimsiest ‘sense’. And we will then hold onto this explanation with a pit-bull grip, and spew this explanation to the ends of the universe, defended as a Truth as valid as: "2 plus 2 equals 4″.

And a sad part of this is that we will also uniformly REJECT any information which refutes our cherished premise, no matter that the refutation is as true and as easily understood as: objects fall when you let them go.

The above is what is termed: cognitive dissonance. You can look that up. And I recommend you do.

e n d  s i d e b a r————————————

HOW DO YOU HOLD A BABY SHOWER FOR A NEWBORN DRAGON [part 2]

So, then we all start to get the answer. An amazing answer. Yes, the Dragon is now a mother! And the evidence of this is the 12-foot long crystalline egg, now comfortably resting in the Dragon’s Aerie above NYC. And much like a Bower Bird bends twigs to construct an aesthetic, yet practical home, the Dragon’s nest is now decorated and expanded with leftover building materials - zeebars and girders which she had bent, twisted and formed into protective yet decorative shapes.

But where was SHE, now named the Dragon-Mother, herself?

Days go by with no sightings of either Dragon anywhere, in the Tri-State area, or in the US, or in the World. But NO ONE is stupid or foolhardy enough to even step onto the former helipad to inspect the egg at a closer range, except for - wouldn’t you know it, that professional skeptic, conspiracy theorist and self-styled muckraker:" Caesar Smith".

[Some background on said Mr. Smith: He at one time had a very popular Podcast/Website [now cancelled] on which he spewed all sorts of hidden facts which only he, somehow, was able to discover.

Of course the reason why ‘only he’ was able to find out about his info was that, in actuality, none of these facts ever existed! He was simply making them all up to shock people. Maybe he was shunned in Junior High School? Maybe he kept getting a whuppin’ for telling fibs? And this was his compensatory behavior? Well, some say that.]

But, we will probably never know his motivations, as he is no longer with us, at least in a way we are familiar with.

s i d e b a r—————————-

Imagine, if you will , a time-dilation scenario. You may have seen such on PBS, or a TED Talk or movies such as INTERSTELLAR, et al.

[This is the premise of untold numbers of sci-fi stories about travelling among the stars.]

And it goes like this:

The faster you go, as you approach the speed of light, the slower time moves - for the object which is moving. Theoretically, at the speed of light - time stops" for the object which is moving at said speed of light.

While an external observer, NOT moving that fast, would see, if he could, the motion within the object slowing down as the speed of light was approached, and then stopping altogether as the speed of light itself, was attained.

The personal, subjective experience of time for those moving at velocities approaching light, would not change. In other words - everything ELSE around them would be moving faster and faster, relative to them."

You will see the relevance of this information presently.

e n d  s i d e b a r—————————————

A BABY SHOWER FOR A NEWBORN DRAGON, continued:

Well, somehow our Mr . Smith gets past the guards and the maintenance crew, probably with a bribe of some sort, and climbs over the barricade which the newly created NYC Mayor’s Office of Dragon Affairs had built. [None of it on taxpayers’ money, I might add. It was all solely from philanthropists - or, shall we say, Phil-Drago-Ists.]

Then, on their rounds, the guards discover something which before these Days of the Dragon would have been described as uncanny:  Did someone drop off a wax mannequin on the rooftop?

NO! It is THE Mr. Smith!

He is now a statue!

But wait, somehow NOT an inert, inanimate object. So a crew crates his body up, removes it from the helipad and transports it up to a lab up in Rochester NY. They run all sorts of tests - carbon-dating and all - which yield the most bizarre results, yet totally, provably valid.

And this is what they discover: Time, for Caesar Smith, IS moving, but infinitesimally. If he’s still sentient, then he’s seeing the external world rushing by at hundreds of times normal speed! What an uncompromising consequence for the poor wretch.

This was a bizarre, yet understandable penalty which fit the crime: so, our Mr. Smith wants to know what’s behind everything? Well, now he has his chance: He will exist and persist as a statue into the future for as long as the Dragons see fit, presumably.

And the irony of it all is that he will never be able to tell anyone about anything he’s witnessed!

I do feel that the Dragons will reverse the spell and let him off the hook in the future, once he’s learned his lessons: firstly: Don’t fib. and secondly: NEVER DISRESPECT A DRAGON!

But again, that’s why Dragons are Dragons and not bunny rabbits!

THE HATCHING OF THE EGG!

The Universe Resounds With The Joyful Cry: I Am!!"

~ Scriabin

Five in the morning on a weekday: In the sky over the former Met Life building, a kaleidoscopic pattern of multicolored light gyrates in fractal patterns, transfixing all on the sidewalk.

Well, again, here I am, responding to the silent call of the DragonMind, as I have begun to refer to it. But I don’t have to guess why I’ve been summoned. I’m about to witness to the hatching of the Dragon chick! [Well, it’s an egg. Don’t know what else to call it.] Am I to be the Godfather??

I look at my phone as I exit the door of my building. It tells me it’s 5 AM.

It’s about a twenty minute brisk walk from the Upper West Side of Manhattan to Midtown: Park Ave and about 50th St. - which is where I determine I’d have the best, if any, view of the hatching of the Dragon Egg.

I check my phone when I get to 50th and Park.

It reads: 5:01 AM! More magic. But this is now my new normal.

Then, it begins to happen: from within the egg, a groaning, then a screeching, then the sound of cracking and shattering. Then, fragments of the shell breaking off and exploding in glorious arcs, like fireworks. But no one on the ground need take cover: The fragments of the shell dissolve and vanish long before they hit street level, leaving behind them a purple mist which has the scent of roses and cinnamon. At least, that’s how it smelled to me.

[Afterwards, comparing - no two people who witnessed the hatching had same perceptions. - Interesting.]

Then the chick emerges - a substantially DIFFERENT type of Dragon! And it doesn’t really resemble EITHER parent! The wings, neither avian nor reptilian, but more like an enormous dragonfly in two pairs of two wings, The eyes: neither sky blue like the mother’s, nor jet black like the father’s, but an intense penetrating emerald green! And is there a third eye in the middle of the forehead, closed? That particular feature couldn’t be conclusively determined from the film footage recovered from the trusty old Bolex cameras stationed on the rooftops surrounding the Met Life building.

The chick is possessed of SIX legs. It’s skin, neither made of scales, like a pangolin, nor covered with fur like a bear, but leather-like, yet smooth and glassy, and constantly changing patterns of color like that of an octopus!!

The impressiveness of its’ elongated body is only outdone by its’ impossible double tail, which unfurls to an additional 20 feet or so. And both of these tails appear to be prehensile.

Wow! Beyond breathtaking!

Then the Dragon ‘chick’ takes to the air. It circles around the MET LIFE building, then dive bombs down to Park Avenue - straight toward ME!

All the passerby scatter. But, again - that ‘communication factor’ of the DragonMind engages me. I am assured that no harm will befall me. This newest member of the Dragon Family circles above me, than alights with grace of a swan right in front of me.

And then - It BOWS to me!

Oh, Great!  It thinks I’m goddam FRODO! What have I gotten myself into?

I’m reminded of William Shakespeare’s words from TWELFTH NIGHT: "Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them."

Ummmmm, yeah. I guess.

I think: I wouldn’t be in a good place if I were to disappoint a Dragon, would I? So, how am I to live up to this?

"WORRY NOT. YOU SHALL BE PROTECTED. THIS IS OUR SOLEMN VOW.: Says the voiceless voice in my head. And then the voice ‘says’: Farewell for now, Kin of Dragons.

I blink and shake my head to disperse the shimmering kaleidoscopic fractal auroras in my mind’s eye and the symphonic resonant clarion chords in my mind’s ear. Then all is quiet and serene.

But now, I am left with yet ANOTHER question:

WHAT THE HELL AM I GOING TO TELL MY WIFE?

s  i  d  e  b  a  r  ——————————

"Gaily bedight [bedecked-dressed], a gallant knight, in sunshine and in shadow,

Had journeyed long, singing a song, in search of El Dorado.

~Edgar Allen Poe

Well, the above poem is about a Knight, not a Dragon, but it does have a lot to do with myths. Where do myths come from?

And, how true are they?

There is a prevalent suspicion among scholars and the general public that this old lore is an incomplete and misconstrued record of ACTUAL events. It is this general mystery which has propelled archaeologists, astronomers and poets to verify or disprove and/or explain the massive mysteries buried in the earth, scratched into the rocks, and/or inscribed on clay tablets and parchments, painted on the walls and handed down in verbal tradition, argued about, cross referenced, carbon-dated, and being the cause of the failing eyesight of thousands of sages as they pore over the ancient records with magnifiers, ultraviolet lights, x-rays, laser beams, and quantum velocity particle accelerators.

From: "The Lord of the Rings" to "The Book of Ezekiel" to "Ancient Aliens", to the carbon-dating of the Shroud of Turin, to, to, to, the ‘lore’ and it’s explanations flow, like unto a river, bigger and longer than the Amazon, the Nile and the Mississippi combined. And in almost every case, the answer arrived at is:

Well, maybe?

But, let us continue with my personal experiences. I, of course, do not have the slightest maybe about them.. They DID happen in the real world, and they are STILL happening!

e  n  d  s  i  d  e  b  a  r———————————————————-

A SOMEWHAT CALM AFTERMATH

Isee a few of the now-scattering crowd, and a few news crews, peering timidly around the corners of the buildings on the corner of 48th and Park. They are aiming their cameras and smartphones in our direction. Forget drones - they could not be made to operate, notwithstanding that trying to capture a Dragon’s image with electronic media has proven totally futile.

Old habits die hard, right?

But, I am left with one convincing certainty.

The Dragons and myself do have a unique bond.

ON THE ORIGIN OF THE WHOLE SHEBANG

My head reels. Even after all of the fantastical experiences I’ve had with Dragons, I am absolutely not ready for this.

However, it all begins to make sense. I begin to recall events in my life which had no ‘rational’ explanation:

*The time I absentmindedly crossed the street against the light, heard the screech of brakes from the car about to smash into me, and then instantaneously found myself standing on the opposite corner as if nothing happened, which had then become the new true reality.

*The time I overslept, woke up to see the alarm show 9:30 AM, and then in an instant, I am at work at 9:31 in the morning.

*The time at a former job when I filed a complaint to HR about a toxic supervisor. I hadn’t expected much of anything. But the next day, the supervisor apparently on his own had grabbed all the