If I recall correctly, and my recollections were in doubt these days, yes, Peredur did knock.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, I don’t know how to rate Dragons on any kind of scale (hah hah – get it?) of power or intensity or sheer toilet-training defying measures, but Peredur scared me more than dear Nell.
\nI had been offered more opportunities to experience fear in the past few weeks than any time before in my adult life.\u00a0 It was something I had spent some of my sullen schmuckish time on, introspectively defining and cataloguing it.<\/p>\n
“Fear of the unknown,” is a strange thing to experience as a kid.\u00a0 On one hand, you’d think, “Well, I don’t have enough experience to be scared of things I don’t immediately understand,” but on the other hand, because you don’t have the structures built to process things, the unknown can be Big and Overwhelming.\u00a0\u00a0 As you grow to adulthood, your structures go into overtime, rationalizing the night sounds to be things like, “The house settling,” as if the house normally gets up and shakes like the family hound and has to get back into position.\u00a0\u00a0 You might even find yourself with your own kids, reassuring them of such things like, “The thunder is loud, yes, but it can’t hurt you by itself.”\u00a0 You might tell them there is no such thing as ghosts.\u00a0 Or better yet, you can get yourself caught up in a place I think of as Schr\u00f6dinger’s Lie: “You don’t have to worry about it.”\u00a0 (“Verschr\u00e4nkung” sounds like the stiff drink someone needed after looking in after the cat was put in the box.\u00a0 I guess “Schr\u00f6dinger’s Turtle” just wasn’t as, well, catchy.)<\/p>\n
Adults, when you think about it, seem to try to process things as “worry” instead of “fear.”\u00a0 No one likes to go around and admit that they’re “scared.”\u00a0 Even when they say, “I’m afraid that…” they’re not talking about fear, they’re trying to salve someone’s upcoming disappointment with a polite social lubrication.\u00a0 (Most lubricants are a form of lie.)\u00a0 What grown-ups are scared of is loss of control.\u00a0 This is why our relationships are so messed up – you can’t (unless there’s an app, I mean a spell for that) control the way someone else feels.\u00a0 Most of the time neither of you can communicate it well, which is even worse.\u00a0 So the one thing we can control in a relationship (ourselves) can’t work in the vacuum of individualism, or there’s no relationship in the first part.\u00a0 It’s all interconnected, and thus fairly complex (if not necessarily complicated.)<\/p>\n
I like to consider myself an optimist, if only because I am troubled only by a handful of things in my personal sphere of attention that go wrong at any one time.\u00a0 After all, while I’m not on any kind of cellular level aware of the ambient bursts of radiation that my epidermis encounters (and the potential mutations that might ensue) on a daily basis when I go into the big blue room and its blasting solar light, I’m far more worried about being roasted by what I thought were mythical creatures than, say, skin cancer.<\/p>\n
The knock came back, a little heavier this time.<\/p>\n
“Who’s there?” I called out.<\/p>\n
I received no answer.\u00a0 Either the mysterious visitor didn’t hear me, or he\/she\/it had been badly burned on “Knock Knock” jokes as a child.\u00a0 I, myself, love Interrupting Cow.<\/p>\n
I decided to act.\u00a0 I don’t want you to think it was an easy decision, but I had wavered for a while on the far sightseeing bluffs of metaphor overlooking the realm of catatonia, and I had decided that I did not believe their fancy tourism magazines.\u00a0 In fact, visiting no matter how nice it seemed this time of the year did not sound like it was good for my (mental) health.<\/p>\n
I turned around and started towards the door.\u00a0 In my head, I counted steps like that favourite scene in “Aliens” with the motion detectors, although I was unsure I had 18 meters in any straight line within the apartment.\u00a0 I really should get a geomancer in here and make sure my Feng Shui wasn’t pointing to “Tasty to Dragons” or something similar.<\/p>\n
If they were able to make a movie from the images in my head, it’d be a trick shot.\u00a0 The camera would bob up and down like there was some kind of motion of my walking, but the door would never get any farther. It would loom there, and there’d be some kind of echo-y sound effects.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After all, who knew better than I the risks of opening doors.\u00a0 It was just one step removed from letting in the monsters.<\/p>\n
Then I’d grasp the door handle, and yank the door open.<\/p>\n
Strike that.\u00a0 I’d unlock the deadbolt, grasp the door handle, and yank the door open.<\/p>\n
“Hello, small wizard.”<\/p>\n
I stood there surprised for a moment.\u00a0 If I ever get to revise the character sheet of my life, I’d like to immediately add the aspect, “Is especially witty when the unexpected occurs,” to it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I recognized the fellow and the kind of double vision that sometimes happens when I interact with creatures of the supernatural.\u00a0 He had the apron from one of the all-night supermarkets folded over his belt, a pair of jeans, and one of those short-sleeved button-down shirts that aren’t exactly casual.\u00a0 He wasn’t smoking, and his black hair was more up in a knot rather than a ponytail in that style that kind of reminds me of a Samurai.\u00a0 At the same time, he was an eight foot tall troll, with a nose like a mountain crag, a nose that took up all his visible face, and he was down on one knee.<\/p>\n
“Um, hello,” I decided.<\/p>\n
“The path of the sacred acorn lies open to you, sweeper of doorways.”\u00a0 I wasn’t sure if I liked “Wizard” better.\u00a0 “The liege of small places requests your presence.”\u00a0 He bowed, and one mountainous arm swept before him.<\/p>\n
“At,” I glanced at my watch, “this time of night?”<\/p>\n
“Hey, what can I say?\u00a0 I always pull the suck-end of night shifts.”\u00a0 He moved his weight from one leg to another visibly and I could hear the creak of the steps up to the door.\u00a0 “Anyway, I’m sure my King knows you are a very busy man.”\u00a0 He rolled his eyes.\u00a0 I began to defend myself, but he put a hand out.\u00a0 “Seriously, word has it you’re a Dragonslayer.\u00a0 And I’ve heard that can take a lot out of a man, let alone a little wizard,” he said.\u00a0 He grinned.\u00a0 “Of course, I’ve also heard it said that Dragons make excellent pate.”
\nI think I looked a little ill.\u00a0 I certainly felt faint.<\/p>\n
He laughed.\u00a0 “Anyway, this is a thing fair Thomas can do no more for us.\u00a0 You know the eight corners of Monaco.\u00a0 Travel them not deosil, but widdershins.\u00a0 Remember it by knowing I’d kick you in the shins if you went the wrong way.\u00a0 Fall under the bridge of trees, and you shall be in the smaller realms.\u00a0\u00a0 And do it after dark – you don’t want to bring sunshine in where it isn’t wanted, got it?”\u00a0<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
“Good.”\u00a0 He paused.\u00a0 “Oh,” he said, and started digging through his pockets.\u00a0 He came out with a small flat stone.\u00a0 “This is for you as token of our good will.”<\/p>\n
“Isn’t this one of those times where if I’m smart I don’t take your gifts?” I asked.<\/p>\n
He shrugged.\u00a0 “It’s up to you, wizzy McWiz.\u00a0 If you don’t want it, I’ll keep it, I guess.”<\/p>\n
“Hey, I never said I was smart,” I said, taking it from his hand.\u00a0 It was surprisingly cool to the touch, and just small enough across my palm that I could gently bend my fingers around it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He nodded.\u00a0 “Good choice.\u00a0 Hopefully Thomas was as true as he claimed.\u00a0 For your sake.”\u00a0 He looked at me for a moment.\u00a0 “Before the solstice.\u00a0 I’ve got some vacation time banked.”\u00a0 He shifted again and I could feel the stairs tilt.<\/p>\n
I nodded again, somewhat bemused.<\/p>\n
“They’ll send another messenger,” he said, almost as if it were a warning.\u00a0 “That dandelion fluff-head Peredur is too interested in our business.\u00a0 Ah well.\u00a0 I’m off.\u00a0 Gotta catch my bus.”\u00a0 He smiled and jumped over the steps and onto the concrete, cracking it in a couple of places.\u00a0 “Oops,” I heard him say as he sauntered into the distance.<\/p>\n
I closed the door behind him.\u00a0 You know, if I posted on the Internet that I had just been visited by a troll, they’d get it all wrong.\u00a0 I think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“Who’s there?” “It’s Troll.” “It’s Troll Who?” “It’s Troll that I could rip your head right off your neck.” “Oh! It’s TROLL. Why didn’t you say so? Come on in…”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapter-six"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}