It was an innocuous thing at the start. Spare change went missing.
Then pets.
Then livestock.
And then particularly adventurous hikers.
Still, that could have been any number of pieces of bad luck, if it weren’t for the smoke rising from the top of the hill-without-a-trail.
So at last the whispers started and the heads were put together and the name was spoken aloud: dragon.
“Surely it’s not a dragon,” said Tea down at the bar, the optimist. “It’s probably just a hungry bear or somesuch eating the animals, we don’t KNOW the hikers were eaten – maybe they just eloped? – and as for the smoke, well, it’s forest fire season, or nearly enough, almost.”
“We’re not so lucky as for it to be a dragon,” said Bowl on his porch, the pessimist. “Some moron’s clearly been smoking up in the woods and they’ve set a blaze that will consume the town. The other victims, man and beast alike, were clearly devoured by a horde of rabid wolves.”
“I don’t know what’s going on,” said Dip at the docks, the defeated. “But I’m sure it’s none of my business or concern. Besides, dragons are self-made and hard-working, unlike some other folks around here I could name. It’ll bring some class to this place.”
Two days after that the dragon came roaring down from the hillside in a fabulous avalanche of shining scales and flashing teeth and alarming heat that made the air shimmer and dance. It sang and spun itself in the air nine times above the town, and with each long, beautiful call all the valuables and money slid into the air and followed it in its joyous gyre. Then it burned down the hospital and sailed home to the hill-without-a-trail.
***
Now that the dragon’s existence was confirmed, there were disputes on how best to proceed.
“Obviously we just need to send word out for a hero,” said Tea down at the bar, the optimist. “You kill a dragon and you get its treasure and maybe someone wants to marry you and you get that warm feeling in your tummy that comes from doing the right thing. They’ll be knocking the hinges off our doors, just you see!”
“Nobody can hope to stop a dragon of that size without being powerful enough to not care about this place,” said Bowl on his porch, the pessimist. “We should all give up and leave, but I suspect we wouldn’t escape. It’s going to eat us all by next week; might as well lie down in the dirt and wait to be consumed.”
“I guess if we give the dragon enough nice things, it’ll be nice to us and maybe some of its wealth will trickle back down out of its hoard to us,” said Dip at the docks, the defeated. “Don’t see why that wouldn’t work.”
A week passed, and so too – presumably- did the brave trio of Spoon, Pot, and Varnish, who had ascended the hill-without-a-trail armed with sharp tools and gumption and vanished forever.
The dragon did not come down from the hillside again that month. It did not devour them all. But the little piles of expensive things left in the woods at the base of its cliffs (furtively, without announcement) vanished in the night when no one was looking, and they were reassured.
***
Time slouched on, and with it, the vast majority of the valuables in the town. Coins and bills and cards and cheques, all stacked up high in heaps, weighed down with rocks, left in hope.
The dragon largely slept, or at least wasn’t ostentatious about itself. But it did burn down half the downtown one fine summer evening, and there was some consternation as to how and why that had happened.
“It seems like some sort of misunderstanding,” said Tea down by the smouldering rubble of the bar, the optimist. “I guess the dragon just woke up on the wrong side of the bed last night, and that’s something that happens to the best of us and there’s no sense dwelling on what’s already been done. Besides, it’s actually amazing how few of us died. Imagine if it’d burned down the whole town!”
“I suppose it’ll come back tonight and finish the job,” said Bowl on his porch, the pessimist. “I bet it only went home to refuel. I’m going to sit in my chair and wait to be blown up with a fireball now.”
“Did you notice how it only burned down PART of town?” said Dip at the ruin of the docks, the defeated. “I bet it’s because we weren’t giving it enough nice things. I bet that’s because some OTHER people in the rest of town were stealing our nice things from the woods, probably because they were poor and greedy moochers. We should leave THEM in the woods. Then it’ll look on us as worthy peers and the wealth will begin to flow back to us all.”
So the people from the burned downtown got together with the people who were frightened of being burned up and they went around town and picked up everyone who they thought was the kind of person who’d steal things from the woods and they tied them up and left them in the woods. And the people they’d left there didn’t come back, and the dragon didn’t descend from the hill-without-a-trail, and they were reassured.
***
There was very little left in town to give to the dragon at this point. No money, no credit, no goods, and fewer and fewer people that were obviously the sort of person that would steal tribute left for the dragon.
Also the dragon burned down the other half of the town the night of the harvest festival. What few jack-o-lanterns that had been salvaged from the fields burned brightly that eve, filling the air with pumpkin smoke and blazing eyes that would’ve done the headless horseman proud.
“Oh, we’ll scrape along,” said Tea in the half-burned basement of the bar, the optimist. “We always manage, you know! And it’s really nice how this whole situation has brought us all together. When you think about it, this dragon’s been the best thing to ever happen to this town. It’s really put us on the map!”
Bowl said nothing because he had been part of the first collection of tribute after the summer burning of the downtown. His porch had been blown up with a fireball during the harvest burnings.
“The dragon is still angry because clearly some of us aren’t trying hard enough for it,” said Dip in the rocks by the harbour. “We need to ferret them out and feed them to it, to win its admiration. Surely then the good times will come back.”
The ferreting began in great enthusiasm, but hit a stumbling block when one of Dip’s neighbours pointed out he was hiding a gift card in his shoe. The argument escalated to the point of sides being taken. Then lines being drawn. Then crossed. Then. Then. Then.
***
The dragon went for a brief tour. A great circle above town, tightening slowly around objects of interest. Here a big mound of debris; there a makeshift dwelling.
No, no, no. Cinders and ashes and emptiness. It was pretty much done here.
So it soared back to the hill-without-a-trail, in the hole in the ground that nobody knew about, and it laid down on its wealth, and it went back to sleep to wait and dream until everyone forgot about it and came back and would be ready for the next harvest.
Its sleep was troubled, and it squirmed and kicked at the itch in its hind foot. Then it awoke and realized it had forgotten to take the gift card out of its shoe, removed it carefully, added it to the pile, and ebbed into the truly blissful slumber of the deserving rich.