The Chinese Dragon in Our Pond
It was a humid summer day, and if grandfather was still with us, we’d be eating lychee in the kitchen while he smoked a cigarette. But his seat at the table had been empty for a week now, and to distract my brother, I let him catch cicadas and play in the pond. This is where we found the Chinese dragon resting.
It occurred to me that I must’ve been dreaming. At nine, I dreamt of dragons every so often– the western kind with molten scales and bat-like wings– but this dragon was absolutely Chinese. He smelled of burnt paper and incense. When he looked at us, his diamond pupils expanded in recognition.
I asked the dragon why he was here and not home, and he said it was because he could no longer see where he was flying.
He told us we could ride on his back. As we swept through the clouds, the dragon shared his most treasured stories with us. He was usually a storm god, sometimes an emperor, and once, a farmer. He spoke of the heavenly realm he ruled over, his temple in the jade mountains, and his escape from King Yama’s eighteen levels of hell. I asked if he’d ever held a princess captive, or if he’d ever been slain by a knight— he chuckled. Then Kyle said that they don’t bow anymore in China, they shake hands, and the dragon let out a roaring laugh that almost shook us off his body.
The dragon didn’t like that our Mandarin was weak, or that we lived in Connecticut. He told us that we were turtles living in a pond, and that we ought to return to the sea one day, which I didn’t understand. I started to question this dragon’s legitimacy– he didn’t seem like the kind to produce floods or wars. Was he really a storm god? He scolded us like a parent, slapping at our sides with his whiskers and urging us to read more ancient poems.
Before long, the sun disappeared behind the mountain peaks and the sky settled into darkness. This vast night could be filled with a thousand more stories, but the dragon had nothing left to say. I paled– If he brought us back down to land, I knew I’d begin searching for my grandfather to pick me up in his arms and welcome me home. I much preferred to continue coasting over the cities and under the stars than admit to myself that I had nothing to search for.
Kyle whined, exhausted and homesick. I was homesick too in a way, but it was the kind that couldn’t be cured, so I asked the dragon to take us back. He exhaled, the breath from his nostrils twinkling into the night air, and began to descend.
After we landed, the dragon said that he was returning to the sea. He thought he had smelled it, when he first approached our home, but there was only a pond here. The sea he was searching for was somewhere else.
Against my better judgment I asked the dragon, if he ever found the sea he was looking for, if he could come to me in my dreams and let me know if he’d seen my grandfather. My laoye, he likes to smoke. It’s so strong, you could find him through scent alone.
Lastly, I warned him of the oncoming summer thunderstorms. He told me not to disrespect him–the storms were his creations, from the rain, to the lightning, to the clouds, to the grandchildren who danced under them– and this time, he proved it. A radiant light shot out of his mouth, filling the sky with storm and showering us with rain. As the first crack of thunder broke through the night, the dragon cloaked himself under the heavy downpour and left, scaling towards the half-full moon.
I’ll pray to you, I said to the thunderstorm as Kyle spun around in the rain. And when my Chinese gets better, I’ll pray to you in Chinese.
I caught the dragon’s scent briefly in the drizzling gust of wind he left in his departure– it was no longer the smell of burnt paper and incense, but rather of fresh lychee and cigarettes.
Lu Xu is an undergraduate student pursuing a degree in Child Studies and Fine Arts. They love sharing a good meal with friends and daydreaming about fictional worlds. Weaving magic and love into their stories is usually their number one priority when it comes to writing.