3356 - The iron letters and the secret of the dragon

N. Lygeros
Translated from the Greek by Vicky Baklessi

Lucy woke up with the sun and didn’t notice the absence of the dragon. She felt him only when she needed him. She did the house chores to show that she was older, but nobody paid attention. So she returned to her room and found the iron letters. The dragon had left them for her so that she wouldn’t forget his history. She tried to lift them but they were very heavy. The dragon said that they had the weight of memory. She tried to read what they wrote but she couldn’t. They were strange, like the dragon. She then remembered him and called him.

– Dragon?
– Yes, my Lucy?
– Where were you?
– Right beside you.
– But I didn’t feel you.
– It’s because you didn’t need me…
– When we don’t need others, we don’t feel them?
– That’s what they say.
– Says who? The people?
– No, the others.
– And the letters, what do they say?
– The secret
– What secret?

The dragon didn’t answer. He took the iron letters and started writing. Lucy looked at the invisible moves and tried to understand his thought and listened to the work of silence. When the dragon finished, the wall of her room was filled with prints. They were the traces of history, the secret of the dragon.

– And how will I read them?
– With the fingers.
– With the fingers? How is this possible?
– The essence is invisible with the eyes.

Lucy put her hands on the wall. This way, she felt the caresses of the dragon. Tears watered her eyes with joy.

– Will you write more for me?
– When you have finished this.
– I don’t want for it to finish.
– Then I will write while you are reading, so that it never ends.
– Yes, do it like that.
– So I will.

This way Lucy was learning about the light of the black and the forgotten dialogues. Nobody else knew about their secret. Even when she had to turn off the light at night, Lucy could read the strange script. Everyday Lucy read more and more. She wanted to know about the forgotten ones. She wanted to know about the future ones. The one thousand years of the dragon had memorized the world of the people. And Lucy knew now that she wasn’t alone. In the past, there were other little ones within solitude. And there will be others in the future. Only that now there was the dragon too. She was looking at him again in the dark right when he was writing for her. She could see him now because she knew his secret. She touched his hand for the first time which was lifting the iron letters and started writing for the dragon of her life.