Theodore: A Children's Tale

There once was a dragon. He was the loneliest creature in the entire world. He couldn’t sleep at night because he was so lonely. He had huge bags under his dragon eyes. He was miserable. The one escape he should have had from loneliness - sleep - was evading him. What a shitty hand he had been dealt.

All these mother fuckers had gone and killed all the other dragons. But they hadn’t had the mercy to snuff him out. Or maybe it was god’s fault. Of course it was god’s fault. Everything was god’s fault. Those mother fuckers definitely wanted poor Theodore dead. They just weren’t thorough with their genocide. It wasn’t like those mother fuckers were so sadistic that they had left behind one dragon for all the mental anguish. god just hadn’t created dragon-killing mother fuckers to have very good brains, bunch of half-wits.

Theodore had to pass the time somehow, though. He was, after all, so painfully alive. Every breath he took hurt. Every morning he awoke, his soul died a little bit more - yet he stayed alive. It was unfortunate, but before his grandpappy had been speared through the eye, he had told young Theodore that a dragon must never hurt another living soul and he most certainly must never commit suicide. Grandpappy had actually made a rhyme: “a dragon is many things / along with the joy that being one brings / a dragon is majestic and the top living creature / as a result there are certain things one’s life must not feature / a dragon must never use his power to hurt another sentient being / he shall wince just thinking of such horrid things / and a dragon must always keep his head held high / he must hold onto his glory and his pride / most of all, though / a dragon must never commit suicide”. The rhyme had some good advice and some stupid shit. Firstly, it was rooted in patriarchy and, as a result, used the masculine for all dragons. Secondly, hurting others should really be a more important no-no than killing one’s self. Still, a dragon must do as a dragon is asked to do. That wasn’t a rule, but it seemed like a good saying to live by. With no one to turn to, all Theodore had left was that rhyme (which he refused to question for fear of losing his sense of dragoness).

Theodore was sitting around eating some grapes one day when he saw a man being run out of the town those mother fuckers had established – an exile. (Theodore probably could have died sooner if he had stopped eating, but that seemed like a form of suicide so he opted to keep eating the delicious grapes that all dragons loved so much.) This poor exile nearly shit his pants when he saw Theodore.

“I-I-I thought dragons were extinct!”

Theodore would have explained (it would have been rude not to), but he was a fucking dragon. He just gave the Exile a look and the Exile understood. And that is how their relationship went. Theodore gave the Exile a look and the Exile knew he was in no harm. The mother fuckers had spread propaganda for years about how dangerous dragons were and sometimes the Exile still caught himself thinking rather speciesist anti-dragon sentiments as a result, but he knew Theodore was not a threat.

One day, Theodore gave the Exile one of his looks and the Exile knew the dragon wanted to know why he had been exiled. The Exile thought; should he lie? Then he uttered the truth.

“I’m a serial killer.”

The dragon didn’t seem taken aback. He seemed like he was deep in thought. Maybe god wasn’t such a fuck-up after all. god had really blown it by inventing the mother fuckers in the first place, but he’d finally gotten one thing right. He’d sent Theodore the answer to all his prayers (well, his prayers that didn’t consist of “please kill me”). Still, god had sent the answer to Theodore’s other, less frequent prayers for revenge. The dragon code wouldn’t let Theodore do jack shit to the mother fuckers other than resent them and that didn’t seem to do anything to the mother fuckers. It didn’t even seem to hurt their self-esteem – possibly because they didn’t know Theodore was still alive, let alone thinking nasty thoughts about them.

Theodore immediately went to task gathering materials. After what seemed like hours of non-stop work while the Exile just sat there looking perplexed (and feeling bad about not helping), the dragon gave the Exile a look and he knew the dragon had gathered everything.

The dragon gave another look. “A trebuchet? Are you going to launch me over the stone walls and back into the kingdom? I could get seriously hurt!” shouted the Exile without saying a single word. He had finally picked up the dragon’s ability to express so much with simple looks.

Despite the Exile’s fear of heights, he knew it must be done. He too had sworn to his grandpappy to never commit suicide. (He thanked his lucky stars he had never promised to not be a serial killer to anyone because he really loved serial killing.) Both the dragon and the Exile wished for death, but had to wait for it to come. And both wished for revenge as they waited. The Exile felt the logistics of possibly dying by consenting to being launched into the air was questionable as far as not committing suicide, but he decided to take his chances and hoped his grandpappy wouldn’t be too mad at him.

Before dawn one morning, the Exile and Theodore rolled the trebuchet down the hill to the kingdom’s walls and got everything in place. They knew they only had one shot. The Exile nervously got in. Then Theodore cut the rope.

Theodore heard a rather painful-sounding thud on the other side of the wall. He was briefly worried, but then, as Theodore stood just outside the walls of the kingdom, he heard a blood-curdling scream. His work was done and the plan was working. He went back to his cave to eat grapes. After about three hours of eating grapes, he felt that something was wrong. The plan wasn’t going perfectly. He stuck his dragon head out of his cave and saw smoke. Then, almost instantly, a massive fire lit up the entire kingdom.

The Exile had set the place ablaze. The Exile knew he couldn’t pull off all the individual killings. He sacrificed himself to kill everyone in the kingdom. Yes, the Exile had sacrificed himself. He didn’t commit suicide, but did a favor for a friend. The Exile had sent himself to a fiery death for Theodore. What a thoughtful thing to do. And Theodore knew that someone had really cared about him. Theodore knew that, one day, he would do the same. He would sacrifice himself for somebody. With a belly full of delicious grapes and a mile-wide smile, Theodore slept like a baby that night.

“Theodore: A Children’s Tale” originally appeared in the Well-Adjusted Childhood zine.