Have you ever felt like you were a tasty worm? I watch its yellow eye, expertly measuring the distance between us, sizing me up for its next meal. The way it turns its head, calculating. Quite a mathematician I think.
That only moving thing, its yellow eye. And I am thinking, my prospects at this moment appear rather slim. Still…
… From the viewpoint of view of Charlie The Maiden, things look rather different. Caught on camera too, the way a yellow eye blinks. Shutter speed, light adjustment, weight forward, finger on the button, poised, ready to snap. A Punctum. A Mark.
Peck.
Peck.
It all takes place among twenty snowy mountains, where dragons also lurk. After all how long do you think the history of violence is? The answer – well, how long have you got to listen to the answer (After walking, let us remember, talking is our second signifier)? A long time, I hope – And, while we are at it, why not ask the dragon if it is related to dinosaurs? – to tell the whole story.
But beware. When you talk with dragons, fissures open up in the ground. So I have heard at any rate. Gaps in the space of meaning – And we are not talking CBT and Non-Violent-Communication here because haven’t you heard the news, Dr Rosenberg, that dragons belch fire – It is rough, raw, and heated!
I begin talking to the dragon about the long, the very long, the very, very long history of violence, including this complicated story how Charlie The Maiden got to be here in this predicament in the first place; A leads to B, leads to C. And so on, and so on, and so on.
That is, if something else doesn’t emerge along the way – Do I get to speak now, asks Charlie The Maiden - Did you hear that. The angel of history just spoke. Something is emerging.
The fissure is opening. But before she can say another word, the clanking idiot on his horse has leapt the impossibly huge distance over the roaring river gorge, zeroed his weapon system on target, and speared the dragon in the throat.
Sorry, this is so wrong, she wants to say to the Colonels in their dark glasses checking their mission sortie clipboards under the column headed ‘Lice’. Why do you always have to take things so literally, she wants to say, but not a word comes out of her mouth.
The dragon looks surprisingly calm, despite the blood spurting everywhere from its neck. It is soaking Charlie’s lovely dress and filling her dainty shoes, and she is stood stock still. One of those moments always caught on camera, AS if to say, in the long and melancholic history of violence we know this is what always happens. This is what history records every time…
…There is however another possibility within this dire situation, which we may be able to uncover if we take a moment to examine the situation using our third signifier, writing. Uncovering a fissure in the natural history of the world, in which Charlie The Maiden does not succumb to a lifetime of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but instead, despite neither she nor the dragon being capable of speaking at this moment – in this situation of Petrified Unrest that is - they slowly turn their heads towards each other and begin to laugh. It is, needless to add, not an especially pretty sight, but I cannot take my eyes off them as I watch row upon row of stars also shining in the sky.