Wouldn’t that be perfect?

What if, once upon a very long time ago – in a time when the world was less crowded and there were still enough wild, secret places, so long ago that only myths could remember - dragons existed?

Wouldn’t there be ancient-old maps bearing the legend – ‘here be dragons’ and wouldn’t people tell stories about magnificent and terrifying creatures that flew with fiery breath?

However, would everyone believe such maps and wouldn’t some of the people be frightened by such tales?

Are you?

But what if these creatures weren’t malicious or mean, just very, very clumsy with fire; and over-excitable, especially the young ones?

And what if people didn’t understand that; just saw the smoking destruction left behind and got fed up with them, especially the young ones, and started hunting them?

Wouldn’t the dragons fight back, protecting their own?

Wouldn’t you?

But what if the people got too clever and the dragons were forced to hide?

Up on a mountain?

Or down in a cave?

If you were a dragon, wouldn’t you hide?

And what if it got to the point where people were afraid to go up the mountains and the dragons were afraid to leave the caves? And the world was no longer un-crowded just full of no other places else left to go, full of scared people and scared dragons?

What would happen?

Wouldn’t there be a final deadly war of blood and fire?

But what if there were one person, wiser than wise, who cared? Wouldn’t they have stepped forward and said – “cease this slaughter”?

And what if there was also a dragon older than most, who cared too.

And what if they both had understanding and knowledge that most of us have long forgotten and only the myths remember?

Maybe the wiser than wise said; “the Earth is no longer large enough for us both”, and the older than old said; “then offer us the sky”.

And imagine the Earth still had enough magic in her to make it so, wouldn’t the Dragons have become clouds?

Wouldn’t we sometimes see them there?

And wouldn’t each fiery sunset be dragons, clumsy and over-excitable with fire?

Especially the young ones?

And wouldn’t that be perfect?



52 running
downhill, about midday


the what if stories

What if i do something else tomorrow?

Five days ago I wrote this. Do you ever get that feeling, when you are writing, that you want to do it differently? Change voice? Say something that you wouldn’t normally? Oh, golopo staddle flush. Gringpiddle wallyfoot, jikhol jimjumbo. Waggle waggle luff cidgeam! There - let spell check handle that!

And then, for four days, I did just that, tried a different voice and rewrote a series of stories I had original started donkey years ago as possible illustrated children’s books - one of which got sent to a few publishers for them to reject, not least because it had no illustrations. They are now the bitsnbobs What If Series.

What then? – a tale of giant and mountain.
What if it were jealous? – a tale of moon and star.
Would you wait for 5? – a tale of night and city.
Would we notice? – a tale of leaf and bird.
Wouldn't it be perfect? - a tale of dragons.

The critics were divided, some said; ‘it makes me feel that the other bits are writing and not real’ but others said; ‘your writing has gone to another plain (nb plane - see comments), a bit Douglas Adams and a bit Kafka'.

Hmmm….

What if I do something else tomorrow?

Would we notice?

What if, when birds grow old and flight becomes too hard they, they don’t die?

What if, instead, they choose a tree and settle there amongst the leaves?

Wouldn’t it be summer?

And what if it was and the birds were so old and so tired that flight was no longer necessary? Wouldn’t they just rest?

And what if that resting was such that they never moved again?

Mightn’t they become a leaf?

What if they did? Would we notice?

And what if those birds, those leaves started to change colour?

Would we look at the leaves, or at the colours? Would we see reds and gold, yellows and orange, or would we see leaves?

Wouldn’t it be autumn?

So, wouldn’t the leaves start to fall?

And though some would be carried on the wind for one last flight, wouldn’t most fall at the foot of the tree?

And wouldn’t the colours fade and wouldn’t the leaves merge into the soil and nourish the tree?

Wouldn’t it be winter?

And then, wouldn’t the snow maybe come and the ground turn hard and wouldn’t everything freeze, until there was nothing that remained of all this except the tree?

Waiting.

For what?

Wouldn’t it be spring?

And wouldn’t, suddenly, everything begin again – slowly at first then with haste?

And wouldn’t the tree issue forth new leaves?

And wouldn’t those leaves crowd and bustle, uncurl and open?

And mightn’t some of them become birds? Sing? And fly away?

Would we notice?

Or would we just find the empty nest?

Would you wait for 5?

What if you sat on a hillside overlooking a city?

And what if the city was full of skyscrapers and it was night?

And what if you decided to stay for half of that night watching the lights in those skyscrapers? Wouldn’t they slowly go out as people finished work and returned home to their dreams?

But what if you noticed that the lights weren’t going out, just changing?

And what if you stayed watching for half of the half of the night that remained?

And then realised that the changing was something more?

And what if you stayed for half of the half of the half of the night that remained?

Wouldn’t that be a quarter?

What if you stayed for half of that, and knew that the changing lights were a code? Wouldn’t you stay for half of the little time that remained? Wouldn’t you try to understand?

And mightn’t you discover that those skyscrapers were not just skyscrapers and the lights not just lights?

What if those lights were the launch code and the skyscrapers transporters?

What if you waited a little half of almost dawn to make sure?

And what if you noticed in one skyscraper ten lights, and then nine, and then eight? And then seven?

Would you wait for six? Would you go and tell someone?

Or would you wait for five?

And sit on the hillside watching the city?

What if it were jealous?

What if the moon had no light and couldn’t be seen, that it were there, but invisible?

What if the moon were like that, surrounded by stars that shone brightly?

Mightn’t it be jealous?

And, what if the moon was hungry and it swallowed a star? And, what if the star didn’t mind?

Wouldn’t the moon have a little light? Wouldn’t we notice it? Wouldn’t it look new?

And wouldn’t the moon feel proud that we noticed?

So what if the moon swallowed another star? And another? Wouldn’t it get brighter, bigger, fuller? Wouldn’t the stars all around disappear from view? Wouldn’t we only notice the fullness of the moon?

And what if the moon became greedy for star light and swallow one more? And one more?
And one more?
Until it was really full?

And then it swallowed one more?

Wouldn’t it burst?

Wouldn’t all the stars tumble forth in riotous disorder?

Maybe to fall to earth?

And wouldn’t the moon be dark and unseen? Wouldn’t the earth be dark and unseen?

And what if someone on the earth lit a fire to lighten that darkness and watched the flames leap into the night?

Wouldn’t there be sparks among the flames?

And wouldn’t we watch those sparks rise into the night sky?

Wouldn’t they look like tiny stars, just reborn?

And mightn’t they rise and mightn’t they grow as they rise, until they were bright and high?

And wouldn’t we marvel at them?

Maybe it’s like that?

But what if the moon were jealous?

What then?

What if, once upon a time, the world was flat - round but flat? No mountains, no hills, pancake flat?

What if, at that time, there were hundreds, thousands, of giant giants on the world and…

What if there was a violent and deadly battle that waged for hundreds, maybe thousands of years?

And what if, one by one those giant giants fell where they were cut, sometimes alone but sometimes in great numbers? Wouldn’t they look like hills? Mountains?

And what if with time, they turned to stone? Or were stone before they fell; giant stone giants fighting battle desperate until they fell?

If it were so wouldn’t the mountains sometimes look like giant giants; a head here, an arm there, a shoulder, a leg there?

Wouldn’t the trees and grass, shrubs and flowers that grow on the sides of those mountains be their skin? And the bare rock, wouldn’t that be their wounds that caused their fall?

What if it were so?

What if this happened so long ago that no one could remember, no tale told it so?

What if the trees and grass and shrubs and flowers were growing, covering, healing?

What if those giant stone giants were not dead but waiting, waiting for the trees and grass and shrubs and flowers to finish healing?

Wouldn’t one day the healing be complete?

Wouldn’t one day all the stone be covered with the trees and grass and shrubs and flowers?

What then if the mountains and the hills, the giant stone giants, were able to stand up once again, strong and ready again to battle?

What then?

Would we discover that WE had destroyed THEM, or that THEY had saved US?

That they were our enemies or our friends?