NOVEL WEB Chapter 7: Mine
I just want to find some kind of stability.
Second to being a dragon, it’s been my top priority since I became an adult. Possibly longer, if I admit some things about my childhood.
But now I’m wondering again if I can even consider myself an adult anymore. I feel like I’m going through a second adolescence with all this learning I’m doing getting used to a new body. And as I don’t know what the lifespan of dragons can be, I don’t know what constitutes maturity for a dragon. Am I going to live only another five to ten years, or is it going to be centuries, or what?
But if I’m going to spend every day of my life stressed out that another dragon is going to enter my turf, I’m not sure I want even a year of it. And if humanity is ultimately going to object to our presence, it’ll be even worse.
It’s so bizarre, though.
I’ve always known I wasn’t human. I’ve known I was a dragon since I was nine. And, if you’d ever asked me if I was treated as human before, I would have said, “no.” I was never treated the same as anyone else, and rarely considered for anything. I was so isolated because of it, too. And I’d joke that it was because people could tell I was really a dragon.
And I know there are other people who’ve experienced that who aren’t necessarily dragons. I almost found myself identifying as autistic after reading some #actuallyautistic blogs, but I could never really make it fully click for me.
But, here, on my fifth day of being out as a dragon, the fifth day post metamorphosis, I’m being treated more like a fellow human being by the people I know than I have ever been.
It’s as if now that everything about me fits right, they can make sense of me and relax in my presence. And some of them want to be friends.
And now that I have that, I want more of it, and I don’t want to lose it.
But, then Kim gets really big eyes and asks in haunted tones, “What if another dragon tries to walk into the shop while you’re here?”
I hang my head.
I really don’t want to answer that question. But I’m also pretty sure she’s already come to the correct conclusion, and that’s why she’s asking it in the first place. If my apartment gets destroyed in a surprise challenge from another dragon, and I can’t help myself to shout at another dragon who’s flying across the damn bay, a mile or so away, what is going to happen if another dragon walks into the cafe while I’m here?
I say, “I drink outside.” And then I start to stand up and move around the table to head to the door, leaving Rhoda’s phone and my drink on the table.
If someone wants to bring the dregs of my drink out for me, I won’t complain, but I was mostly done with it. I think I mostly want water right now, and I can get that from my apartment sink.
“Hold up,” Kimberly says, then asks, “Are we really worried about that?”
I glance at her over my shoulder with my left eye, and then tilt my head toward the door, before proceeding to it.
I hook my left claw around the handle, and then push the thumb latch down with my nose, and pull it open.
“Meg!” Rhoda calls after me.
I want to tell them all it’s OK, but I already tried to do that a couple different ways. One with a different set of words and one with gestures. I’m determined, not glum. I’m going to do the right thing for them, and I’ll guard this place in plain sight.
That way, if another dragon challenges me, I can make them take it to the street or even further away from people.
And I’m happy with that decision, I just probably don’t look like it.
I hear Rhoda say, “You all got a really big bowl for water?”
Ah, why is she always thinking of me like that? Especially after transfixing her with the two police officers last night.
I really need to think of a way to repay her.
I don’t know how I could.
There are three round black metal grate tables outside the shop along the south set of windows. They each have two chairs on either side of them. So, I go to the nearest one and grab one of the chairs with my mouth and drag it over to the next table, taking the time to position it nicely for whoever decides to sit there. Then I go back to the spot where the chair was and settle down on my haunches.
And then I notice that it’s Chapman standing on the corner of the street, watching me do this!
I was expecting hir much later today! Sie works, and sie should be at work.
But, when we make eye contact sie rushes over to my table and pauses at the chair, gesturing at it and raising hir eyebrows.
Their presence and mannerisms excite me so much!
I’m a Tumblr user. I know what a monster fucker is. I sort of used to think I was one, though it never really made sense to identify with the term when I also knew that I was a monster. My jury is still out on Chapman, though. We haven’t talked about it, and I know sie’s an autistic with a strong special interest. Sie’s in love with the idea of dragons, and I know how that feels. Though, my own interest was fueled by the euphoria of self recognition.
But the emotions and the thought prompt me to visualize having sex with hir, and I find myself repulsed.
OK. So, either I’m not sexually attracted to humans or I’m not sexually attracted to Chapman, and what I’m feeling is the limerence of a new friendship with someone really cool. Or.
Maybe it’s just not mating season.
I decide to ignore that last thought and just gesture at the chair with my nose and then look at Chapman again.
Sie sits and leans forward, “I was hoping you would be here. I brought something for you!”
Then sie rummages in hir purse, which is cylindrical and decorated to look like a hot rod wheel, complete with chrome hubcap. Today, sie’s wearing a faux tuxedo print T-shirt and a hot pink floofy skirt with fishnets and Doc Martens. Sie dresses like sie’s in hir early twenties, if sie were straight and cis, but I learned yesterday that sie’s in hir mid 40s. And sie has a decent job at one of the last local print shops, working prepress.
“Here!” sie exclaims, and pulls out a ratty oblong booklet that’s bound with a single O-ring rivet in the corner.
It says “Coated Pantone Color Matching Chart” on it, and it’s pretty thick.
Chapman lays it on the table and spreads it out as widely as possible, focusing on the first third of the booklet.
“I want to know if you can see the same colors you used to!” sie grins. “We know you can see more, because you can see thermals. That’s infrared, and I don’t have access to anything scientific for testing for that, only, like, a space heater or something. But, this should give us a good idea of what your human visual range is like.” Sie taps the spread of swatches and says, “If any two of the colors look the same to you, it means you’ve lost some range! Oh. Unless you were colorblind before. Huh.”
I briefly turn my head to the side to indicate I don’t think I was colorblind, and assume sie understands that. Then I give the swatches a good long look.
And at first I think I haven’t lost any colors at all. Almost all of the swatches I currently see are very different from each other.
But I do notice that two of them toward the center of the book are more close to each other than I think they should be. They’re greens. I tap them with my claw.
“Really,” Chapman says, and then spreads the center third of the booklet out for me.
It almost all green. And almost all the same color of green. I wish I could describe this to Chapman, but all I can do is gesture with my claw across the whole spectrum.
“Those are all the same?” sie asks.
I tilt my head up.
“Where’s your tablet,” sie asks.
I look up in the direction of my apartment, which is a view that is occluded by the presence of a big red painted iron awning. Still, Chapman had to have seen the destruction and caution signs from across the street while approaching the building.
“Oh, shit,” sie says.
I bob my head once.
“OK, now how about this third?” sie asks, and spreads out the rest of the booklet.
There’s more green there than I expect, and those greens are very similar, but the rest are very easily discernible. So, I point at the greens.
“Fascinating!” Chapman leans in and looks closely. “I wish I could see what you’re seeing! So, are these colors really easy for your to tell apart?” Sie gestures at the sets of blues and glowing indigos near the end of the book.
I tilt my head up sharply and add a cat smile.
“Oh! Oh,” sie scoots hir chair in a bit in excitement and then flaps hir hands, grinning. “Have you looked at any flowers lately?”
I tilt my head sideways.
“Ultraviolet,” sie says. “Flowers have a whole bunch of markings that are only visible in the ultraviolet range, and a lot of insects and some birds, I think, can see them. I think you’re missing your green cones, and I’m wondering if you’ve got both infrared and ultraviolet to compensate. Or, you’re missing your greens because you have those. I’m not sure I’m getting the biology right, but you know what I mean.”
I, myself, know just enough about biology that I’m aware that humans don’t have green receptors in their eyes, either. But I can’t tell Chapman that. But I also totally get what sie is saying. Maybe the cones in my eyes are spread out on a wider spectrum of color, at the expense of losing some detail in the middle range.
I look around to see if there are any flowers anywhere.
And I remember there’s a flower box right in front of the shop’s sign, behind Chapman and out of my site. So I hold up a claw and then get up and amble over there to take a good look at them.
I never really paid attention to flowers before, so I don’t really know what any given flower is supposed to look like to human eyes. I’m not familiar with them. But I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen any of them glow indigo in broad daylight before. These ones have stripes and patches that do.
Now that I think about it, I look around at the rest of the world.
There are actually quite a few things that have this sheen to them. Details here and there. A person walks by in bicycle shorts that are solid ultraviolet to my eyes, almost white with the color. And it isn’t like the world is suddenly all like this now.
This is what I’ve been seeing for the past four and a half days, but I just wasn’t paying it any mind.
It’s so weird! Why didn’t I notice this right away?
Chapman watches my head twitch this way and that as I look at different things in wonder.
“The whole world look different now?” sie asks. “You didn’t notice this before?”
I look at them then bob my head three times. It feels so good to do that, I bob it a couple more times.
“Really,” sie says. Sie seems to think about that for a moment, and then gets a delighted look on hir face. “It’s like the Colorblind Painter in An Anthropologist on Mars! By Oliver Sacks! This guy suddenly went completely colorblind and didn’t notice! He ran a red light because of it. But he was a painter, and he had to relearn how to paint, too. What happened was that part of his brain stopped working the way it used to, and even though his eyes kept picking up the same wavelengths they always did, his brain stopped interpreting them as color. But he didn’t notice at first! That’s the thing. It took him talking to Oliver Sacks about it to come to the realization that everything was in grayscale now. I think the same kind of thing is happening to you.”
I tilt my head and then bob it again.
I feel like that makes so much sense, and fits into just about everything else I’m experiencing. I’m also wondering if it explains something about why most people are reacting the way they are to us dragons.
Which. OK, with the head bobbing thing. I know that people see it as like nodding, though it looks pretty different. But, to me it’s a stim. It feels like a reflex for some other purpose. But I know how humans see it. So, occasionally I’m starting to use it to mean “yes”, but I’m also using it to feel better when I’m nervous or startled. And I’ve done it a lot more than I’m making note of, too.
People are generally reacting very positively to me, but I think there is some miscommunication going on all the same.
I’m doing my best, and so far it seems to be working out OK.
Anyway, that’s just another example of how different my neurology is now. But also, when I think about it, it was kind of different before, too. Like, there were layers. Everything I’m doing now as a dragon just feels so natural, and I remember doing some of it when I was younger and not yet transformed. But, I didn’t see in dragon colors just a week ago. Not that I know of. I did have phantom limbs of my wings and tail, but I didn’t have those limbs nor the nerves going to them. And I did have at least some human reflexes and instincts. Or, at least, five decades of learned behavior to imitate them.
I huff, which I guess is my kind of sigh now, and start ambling back toward the table.
Which is when Rhoda finally comes out carrying a new drink for herself and juggling her cane and the door. Kimberly is right behind her with a huge metal bowl full of water.
“Oh, hey, Chapman!” Kimberly says.
“Hi,” Chapman says.
“May I join you two?” Rhoda asks.
In answer, I go to the chair I already moved, and move it back to our table, placing it on the side facing the window, back to the street, between Chapman and where I’ll sit. Then I reposition myself to my spot.
As Rhoda sits down, Kimberly delivers my water, and puts it on the table.
“I’m sorry I took so long,” Rhoda says. “I wanted to get a new drink and talk to the Kims about something.”
Kimberly puts a hand on my right wing-shoulder, which is the closest thing to a human-like shoulder I have, and says, “You’re our dragon. We’ve got your back, OK? When you need to move, we’ll get a party together to help you.”
I have to say, I’m bewildered by this. I was not expecting anyone to say anything like that to me.
Rhoda adds, “I’m going to go up to the campus library and see if there are any geological maps of the area. Maybe we can find a good cave or something for you, if you want that.”
Oh, I feel like that’s a big assumption on her part. I appreciate the sentiment, but… I don’t remember saying I wanted a cave, myself, even though the thought did occur to me. And, now that I’m thinking about it.
Now that I’m thinking about it, I really don’t want to move.
This coffee shop is mine.
And so is the building it’s in. It’s my mountain. And downtown is my hunting ground.
And my apartment is my cave.
And with Kimberly basically declaring fealty to me, I can’t leave.
I look around at everyone and even glance into the cafe at the other customers.
These are my humans.
