A Dance with the Dragon

The frothing mouths of breaking waves roar in my face as I stand on the edge of the mole, leaning against the wind. The water has turned from dark cobalt to copper, like the soil on the Istra Peninsula. Feeding itself to the ocean in muddy chunks, the earth rolls sluggishly from the campground into the sea. Far up on the horizon, flashes of heat lightning crack the sky.

Only hours ago, I played mermaids in the same bay with a swarm of kids shouting in three different languages. We climbed up on the mole that separates the kids’ bay from the open ocean. Small children play in the shallow, sandy area on the one side of the mole, while teenagers and adults swim, fish, and snorkle on the other side. I can easily swim well enough to play in the open ocean with the teens. That afternoon, when we pushed each other off the mole into the water, I let my head submerge beneath the waves; the world felt so still and quiet, the water calm and friendly, silky on my skin.

Now, my feet stand on the edge of a pit full of hissing sea serpents, their spiked backs rising and falling, and I’m mesmerized.

“You might wanna get down from the mole, girl,” calls a voice from behind me - I turn and see that an older couple has stopped next to me. The woman is wearing a transparent cape over a teased perm and a long grey beach robe. The man is sporting a worn-down jogger with hairy feet in Jesus slippers; an anxious terrier is shivering by his feet. I glower at them.

“You know, those waves are supposed to get up to three meters high,” says the woman, raising a hand above her head to indicate the height. “They might knock you right down into the ocean!”

Whatever you say, fashion queen. “Alright, I’ll be careful!” I force a smile. They stand and stare for a little longer, the woman scrutinizing me with shrewd, narrow eyes. Finally, the little terrier tugs them along, and they shuffle away.

Thunder roars above; the breaker waves, like dragon heads, reach up to the sky, biting the bellies of the clouds.

I don’t want to leave. I could go back to the tent, but I don’t feel like listening to Dad yelling at Mum - let alone at me. He’d probably bring up that disastrous game again. He had been a star player in his day, so why couldn’t I get a simple layup right?

“I just don’t understand - we practiced this - two steps, jump, flick the ball - like this,” and he’d demonstrate exactly how it was done, hopping up in the air and tossing an invisible ball. “You really embarrassed yourself on the field that day,” he’d go on, “you embarrassed us.” He’d taken me off the team that very evening, and I was never to play basketball again. It suited me; I had never once enjoyed any kind of ball game. I liked to swim; especially in the ocean.

No; I don’t want to leave. I want to watch this strange play of dragons and sea serpents that dwell in the depths of the sea. In fact, I want to be a part of it: I want to swim now.

A single step separates me from the crashing waves. Just a step over the edge of the mole… the waves lick my feet, gripping my ankles… Come, play with us!, they say. And I want to - I want to play, just like we played mermaids before, when I wiggled through the water with my ankles crossed like a fin, squealing with joy.

“You’re not thinking about swimming, are you?” I turn around. A shirtless middle-aged man with a fishing rod over his shoulder and a water bucket with a skittish school of fish is approaching me as he’s crossing the mole from one side of the beach to the other.

I press my lips together tightly: there are tourists from all over Europe here, and chances are he’ll assume that I’m from a different country, speak a different language, and that I just can’t understand him.

“You jump in there, you die,” he says, and makes a slashing motion across his throat with the hand that’s balancing the fishing rod.

I glower at him; he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He doesn’t know I’m a brilliant swimmer. I learned it all from Dad. I remember six summers ago, he took me on a swim along the shore, where five wooden platforms float in the ocean, each about a soccer field’s length away from the next one. My parents don’t usually like to go out there because “those platforms are always covered in snogging teenagers, feral kids, and leathery sunbathers.” But that day, Dad and I swam from platform to platform, with ten-minute breaks in between; he would ask me if I wanted to keep going, and each time I said yes. Later, I heard him say to Mum that I was a damn good swimmer for a six-year-old kid, and though I knew he’d never say that to my face, it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Now what would he say if he could see me? I can picture his face turning that unhealthy shade of red, the veins creeping into the whites of his eyes, screaming something like: “Get down here, damn it!” But eventually… as he’d see me standing here, staring at the waves, his expression would go from rage to fear. He’d realize there was nothing he could do to stop me. Would he come and save me? Would it be too late?

I look down at my feet where waves like slobbery dragon tongues wrap themselves around my ankles. Come play with us. I want to play… I stare down into the surf and suddenly, the foam takes on the shape of a dragon’s snout, emerging from spray and grinning at me. The creature rises with the wave and presents its back, ridged with scales of foam, ready for me to ride it… Come play with us…

I jump.

For a moment, I’m immersed in the warm, velvet waters of the Adriatic coast I love so dearly; I let myself sink beneath the turmoil of the surface, where it’s quiet and still. My toes hit rough sand, and I push off.

A claw grips me and throws me against the concrete of the mole. I gasp and paddle, but the dragons toss me around like a ball, left and right, up and down, my arms flailing uselessly.

I try to reach for the mole’s edge and climb back up; I sink my nails into the side of the concrete, but they break off as another wave throws me sideways, and I yelp in pain. I can’t get out.

I can’t get out!

Icy panic seeps into my system. I must focus. I’ve got to get to the shore! But as I look over to the edge of the rocky beach, I freeze and sink further below the surface: there are no smooth inlets on this side of the shore, only fortresses of sharp rock with sharp spires poking up from the water, - on a good day, we’d climb between them, catch crabs, little fish, maybe find a sea urchin - but today, all I see is a hissing white foam, the frothing dragon bearing its teeth at me.

I know there’s one spot - where a pipe goes into the ocean. It’s covered in concrete, and sometimes people use it to walk into the water instead of climbing over rocks. If I can reach it… But it’s far on the other side of the beach, and I’ll have to swim against the tide… my arms and legs tire at the thought of the distance.

The dragon bullies maintain their grip around my middle and shake me, trying to push me back into the mole. I gasp and sputter as they shove a gush of brine down my throat; the water is pressing on me from inside my lungs, I cough and spit, but I can’t get it all out - I breathe in, but the air can’t flow, it’s blocked by what I know to be water, but it feels as though a brick has lodged itself in my chest. With shallow gasps, I paddle my hands like a dog, exhaustion creeping into my muscles. I think about Mum and Dad fighting, back at the tent. Soon they’ll wonder where I am if I don’t come back - I see them panic, shouting my name, running down to the shore - the expression of horror on my father’s face as he sees me floating face down, slumped over the back of a dragon I thought I could ride…

And so I swim - I swim like I’ve never swum before. I swing my left arm up, cup my palm, and push the water back. I tilt my head to the right and breathe through the hollow my right arm carves into the wave, long enough to gasp for air. I kick my legs and feet at the dragon snouts that lash at my feet, trying to wrap their tongues around my ankles to pull me under. In the distance, the thunder rumbles louder. The heat lightning flashes on the horizon, carving grotesque faces in the sky. Swim. My arms and legs are numb, but I keep pushing, ignoring the pain, the fear.

There - I can see it; the inlet in between the rocks, where the pipe enters the ocean - I’m almost there; it’s seamed by those fortresses of rock with sharp spires - I turn my head just in time to see a giant dragon approaching, so massive it’s blocking out the sky. I am lifted and hurled into the rocks; the pain is instant and sharp. The spires slice into my arms and legs. I push myself up with bleeding palms when a second wave comes in and tosses me right back into the sharp stone. There’s no way but forward: on bleeding knees, clawing what’s left of my nails into the rock, I crawl towards the shore, kicked and pushed by wave after wave.

“Do you need help?” I look up; it’s the couple with the terrier, on their way back from their walk.

I try to speak, but all I do is sputter brine. The man and dog stand and stare at me; the woman hurries over and reaches out an arm. I clasp her hand, and with a wide step and last push from a wave in my back, I make it to shore.

“You’re bleeding all over!” the woman squeals.

I’m on my knees, staring up at the darkening sky. The lightning cuts into my vision like knives and illuminates the ocean, where rearing water dragons curse me for having escaped. I made it out. They can’t get me anymore.

“You need to clean those cuts,” says the woman. She’s taken off her rain cape and her perm has turned frizzy. “I’d take you to urgent care, but it’s already 7 o’clock…”

“7 o’clock?” I stare at her, horror-struck. “I’m late for dinner!”

I push myself up and wheel around, stop mid-step, whirl back, shout: “Thank you!”, then turn and run home to our tent as fast as I can.

“What on earth have you done?” My father is raging, his eyes bulging dangerously. His massive form fills the entrance of the tent, blocking the view of Mum and the dinner that’s waiting on the table.

“Did you go swimming?” he screams, “Are you insane?”

I cower, the familiar cramp of fear clenches up my insides; my hands are shaking, my knees are about to cave in, and the brine I’ve swallowed is burning its way back up my asophagus - but none of it matters. I relish in every flash of fear coursing through my body. I stare right back into my father’s red eyes. I’m not afraid of dragons anymore.