His Career as a Dragon
By Reggie Kwok
Deviance stormed into his room with a poster-sized thank-you card signed by his co-workers at his business internship. He flopped on his bed and ripped the card into confetti. His co-workers wished him good luck but never understood his true passion for music. He shoveled the card pieces into the silver flute-patterned pillowcase.
Musical images and instruments filled his room. The bed frame was a queen-sized rainbow-colored clarinet in the shape of a box that he won at a carnival raffle. Posters on the ceiling had diagrams of flutes, saxophones, and bassoons. On the wall, he had painted saxophones, which had faded over time. His bookshelves and toy box could not contain all his clarinets: red ones, blue ones, long, short, thick, and thin. One day, the whole world would listen to his music.
His father, Sullen, barged into the room carrying a trash bag. He always wore a white dress shirt with black pants, black dress shoes, and a black tie. If he could, he would change his last name to Money.
Sullen asked, “Did they offer you a job?”
“No.”
“What are your plans?”
His father didn’t understand his desire to become a musician.
“Well, say something.”
If Deviance confessed his intention, Sullen wouldn’t approve of it and would kick him out onto the snowy streets.
He laughed. “I guess you don’t have a job.”
Deviance would like to practice his clarinet, but not with his father around.
Sullen tossed the trash bag on the bed. “The clarinets have to go. You are a seventeen-year-old man, not a ten-year-old child.”
Deviance refused to respond to his father’s demand. Perhaps if he closed his eyes, he could shoo his father away. He imagined tackling his father and dragging him out his room, but he never had the guts.
“Father,” said Deviance, “I want to be a musician.”
Sullen responded, “A musician is not a paying career!”
Deviance looked away.
“We’ll apply for jobs online. If you refuse, I’ll kick you out.” Sullen left the room and slammed the door shut.
Deviance pulled the blanket over his head and cried himself to sleep.
Every time Deviance the dragon played his happy tune, brown scaly hands held his white leopard-spotted clarinet while his tail banged on his belly like a drum. During his dreams, he would march to a happy tune up Sky Hill. With his father’s demands in mind, his clarinet hummed Chopin’s Funeral March while his belly swayed from side to side. His scaly feet and talons dragged against the dirt.
From above the trees, Rachel, the Dragon of Dreams, swept down and landed in front of Deviance, four paws creating a tremor when she landed. Her indigo scales shone within the darkness, and her eyes sparkled like the stars on a clear night. Her head brushed against the branches until she bowed.
Deviance dropped his clarinet. Rachel came forward and wrapped her butterfly wings around him, and he cried into them.
“Fellow dragon,” she said, “what’s wrong?”
He responded, “My father won’t let me become a musician.”
“All humans, including parents, need musicians to produce music for human dreams.”
“Even though my father won’t let me, I’ll become a successful musician. I’ll create my own path.”
“Tonight is the night that you can leave for Sky Hill.”
Deviance the dragon picked up his white leopard-spotted clarinet and darted into the woods.
Deviance rolled out of bed and onto the floor. He changed into heavy clothing for a wintry hike.
Going to Sky Hill would put him on the right path.
The digital clock indicated two. A sock covered the numbers past the colon. He didn’t turn on the light. The click and the light under his door might attract the attention of his father.
When Deviance brushed his hand on the pillow, he felt a bump. The same leopard-spotted clarinet from his dream appeared under his pillow. He would be sure to keep this a secret from his father.
Tiptoeing his way around the bedroom, he grabbed his backpack, put the leopard-spotted clarinet inside it, and opened the creaking door. Sullen’s bedroom was close enough for his father to hear the noise, yet Sullen continued to snore. Deviance crept toward the kitchen counter. He stuffed a few cans of soup, a can opener, and six bottles of water into his backpack.
Some of his steps thumped inside the stairwell. Deviance unlocked the exterior door and then heaved it open. He lunged through the snow. With every crunch, the frigid wind whistled a note for Deviance. With no fence blocking the way, he darted into the woods.
Far away, a light shone upon the snow.
With the snowfall, Deviance shivered at the bottom of Sky Hill. His backpack contained a flashlight underneath the random junk he had forgotten to clean out. He took it out and flicked the switch.
His dreams sang of the days where Rachel and he traveled the wilds through the darkness without a human ever spotting them. They would dive into the nearest caves where the bats slept. After a hearty vegetable soup, they would dig deep underground, where they would play their music until the sun rose. They would travel through the entirety of the Appalachian Mountains to enchant every hiker with music and blurred colors. Those who believed would hear Deviance’s and Rachel’s clarinets.
Deviance wobbled and snatched a tree branch to catch himself. He breathed a fog into the sky, and he groaned and fell.
Another light flashed in the distance. Sullen was calling his name. He crawled behind the tree, his coat brushing against the snow. Only movement could keep him warm. His arms trembled. The snowfall came down faster.
The light grew dimmer. Deviance turned his flashlight off. Climbing to an upright position, he looked toward the highest peak. Up was the only way to go. The snowfall blurred his vision.
Every step of his hike on the ice felt like he was marching in place. Traveling in the snow provided some form of traction to climb up the hill.
A clarinet played from afar. He approached the sound. This clarinet played music like the ones in his dreams. If Deviance followed the music, he could find Rachel.
To start his marching song, he stuck his white leopard-spotted clarinet in his mouth. The clarinet in the distance mimicked his clarinet playing.
Deviance gave one final long note; his foot searched for the ground. He fell toward a sea filled with trees and reached for two stars below him. However, the stars weren’t stars. They blinked as Deviance soared through the sky. Deviance reached for the flying stars, and a scaly paw bumped Deviance toward a silver mane covering the scales. He embraced the hair’s warmth until they landed.
Deviance rubbed her fuzzy mane to appreciate his savior. Her butterfly wings, indigo scales, and star-like eyes remained true. He stepped out of the mane, a warm sauna, to hug her feral legs and slender tail, a pillow he could sleep on for a very long time. She bumped her head against a branch, which caused some snow to fall on top of her neck and hair.
“Deviance,” said Rachel, “we have a lot to do in little time.”
He hugged her. “I knew the entire time. I’m cold.”
“Deviance, you have a long process of transformation ahead. It might hurt, but in the end, it will be all worth it.”
Deviance hugged her leg and tugged at it. “Let’s get out of here before--”
The sound of metal banging on metal rang. Rachel and Deviance turned to the source of the sound. Then, another flashlight turned on. With a pistol pointed to the sky, Sullen approached them.
Sullen’s pistol pointed toward the ground and cracked. “Son, there will come a day where I will die, and you will have to pay the bills.”
Rachel said, “Sullen, I told you this would happen.”
“Honey, I didn’t want it to come to this. You’ve been poisoning my son’s mind,” said Sullen.
Deviance stepped between the two. “Could somebody please explain what is happening?”
Rachel breathed visible sparkles. “Before you were born, we were married.”
The last word from Rachel’s mouth echoed in his mind. He’d never seen pictures or relics of their marriage. Sullen never mentioned Rachel at all. His father said that he burned all the photos of his previous wife. He sold his ring to a pawnshop. Deviance could not find records of the wedding on Sullen’s computer. Sullen had lied to Deviance.
Was he a dragon or a man? His spirit resided with his mother while his physical presence resided with his father. That would mean he was half dragon, half man.
“But now we’re separated,” said Sullen. “I told you to stop infecting my son with your dreams. You made him do this.”
“That’s because he’s a dragon.”
Sullen pointed at Deviance. “That boy is clearly not a dragon.”
Rachel’s claw swiped within inches of Sullen’s face. “You infected my son with your dim reality. Your so-called ‘job’ is what made him look like that.”
“Well, that’s what humans do!” He stomped the ground. “We have to earn money. That’s something you could never do.”
When Rachel’s claw poked the pistol, Sullen pointed his gun at her face and fired. In response, she swung her paw and roared. They both recoiled. Sullen limped and sat next to a tree. One dragon tooth the size of a claw lay on the ground. A bullet hole was in the tooth.
The wind howled in Deviance’s ears.
Using his flashlight to light the way, Deviance picked up the dragon’s tooth. His father’s mouth bled and left a visible puddle. With the light shining in his eyes, Sullen blinked. Unarmed and immobile, he had no way to defend himself.
“I’m not sorry.” Deviance said. “I’m not.” Deviance and Sullen hugged.
His mother used her front right leg to separate them. Her paw scooped Deviance gripping onto her leg, and she flew.
During the flight, Deviance climbed to her neck. He tried to wring out his snow-covered clothing with heat from Rachel’s mane, but the moisture remained. Rachel turned her head toward Deviance for a moment, but with the high winds, they couldn’t speak.
Despite the warmth from her mane, the cold winds still brushed Deviance’s back. He couldn’t recline on her back midflight as the winds lashed against him. The lack of a grip could cause him to fall to his death. Her wings kept him at the middle of her back, for they touched each other like a butterfly’s flight.
She turned and hovered over her destination, a cave. Within the darkness, Rachel landed and marched forward. They entered the cave with a stalactite falling next to Rachel. She paused for a moment and pressed forward.
Out of his father’s promises, one touched Deviance’s mind, the idea of working hard for an opportunity to go to college. His father insisted on applying to all of the business schools, but Deviance liked the idea of changing majors. Behind his father’s back, he often would research the different types of classes offered for the music major.
“Rachel,” he said, “I’m not ready to return home.”
“You don’t have to,” she replied. “This cave is your new home. We left your father alone, but we could have made a different choice.”
“That is not what I meant. I want to go to college.”
“What is the meaning of this?” She turned her head toward him. “College is man’s way to subjugate its own into a working society. It’s a false promise riddled with lies and leads to careers that kill any sort of interaction between human and dragon.”
“Colleges have degrees in music.”
“College-aged students often choose to abandon their dragons, and I don’t want you to leave me like Sullen did.”
She paused at the cave’s entrance. With her belly lying against the floor, her paws covered her eyes, tears leaving a visible puddle.
“Every Friday,” said Rachel, “Sullen and I would roast birds in a campfire. We’d eat them at this very cave entrance. I’d share my dreams, and he’d share his stories. I loved his humor. But one day, his stories were all about jobs and his eight internships as a secretary. One day, he told me, ‘With hard work, I will become successful.’ He changed after that.”
The wind whistled into the cave. The snowfall increased to the point where it was covering them. With every inch, they shivered in unison. Moistened by the snow, her mane was no longer a source of warmth.
Deviance inched his way off her back, the snow coating the cave floor. Her starry eyes shone in the darkness. They both stared at the leopard-spotted clarinet.
He shivered. “I was holding onto this. I’d love to use this to create dreams that last a lifetime for all kinds of beings, but this clarinet could become a different instrument, like a flute or a guitar. Imagine the looks on their faces when they listen to a variety of music. That’s what I want to do, but I can’t do that without college. I cannot even pay for it.”
“Jobs ground you in reality, and if you ever were to get a job, you wouldn’t be able to spend time with your dreams. Colleges are filled with jobs.”
“I won’t get a job. I’ll focus on my studies. I’ll go on the streets and beg for an education.”
She turned away. “Please, wait. Only full-blooded dragons or fully transformed dragons may pass into the entrance. The others would punish me for bringing a human into dragon grounds.”
She walked into the depths of the cave, and he waited.
The inches of snow turned into a foot, and the sunrise turned into morning.
With the new light, he could examine the cave more closely. A light grew larger until he knew that she was approaching.
By holding the handles in three teeth, she carried a teapot and two teacups. Some white rope around her left front leg kept a large brown bag on her back. Two round lanterns hung from two iron rods on her back. Upon closer inspection, the iron rods attached to a belt that she was wearing.
She bowed her head to give him access to the pot and cups. He took the teacups and the teapot by the handles. The teapot thawed the cold in his hands. He placed the tea items on top of a rock with a smooth surface.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “The caves below are very confusing, and I spilt my tea three times on myself.”
He pointed at her back. “What’s in the bag?”
She smiled. “You’ll need this for your journey.”
She nuzzled and loosened the rope about her leg, and the bag dropped toward her paw. He took the bag and thought he was lifting weights for a moment. Upon opening the bag, he discovered nine bars of pure gold.
He asked, “Is this for the dragon transformation?”
“No, silly!” She nuzzled his cheek. “It’s for college and for you to start a new adventure. Don’t you humans sell gold for money?”
Deviance pulled out one gold bar and rubbed it. “Where did you get this?”
“I inherited this gold from my parents. I didn’t feel safe with revealing it to Sullen, who was focused on getting me a job. Full-blooded dragons don’t have human jobs. It doesn’t make sense.”
He hugged her neck, his arms unable to wrap around most of it. “I can go to college?”
“You have to promise me two things: to focus on music and to come back to visit every two weeks. We can sit here and enjoy nature and tea together. How does that sound?”
He poured tea. “I promise.”
For the rest of the day, they watched the snowfall and enjoyed warm tea.
Reggie Kwok dreams of dragons in his sleep when he is not summoning their powers for writing. He holds a B.A. in English and a master’s in education. He currently lives in Massachusetts, USA. His Twitter is @KwokReggie. His Bluesky is @reggiekwok.bsky.social. He had short stories published at Samjoko Magazine, Underland Arcana, Scrawl Place, and one forthcoming at Zooscape.
"A musician is not a paying career", huh? Some of them would disagree...