The dragon, incidentally, wasn't always a dragon. She was once a young and gorgeous woman named W., who lived with me in a cottage by the sea. But she quit smoking three days ago and has since metamorphosed into this reptilian, winged creature that flies through the house, slashing or crushing anything in her path. Even our cats don't recognize her anymore. Whenever the dragon enters the room, Simba, the male, hisses while Aunt Suzy, pussy that she is, runs into a corner and urinates on something important.

Here is how it all started: a couple of weeks ago we had something of a scare. At about midnight, W. was stricken with an excruciating chest pain. For almost 2 weeks she had been suffering flu-like symptoms without any improvement, so when the chest pains hit, I took her to the emergency room. It turned out she was suffering from pneumonia and pleurisy, which isn't bad compared to what might have been wrong with her. She is a smoker and we had some really bad thoughts. So later that night while lying in bed, it was decided that, come Hell or St. Helens, W. was going to quit smoking.

But now that the pneumonia has begun to clear, and the little nico-demons of withdrawal have begun strafing her insides, her story has changed a tad. Now W. is saying that she never really wanted to stop smoking, and she was only quitting to please me. She claims that I made her promise to quit under duress, and if I would just grant permission, she could have that cigarette she so desperately needs.

Now, anybody who knows W. knows that if she wants to do something, she's going to do it. Nobody's gonna tell her what to do, especially not no man. So I'm a bit surprised that she's waiting for my approval to smoke. But just because she is waiting for my approval, I'm certainly not going to grant it. Instead, I give her positive reinforcement, saying things like, "You can do it, baby-love", or, "I'm so proud of you, honey-booby, for which, of course, she has no use.

Wednesday: The first official day of her quitting coincided with the day I began working on this column. It was to be some stupid piece about some stupid something or other, but the dragon was in the other room yelling at things and breaking stuff, so I couldn't concentrate enough to get past the first sentence:

It was a storm and darky night.

Crash!

It was a dorm and starky night.

Smash-Bash!

It was a light and stormy park.

Blammo-Boom-riiiiiip-Slam!

Later that afternoon, the monster tried watching television. She flipped the dial incessantly, searching for a television program she could smoke. Alas, no such program existed.

"Get me a Marlboro and I won't murder you in your sleep!" she bellowed from the other room.

"Sorry, honey-cookie," I said. "No-can-doozy-woozy. But I am so very proud of you."

Thursday: I awoke that morning to find a dragon on top of me, her razory forelegs wrapped around my neck, her dripping, reptilian maw just inches from my face.

"Give me a cigarette now or I'll slit your throat and smoke your vocal chords," she hollered.

"I'm so proud of you sweetie," I responded.

In a rage, she flew off me, and out the bedroom door. Simba hissed and leaped out of the way. Aunt Suzy was not so lucky. The dragon raked her talons across poor Suzy's spine, leaving the thing twitching in a pool of blood on the floor. The dragon swooped into the kitchen, ripped the door off the refrigerator and rummaged for something she could smoke. I rushed in just in time to find her trying to light a string bean. When that failed, she turned to me, her scales upright, tail swinging, eyes a blazy red. "You're a dead man," she said. "I just wanted you to know that."

Friday: You just can't write well when there's a komodo on the commode. That's how I find her: standing on the toilet, flapping her wings and screeching like she's crapping a Tonka Truck. I run over with a baseball bat in my hand and tell her, "I'm so proud of you, honey-sugar-face," then swing the bat lovingly to the side of her head. I place her unconscious body on the sofa and gaze with affection. "Sleep well, my sweet homoeothermic salamander of love," I say and slink off to the other room to finish this column.

I made great progress until I knocked over the coffee cup and it shattered on the floor. I heard rustling then.

There is a dragon in my living room and the dragon is awake.

EJD
10/13/04