There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. In fact, the Valley wasn’t always a valley. Before the two Morganite moons joined as one, what is now known as Wind Tunnel Valley was a tepid, underwater lake, tucked in neatly under a thin layer of molten rock that stretched itself out to keep its secrets safe, black veins crumbling slightly and mixing with windfall to produce soil rich in minerals. Mermaids hid their burrow holes under clumps of duck grass, so they could pass undetected between land and water. They would emerge leafless from the bubbling bracken, sun their scales, and stretch before weaving themselves green play dresses out of moss and scampering around on the hot, blacktop. They had no idea they were atop a fire-bellied mountain. To them, kissing the sky was, well, quite natural, and not at all extraordinary. The thick air and the smell of sulfur in their tangled tresses felt solid. A reality that had stood the test of time. Arms out-reached, skin flecked with black and silver, they made sparkly silhouettes, as they spun arpund in the wind . . . ring-around-the-rosy-ashes-ashes, painting arches in the sky in much the same way they made whirls of bubbles under the depths. But standing above the molten crust of their crater lake allowed them to lavish in the feel of gravity on their heads, shoulders, and buttocks, challenging them to push their muscles harder in resistance. And when they snuffed themselves away through their grassy little secret trap doors on the surface and returned to buoyancy, they were that much more lightning-fast - danios, flashes of tungsten, silver, and green parting the water molecules and ionizing the mountain air. So, in the beginning, there was no valley. And there were no dragons. Just heat bubbling underwater in the sky . . . and gentle merfolk. Unless . . . . . . unless everything already is what it could dream of being at any given moment, waiting for the right urge to break the barrier . . . Would it disturb your sense of the world too terribly much if I made the audacious suggestion that these spirited merwomen were the predecessors of dragons? Bear with me here. . . . Now, - imagine the scales - simply displaced in a casual moment of liminal identity and reconfigured to serve a different purpose. Thousands of iridescent gems, just as easily spun into fins and tails wrapped tightly around muscular legs as they could be draped from sinewy arms to rebel against the wind. But as you know, magination always finds a way to the surface of everything. Perhaps one moonlit night of folly carried over into a particularly colorful and provocative sunrise. Perhaps, the pinks and oranges and indigoes rising from the mountain gave the suggestion of vastness. . . .and maybe a certain mermaid, drunken on sunrise, got to wondering. And quickly, . . . wondering became dreaming. Then, dreaming begat urgency . . . and urgency became rebellion against the confines of what is and isn’t - as It often does, among spirited creatures like you and I, so why not her? Perhaps this one very unremarkable mermaid shed her scales, stretched her arms, and suddenly felt her own enormity. Perhaps she saw the towering shadow and flicker of her arms pulsing against the wind in a pool of water. Maybe the glistening and a chance gust of wind set her heart afire and the iridescent scales reconfigured themselves as wings and rose to challenge the force of gravity within her. And would it disturb your sense of the world too terribly much if I told you with every iota of certainty contained within my small being that this urgent rebellion against the bounds of ‘what is” is the force behind all shape-shifting - land formations, evolution of species, and the very splitting of universes that give birth to life upon life and age upon age, permutation upon permutation, each with its own alchemy of urges? It’s not just mermaids that think themselves into becoming dragons and crater lakes who accommodate by transforming themselves into wind tunnel valleys. It’s everyone and everything all at once, the stuff legends and changing the face of reality. I know you don’t want to believe it. The responsibility of being so capable is a tremendous weight to bear. And that is why we have story collectors and tellers. Someone has to demystify it all for the fearful ones. This book contains the implements of your liberation. Scales to Scales (song). About the author:
Erin Myers was diagnosed with Autism at age 48. Erin supports neurodiverse learners and their allies through her organization, Pipe Dreams Youth and Families (www.itsnotapipedream.org). This will be her first publication from a massive body of work she has been utterly too shy to share.
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