Thelonious and the Dragon, part III

Thelonious Lamedvavnik drifted down the boulevard as a solemn drizzle began to fall. At length he reached the lamp lit walk and line of elm trees that girded the commons. The leaves began to shiver as the drizzle turned to rain and a churning mantle of vapor flooded the green. Quivering, he drew out his pocket watch. He had made his appointment on time and hoped that that would mean something in the final reckoning. His caller was also punctual. It came first by a great wind that drove the rain sidelong and upwards. The elms were stripped of their leaves, the grasses flattened, the mists dispersed. The massive worm lit upon the green with a stroke of thunder that rumpled the earth.

The Dragon’s lustrous, nictitating eyes found Thelonious’ meager shape; he swallowed and raised his tremulous voice as high as it would go “Are you, by chance, the serpent, Vespasian I?” The worm flattened the commons with a thunderous roar, and its scorching, rank breath washed over Thelonious and singed his hair. “You see, I was asking on behalf of a friend. He’s a historian and-” The dragon’s tail swept the green like a tidal wave, felling the trees and shattering the line of lamps. The calm of certain doom overcame Thelonious then, and he found in himself a degree of audacity, “Is this meeting regarding my work as a onomastographer?”

The serpent’s massive head reared up several stories, then snapped forward like a cobra. Poor Thelonious closed his eyes and leapt in fear! When he again opened them, he found himself rushing through the air, holding fast to one of the beast’s curving horns. A roar of unearthly volume and violence blared from the beast’s maw as it tried to shake him free. But Thelonious held fast! He lifted his face to the sky and addressed a plea to every name for God he knew. He had no idea that the Dragon’s raging had masked the sound of a terrific explosion several blocks away, or that an antique player piano was presently hurtling through the air toward them, trailing the limpid notes of ‘Daisy Bell’.

In fact, Thelonious and the Dragon were quite ill prepared when the player piano struck. The instrument smashed on both Thelonious and the skull of the beast with a queer resonance as one of its legs drove through the Dragon’s watery eye. Thelonious fell to the ground amongst a rain of debris. The lifeless head of the beast smote the green and the earth shivered. Thelonious returned to consciousness in the pattering rain and achingly rose from the mud. With excruciating effort he crossed the devastated commons to the boulevard and hailed a hansom cab. And yes, the taxi very nearly killed him.
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