The DragonChicken

As I've always feared, a woman was backing me into a corner. Toss. Turn. Whimper in the agony of paralyzing fear, and pathetically hope for the best. The air is heavy with that familiar aroma of sex, but I am sure it is just a trap. "Run for your life," that dependable animal voice bellows from inside my quaking skull. There is no where to go, so I have to settle for restless sleep. I wake occasionally to check that she hadn't run to the kitchen for a knife, and then double check that it isn't hovering above my ribs, ready to dig like a backhoe.

At one of these brief bouts with consciousness, I recognize the siren call of space - a bit of breathing room. She had backed off for a moment, likely to stretch her legs and prepare my demise. What sweet call for domestication would she use as a ploy for my evisceration? First a dog, then likely seven children, my testicles, youth, and dignity. Or maybe she'd ask for a run to Bed Bath & Beyond. I don't know if we'll have time for Home Depot. I'll have time for my own personal hell, that's for sure.

I settle back into wary sleep.

I'm walking through the woods above Boulder. My sanctuary for so long, these trails are familiar in their piney beauty. Huge stone faces, brown and red, loom above and offer me refuge if the need arises. Then, as I round a switchback on my way to those boulders below the Third Flatiron, a mountain lion appears. She's with her cub, and I immediately recognize the danger. Cougars are rough stuff. I know. My roommate's dating one. But if there's one rule, and after all, there's really only one Golden Rule Number One, it's that you don't startle a puma in the company of her junior genes. Shite.

Here she comes, pissed off, all claws and fangs. Thank God I'm wearing my hockey gloves. How'd those get there? Who cares, man! Start swinging. Batman style onomatopoeia. Boom! Bam! Scraaaaw! And she slinks away. Too close for comfort, PattyP. A man's gotta be aware when he roams them hills. Check for damage, and only minor scrapes appear. I flirt with my consciousness again, and then fully embrace it.

Awake now. She's back. That need to move about, away from my prostrate body, must have been extinguished. Now she's gone so far as to throw a leg over my kidneys. Must be where she's aiming with that knife of hers. Christ. Back up, slither. Squirm out from her thigh, and then it's only one slender calf holding me back. Only that, until the cold chill of drywall against my bare ass. Nowhere left to run. And here she comes, sensing me pinned. Again, I drift away.

Now I'm in Old Mother England; the Dark Ages and little hope for prosperity. Peasants by the thousands crowd the dingy town square. Stone buildings, all squat and shoddy, hem us into the tight public space. What the hell are all these people doing here? I see! It's a public execution, and I'm here in my best woolen cloak to bear witness. It's me and all of the other serfs. I slide between the stinking bodies of my neighbors, intent on settling my view upon the stage and the unlucky bastard destined for death.

Oh. My. God. Where the hell did they catch that thing? And I can't believe they are going to try to take its life in full public view. Half proud rooster, half ferocious dragon, the beast is hooded and chained. Thank god it's chained. If that were to get free, we'd all be eaten alive, torn limb from limb.

It snarls, a serpent tongue darting from beneath the black sheet covering the demon's eyes. A razor beak tears at the cloth, and I can feel it searching for me. Just me.

"You!" the executioner exclaims and points me out in the throng. I immediately recognize my fate. I've got another fight on my hands, and have to TCOB. Take care of business. That line comes from my old high school friend, Will Gorman. He was caught by the cafeteria staff in Keystone, a ski resort in Scum-mit County, CO, trying to stuff an entire quarter of a pizza into his face while in the checkout line, presumably so that he wouldn't have to pay for it. When asked what the hell he was doing, he calmly replied "Takin' care of business." The staff made him pay for the pizza, anyway. Now it's my turn to pay.

So I saunter up the creaky wooden stairs, a few thousand eyes searing my back. Face to face with the heaving beast, I look towards the same executioner who'd called me up to the stage. I nod my readiness, and he releases the chains. I put up my fists, ready to fight. Those same golden gloved fists, surrounded in hockey padding and still swollen from my bout with the mountain cat, are again called upon for battle. The hood comes off, the full might of the DragonChicken stares into my soul.

I can't fight that fucking thing! Look at it! I'll be killed!

Quickly, I realize that the only available tool is intimidation. My fists, cinder and stone as they might be, have no chance against such a prehistoric man-eater. I growl. Mind you, this is no normal growl, but everything I've got. I take any desire to live and extrude that hope out through my throat in the deepest, most animalistic intimidation I can summon.

"GRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWLLL!"

And then I awake. Again. Though this time, I'm face to face not with any DragonChicken, but a fair lady who's now staring back at me. Our noses touch, and the last note of my battle cry fades into the midnight. She blinks.
"What the hell?"

I ask her in the morning if she remembers. Ummm, yeah. She does. She assures me that one doesn't forget being awoken by a rabid bedmate, gurgling for space and screaming his "defense against the last great monster."

Maybe I should go back to see my therapist.