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Dragon Daze By Jenny Schwartz
Jude Bell was an artist and part time drug tester, although sometimes he thought it would be more honest to call himself a guinea pig who painted. The Sunshine Drug Company employed Jude on a contract basis to test developmental drugs in their Mood Boost range. Mood Boosters were based on the illegal drugs of the Sixties’ happy days. The trick, as Sunshine’s chemists acknowledged, was to eliminate the self-destructive elements of the chemicals while retaining their consciousness altering ability. The trip wire was a fine one. On this late Spring day, Jude woke at seven oh one to the beep-ah-di-beep of his alarm clock. He opened bloodshot eyes and watched in disillusionment as the alarm clock shuffled enthusiastically to its own song. He sighed in the weary manner of a man who has seen it all, and stretched a long arm for the notebook and pencil which lay beside his bed. “Third day, inanimate objects continue to assume cartoon appearance. Mobility of said objects, increased.” The alarm clock emitted a final shrill call and flourishingly doffed a bell. Jude showered, shaved and brushed his teeth with a tooth brush which wriggled like a serpent, a forked tongue flickering from its bristles. The toaster spat a square of bread into the air, and Jude caught it before vivid blue wings could finish sprouting. The butter knife shimmered into existence as a miniature chainsaw and Jude could have sworn it vibrated throatily in his hand. “Curses and maledictions,” Jude yawned hugely. Still barefoot, he padded upstairs to the studio, keeping his eyes shut since yesterday the staircase had writhed into a jungle ladder of twisted vines. Even with his eyes closed, Jude could sense the brightness of the studio; the clear morning light streaming in the South facing bank of windows. He stubbed his toe on an uneven floorboard and his eyes flew open. Jude winced as the half finished painting on the easel stirred into life. The effect of the drugs was getting stronger. On the edge of Jude’s vision, his painting rag scuttled for the skirting board like a mouse wearing a cape. Cautiously, Jude felt his way to the large and lumpy sofa which occupied the North wall. The dragon he had painted yesterday poked a spiked and greeny bronze nose from the canvas. Its nostrils flared with a hint of pink in their depths. The head extended further and flame yellow eyes focussed on Jude. With a serpentine wriggle, the creature escaped the canvas and dropped to the floor. “Now,” said Jude to himself. “Would be a good time to close your eyes.” But his eyes weren’t cooperating. The dragon grew on its emergence from the canvas. It stood about the height of a Labrador and wobbled uncertainly on its stubby legs. Its thin, sharp tail lashed with the thoughtful malevolence of a house cat contemplating a mouse. Since his eyes weren’t cooperating, Jude covered them with his hands, hiding in the manner of a frightened three year old. Then true horror struck. Jude heard the scratch and slither of the dragon’s approach. “No,” Jude whispered, his hands dropping away. “I don’t hear things, only see them.” The dragon belched a tiny sulphur cloud. The smell was the final straw for Jude. He bolted from the sofa and down the stairs. In his room, Jude fumbled through the notebook for the Sunshine Drug Company’s emergency number. He dialled quickly, trying to ignore the way the phone buttons pulsed under his fingers. He stood in the kitchen, the phone cord stretched to its limit, watching the writhing jungle staircase for any sign of the dragon’s pursuit. “Cedric,” Jude shouted down the line. A precise voice answered him, faintly shaded with reproof. “I am not deaf, Jude.” “There’s a dragon in my studio.” “Yes, you did say you were having these visions ….” “Visions, hell. I heard it and smelled it, too, and I bloody didn’t wait around to feel it. You should see the teeth I painted on that monster.” “Stay calm,” but Cedric sounded mildly interested. “Are you sure you smelled it?” “Sulphur,” Jude said distinctly, then the phone dropped with a clatter and the line went dead. In his tidy office at Happy Meadows, Cedric Goodfellow thoughtfully replaced his phone. His was a precise nature, not one to act precipitately. Still Jude Bell was an old friend, a school friend. Cedric donned his sober brown jacket and straightened his school tie. He stopped at his secretary’s desk. “I shall be out for a short while.” Manuel flapped an agreeable hand, nose still buried in a gossip magazine. Cedric sighed faintly and went on, out the door. Cedric’s Volvo was ten years old and impeccably maintained. It took Cedric fifty three minutes, obeying every road rule, to reach Jude’s house. The front door stood open. Cedric wiped his feet, knocked on the door frame and entered. “Jude. Are you home? Where are you?” Cedric shut the front door and its deadbolt locked automatically. The house stood silent, listening. Cedric explored each room methodically and replaced the telephone receiver which dangled on its cord in the kitchen. Lastly, Cedric climbed the stairs to Jude’s studio. His mouth tightened as he surveyed the bronze green dragon on the half finished canvas. “Where the hell are you, Jude?” Cedric wasn’t an imaginative man, but a shiver traced its way down his spine. Unbidden, the theories of Carl Jung rose in his mind, particularly the speculation that dragons were the evocation of an ancient human fear that the oldest sections of the brain – the limbic system and reptilian brain, or brainstem – would submerge the neocortex; that fragile overlay of the brain which makes us human. The front door clicked open and Cedric stood listening to the steady steps which ascended the stairs. “Jude,” but Cedric hesitated in his expression of relief. This wasn’t the easy going, almost feckless Jude he knew. This man stood straight, occupying all the space and more of his physical body, and his face was tight with tension which thinned his lips and drew his light brown brows into an uncompromising frown. Jude crossed to a tall, battered cupboard and brought out a bottle of turpentine and a dry rag. He soaked the rag and smeared it across the painted dragon, blurring its sharp colours into nothingness. “Who else is testing this drug?” Jude didn’t look up from his controlled destruction. “Only two others,” Cedric blinked and swallowed, unsure why he felt a need to minimise, almost to plead, his actions. “Are they artists?” Jude cast aside the rag and recapped the bottle of turpentine. He moved to the sink and began washing his hands. The reek of turpentine hung on the air and mingled with the scent of sandalwood soap. “No.” “Have you checked with them recently?” For the first time Jude looked directly at Cedric, and Cedric stepped back. “An artist practices capturing the intangible, giving substance to the dreams of human existence. Without that practice, without that refuge of patterns of seeking and expression, the drugs would have burnt away my consciousness. I’d have lost the reality of who I am.” Jude turned away to dry his hands. His dismissal of Cedric and all his works could not have been clearer. Cedric retreated down the stairs, stumbling on a missed step as he took out his mobile to phone Manuel for the addresses of the other two testers. He would find them too late. A man and a woman, the electrical life of their neocortices fried, existing in a constant state of flight or fight response, their brains and bodies burnt out. Jude stood at the studio window and watched Cedric drive away. Honest Cedric, cocooned by a lack of imagination. Jude rested his forehead against the cool window glass. Then he straightened, and barely concentrating, called his sketchbook and pencil to him. The drugs had burnt away some of the old pathways of Jude’s neocortex, but determination and dreams had forged others. New pathways with new powers. Jude wouldn’t be telling Cedric. The price the drugs exacted was too high. Under Jude’s practiced hand, a dragon appeared on the virgin page. A dragon unlike any before: It flew free.
About the Author Jenny Schwartz has a MBA which is useless since she decided she'd rather write fiction than fictionalise accounts. She has an equally useless kelpie cross dog and an even more useless pile of unpublished novels. |