Here be Dragons

I am the worst at thinking up names for things. The name of this blog is the name I hated the least. For the record, I think it's a stupid name. Moving on. I recently discovered the term 'Here be Dragons'. This would be a better name, though it is probably quite popular and already taken. It's a shame that hypothetical me that isn't terrible at naming things won't be able to use 'Here be Dragons'.

The term comes from cartography. Whenever a mapmaker got to an area that hadn't been charted yet, instead of taking the route that most high schoolers would and just make shit up, they drew a picture of a dragon and claimed 'that's where the dragons live'.

This practice originally started with the Roman's, where they would mark maps with the much less fantastic but somewhat plausible "This is where Elephants are born". Being the wonderfully frightened species we are, this deviated into lions, serpents, and other terrifying monsters such as walruses. "Walruses?" you say, with little faith. Yes, walruses. You should be scared of walruses.

They like to wear bow ties and eat Christians. 

Eventually, we wound up with maps that had all sorts of freaky monsters on the borders and dragons worked their way into becoming the standard. This says a lot about our species. I can imagine the cartographers discussing it:

"Do we know what's here?"

"Nope"

"Why not?"

"Probably because monsters killed everyone who ever tried. Why else wouldn't we have explored it?"

"Good call. Wanna go with cannibals or squids?"

"Ugh, squids are way too mainstream now. No one will take us seriously if we put squids on our map"

The vast majority of the world has been explored now and there's no more dragons left on our maps. It's a bit sad. Those dragons still do exist though - just in a smaller more personalized form. Your own personal dragon. Maybe your dragon is the same as in the old maps. A dragon protecting the unknown, keeping it hidden from you until you travel there. Sure, it's easy to say that somewhere like Bolivia exists. It's even possible to read up on it, to learn as many things about it as possible. You could be an expert on Bolivia but that dragon will still be on your map. Not until you've gone there will it ever go away.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got dragons to chase.

Where to start?

Squish

Every step is followed by the seeping squelch of socks forcing water between numb toes. They curl up but there’s no escape from the cold invasive water. That puddle has taken up permanent residence in front of my door. The pile of wet socks hidden in the corner of my room proves it. The rain dots my shoulders. It’s always raining. A drop rolls off my hair and lands on my lips. Hairgel. The umbrella is forgotten, as always. It was once part of a Halloween costume: The Penguin. Elidh had no idea what I was meant to be. We ditched the party and had Batman with our wine. Now it’s buried in the closet.

Turn left here. A secret path, wedged in between a sandstone apartment and a vacant lot proudly displaying a broken sign: Hillhead Boy’s School. What a different world that was. A school without any girls, just raucous boys running wild. It would have been less awkward. Girls were scary growing up. First it’s cooties and, later on, embarrassment.

It’s a miracle I can find her place time and time again. In Gibraltar it was raining too, a torrential downpour. The runway was one giant puddle and I ran, wetter than I’d ever been, running tired and sore from carrying the overfilled backpack everywhere, wanting to collapse and sleep right there but I’d choke on the water. Never want to choke again. The tunnel in the cove was too deep for me to swim but I was an immortal teenager and did it to show off, gasping and crying and so weak when I surfaced. I ran up and down Gibraltar before giving up on finding the hostel and hailing a cab. He laughed and pointed behind me. Stupid wet kid.

            The footbridge echoed with my footsteps. Nearly there now. I always stomped while crossing it, squeezing the water out of my shoes, and pretending to be the dinosaur in Jurassic Park. BOOM squish BOOM squish BOOM squish. It must be like muscle memory, how I can find Elidh’s flat without being able to give directions there, the same as guitar. Going slow and thinking about the individual notes in a song, makes my fingers freeze, rigid and useless. Does the bridge start by plucking the A string then G-A-B-G and then hammer on the second fret D? Not sure. Maybe it’s A-G-A-G-B and then the hammer?

I knock on the door.  The hammer is definitely on D because from then it’s just plucking around a C chord. I should be able to figure it out backwards from the hammer. Knock again. She likes to sleep late when it rains. It’s always raining. I let myself in.

Everything is missing. Burglars? Who has the time to steal couches?
Ridiculous. Even the silverware was gone and the acrid scent of bleach consumed everything.

Huddled around a space heater, our clothes hanging off to dry, she told me how she didn’t want to stop. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was on in the background. Except there, it’s called Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles.

            “Why not?”
            “It’s better. Moving like this.”

            “Maybe.”

I was dripping all over the flat. It fell to where the stain used to be. After using the bathroom, I snuck up on her with my best Penguin impersonation. Wine everywhere. Even the umbrella couldn’t keep me dry. That was the first time Elidh brought up leaving. I played with the phone in my pocket, tracing my finger along the butterfly sticker on the back - a purchase of temporary insanity while trapped at the airport. Outside the palm trees were bent nearly parallel to the ground, giving into the wind instead of fighting it. The sticker looks better on her face than it does on my phone. It seemed like our plane would never leave. I didn’t sleep that night, too stressed about the storm, every muscle tense and on alert. Elidh thought it was brilliant. One more day she said before going in search of wine, leaving me to watch our bags.

I wanted to call but deleted her number instead. She was gone and so was her phone. Where to though? Maybe I could find her, bump into her in some crowded market in Cairo, Lisbon, Buenos Aires, Shanghai. There are too many places and she’d always keep moving.

Nothing to do but to keep myself moving forward too. I always get out of the rain eventually. Across the hall the door read 262. I ran upstairs, still squishing, and banged on door 361. That little bone on the side of the wrist stung but I kept banging, wincing. She opened the door.

           “Let’s go”