Have you ever wondered what it is like to be constantly changing your outward appearance? To have started off perfect, to know there is nothing about you that needs to change, but then had a great many people twist and turn and play with your appearance whilst leaving the same basic shape thinking, hey, maybe I can mess this up or pull it apart and put it back together again the way it was, the way it used to be. To know that inside you are nothing more than an empty shell. Knowing that you cannot be put back the way you were before and that no one cares about your feelings, that all they see is a puzzle waiting to be cracked.
For your information, it is a devastating realization.
The account of how it happened to me is short. I was born. Now you may not realise it, but conveyor belts can actually be really comfortable. This may sound off topic but, as it happens, I was born on a conveyor belt. Its' surface was surprisingly soft. When I was taken to my first home I had my own little house, snug as a bug in a rug. After moving to my second home my little house was cut away and tossed into the bin as if it were trash and I was given a new home sitting on my stand atop the piano.
The first time someone changed my appearance felt like I was being torn apart; shredded into bits. When they stopped I still looked like me but it felt as if my very being had fallen out of alignment or my mind was cracked; if I could, I would have bawled my eyes out.
After the first time it steadily got worse, those who were changing my appearance gained confidence twisting me out of and then returning me to my original shape. But after a few weeks they seemed to have lost the ability to put me back in the semblance of my original form. I was left contorted in positions no being; living or not should be subjected to. It was only very occasionally that I was put back into my first perfect body; but even then I could feel the crushing violation of what they did to me.
As the weeks and years passed I had a lot of time to think. I was moved from above the piano to sitting on a bookshelf. I suddenly - for the first time in my life – had friends; and access to a swirling vortex of pure knowledge and imagination. I listened for hours to stories, poems and definitions. As I thought about these accounts: 'a dictator's guide to ruling the world', 'sabotage, deception and red wine', and of course every James Bond legend in existence; it occurred to me that I could try ruling the world.
I knew I had to start off small; I couldn't risk anyone finding out before I was sufficiently in control of a large area. So it started. I began taking control of the book shelf starting with the ABC an books along with the rest of the number and letter books. They were surprisingly easy to control; all I had to do was dust them off. It was then that I discovered my new power; I had decided to stop caring about how people changed my appearance, knowing I would rule them someday soon and discovered that their manipulation no longer hurt me. Armed with this knowledge I decided that I should learn how to move myself, by myself. So I did, but I did not just move, I hovered.
This was a brilliant new development however I decided to keep the knowledge to myself for now; it would not do to let others know the full extent of what I could do, not yet. After the number and letter books I decided to work on the dictionaries; they would be tricky to sway into my line of thinking, all those words inside them could really make them hard to understand.
They were always using different words meaning the same thing, like 'speak clearly, young one' or 'you really must enunciate, child, we cannot understand you' (this was slightly annoying, not to mention patronizing considering I was a year older than them). So I started asking them questions. I covered every topic from stars to stardust (which is really just like ordinary dust, only it comes from space). When the torrent of questions finally stopped I knew more than all of the dictionaries put together, and the dictionaries were astounded. I now had the loyalty of nearly half of the books on the book shelf.
By taking control of the letter books, the number books and all of the dictionaries I gained an implicit understanding of how they thought. After doing so I talked to the fact and fiction books. After having a chat with the psychology books I realized that if you know how someone thinks it is easier to take control of them, this lead to me having some deep and meaningful chats with lots of the books and other various items on the bookshelf.
Six weeks passed as I took control of the bookshelf, which I did not a moment too soon; because the place in which I lived was moved around and the books were distributed all over the place, within a day of the bookshelf coming completely under my control. Some went to the other end of the house, others to the middle and yet others were put into a box. I asked a young book if it knew what the box was for and it told me that the things in that box were to be sent to the second hand store.
Upon hearing the words 'second hand store' my curiosity was aroused, like a cat that hears a mouse. I quickly turned to the hand turned bowl next to me.
"What is a second hand store?"
"It is a place where a lot of objects are bought and sold. You know: Bowls, cups, plates, books and clothes; those sorts of things."
Opportunity had just come knocking on my door.
The moment I had the chance I called out to those in the box.
"I am sad to see you go and I shall miss you very much, but I shall not forget you. I ask that you do not forget me and that you tell others of me that should we ever meet we might be friends. I salute you brave heroes, for you go where I have not. You shall see that which I shall never see and so I salute you and wish you the strength and courage that you might never waver, never doubt yourself and that you will all, all find a place to call home." When I finished the entirety of those who could hear me cheered in agreement. The items in the box had tears in their eyes (if they had eyes) and promised that we really would always be friends.
With the seeds of perdition in place I turned my efforts to conquering the rest of the place in which I lived. I soon discovered that it was what is known as a house. Before the next time items were sent to the second hand store the house was firmly under my control. I decided that it was time for me to move on so when the chance came about I appointed a second in command and contrived to get into the box; however it did not quite work out that way.
It turns out that the human in charge of the house was an adviser to the Queen of England; and apparently the Queen of England likes puzzles. So suddenly, after I was somehow transmuted into gold and ivory, I was a present for the queen of England.
Let it never be said that I am not an opportunist. I was put in the queen's bedroom; each morning before all the servants came she would take a crack at solving me. I decided that something must be done to formulate a plan.
At night when the queen was asleep I would change how I looked slightly, she never noticed, but I was slowly making it harder for her to solve the puzzle that is me. Soon I started playing with her mind; cruel I know, but that's what you get when you become a dictator.
In the first week I only changed a square or so, just enough to make it harder for her. But slowly, I was wearing her down. I soon started whispering to her in her sleep; giving her ideas about things that could happen. I remembered how it had felt to have my appearance change; a mistake as it turns out, because as I was reminiscing I didn't notice the queen coming to have a crack at cracking my code. When she picked me up and started twisting I was caught completely off guard and as I was thinking about how it had hurt, it did.
But it was worse; when they first started changing my appearance I had been too young to express the pain in any vocal way, by the time I was old enough I had learned that must not, but it had been so long that it hurt twice as much as the most it had ever hurt and I lost all control, it was like all the pain I had not felt since I stopped caring came to join in the fun. I screamed so long and so loud that I shattered every piece of glass in the queen's chambers and little did I know all the glass in a 6 mile radius. I was not agony, I was not torture, I was indescribable and unequalled pain, pure, unadulterated, pain. In a whirling blur my body moved. Every change that had ever been wrought on me was undone as I moved so fast I was pretty much invisible.
To fully comprehend the enormity of what was happening; my mind constructed a scenario that was similar to what was taking place, providing commentary in my head.
"Have you ever seen someone building or built for yourself a construction of rubber bands that are all supporting one another to form something like a cube or maybe a miniature Eiffel Tower; it takes a lot of rubber bands. If even one of those bands snapped, it would lead to more snapping as each band was slowly pushed past the limits of its elastic endurance, then more and more, until finally the entire construct would give way and collapse into a pile of broken rubber strings."
Every change I had under gone was like a rubber band, each one snapping and snapping and snapping as I drew closer and closer and closer and closer to that first perfect form; then BANG! I reach it; the original perfection of my form. My body is still for one single second and then it seems to wink out of existence. I am nowhere and I am everywhere, the body I occupied had gone, vamoosed, and disappeared.
It does not hurt; on the contrary my consciousness is floating in a peaceful place, full of light that bubbles up around me. As I completely relaxed for the first time in my life, my aura begins to shine into the churning darkness that had become my soul. All the pain and fear and hurt I had ever felt, every scheme I had concocted and the guilt for trying to rule the world that I had not even known about resting on my shoulders had all combined to turn my soul into a lake of eerie, black liquid stillness.
But the light is building, wherever it casts its rays the darkness is vaporised; my soul is scoured clean and emptied of the blackness and the dark. A waterfall of light slowly starts trickling into the ragged depression of my soul. Where the light of gold and ice flows, a sense of serenity and healing soaks deep into the roots of my being; it flows until my soul is completely cleansed, then continues to flow until it is lapping at the edges of my existence.
I am completely composed of light, yet still it flows. The light breaks the boundaries of my form and explodes like a starburst filled with so many colours that it paints a picture of indescribable beauty. As the light flows out of my form I change into a creature of legend, a creature that has not been seen on earth for thousands of years, a dragon.
From the light of my soul emerges my new form. Delicate, yet super strong wings attached to a lithe, slim body, a gracefully arched neck supporting an elegant head, strong, muscular legs and a finely formed tail are revealed as my consciousness settles in to my new existence.
The light fades and I am left standing in what appears to be an alpine meadow. It would seem that I have the power to transport myself and others long distances, as in front of me are the Queen, her adviser and just about every other person who was in the palace, (a few had just left when it all went down). As they stare at me, the stuttering voice of the Queen's adviser rises into the air.
"I- it is a dragon. How can it be a dragon? It was a Rubik's cube, I-I swear it was just a cube!"
I hear an unfamiliar term in his words.
"What's a Rubik's cube?" Even as I speak the knowledge uncurls in the base of my brain. "Oh, don't answer that, and one more thing, I am not an, it. So stop calling me one. I am a dragon and I have a name, Dracora Solaris Amelia Menolare Nisoleah the Third. However I suppose that you can call me Leah."
Simultaneously, everyone except the Queen faints and does faceplant. The Queen just looks at me then whispers,
"You are so beautiful. I've never seen anything that is as beautiful as you are Leah." I look at her and then a shiver seems to run from the tip of my nose to the point of my tail. As it runs through my body, my scales gleam so that it looks as if a wave of light is passing along my form. The Queen gasps at the sight.
I look at her and then softly say.
"It is time for you to go. I'm sorry, but you won't remember me. However you may very well dream about me." Before I can send both her and everyone else back the Queen steps forward.
"I know I will not remember but, could you tell me how you became a dragon, I mean, how you turned from a Rubik's cube into a dragon?" Something about the way she looks at me when she asks this makes me decide to say yes.
"Alright. The truth is that I was a dragon to begin with, or rather a dragon egg, to be precise. When my mother laid my egg the place in which they lived was not safe. So she decided to hide my egg. My egg was laid in 1974. My mother cast a spell on it to hide me, she disguised my egg as a Rubik's cube, and she actually inspired Erno Rubik's to create the cube specifically so that she could hide me. Dragons have that power you know.
However she also took a great risk by doing this, dragons are sentient inside their eggs and they are able to slightly influence their surroundings, so when I was a cube I was able to do certain things like hover, but the only way to break the spell and allow me to hatch and take my true form was for me to experience incredibly powerful emotions. That is something that might never have happened. But it did, thanks to you.
When you picked me up this morning and twisted me certain things that I was thinking about combined and I was in agony, I was convinced that I was going to die, in the midst of my pain a thought came to me that I regreted never meeting my parents and it made me so very, very, sad, because you see other than changing my form my mother sealed away my memories of before I was a cube. My pain somehow amplified my sadness and made it so powerful that it broke the spell." She looks at me in wonder.
"That is a truly amazing tale. Please, call me Elizabeth."
"Thank you, Elizabeth, for helping me to regain my identity. I'm sorry, but it is time for you, and they to go." I say motioning towards the rest of the people from the palace, who are just starting to wake up. Elizabeth looks at me and smiles sadly.
"Goodbye, Dracora Solaris Amelia Menolare Nisoleah the Third. Goodbye and good luck in finding your parents." The Queen closes her eyes as I gently touch the tip of my nose to her forehead and the world whites out. When she opens her eyes she is in her bed in a room filled with shattered glass. With the events of the morning now far away and fleeting. A single sentence escapes her lips.
"Oh, but what a marvellous dream."
I look around with new eyes at my surroundings. The colours shine with new depths, different textures become landscapes; the surface of a leaf becomes a forest, the bark of a tree turns into a treacherous world of rising ridges and plunging crevasses. A wild elation fills my body and sets of a curious feeling in my stomach. I take in as deep a breath as I can then purse my lips, (which is harder than you would think when you are a dragon) and blow it out, imagining the feeling flowing with it. The result is spectacular.
As I blow towards the heavens a pillar of light that is pure white with that flickers with gold and blue races through the heavens. When it stops a feeling comes over me, prompting me to take to the skies. I leap out and over the edge of a cliff that falls away from the edge of the meadow in a sheer, precipitous drop and spread my wings. The feeling consolidates inside my chest and seems to pull me towards something. I let it lead me towards the mountains. When I reach the top of the highest peak in the mountain range I land, it feels as if I am tied to the ground, so I wait.
Days pass and yet still I wait. Weeks pass and yet still I wait. Then finally in the northern sky as the Aurora Borealis shines two specks appear racing towards me as fast as their wings can carry them. Before my mind can react my body is taking me into the sky and sending me cometing towards the specks. I roar and two roars that sing out in perfect harmony answer me, my parents.
When we reach each other we circle through the night sky under the stars, drifting slowly to the ground. We do not need words to communicate; instead a stream of feelings connects our three minds, expressing our thoughts more accurately than any words ever could. I walk forward and touch my nose to my parents noses, when I do something clicks inside me and I realise that I have never really felt at home anywhere, but now with my family, I finally feel as if I belong.
As one my parents and I rise into the air and combine our power to make what appears to be a portal. We fly through and it closes behind us. I survey the heavens and the feeling that can only be described as Home rushes through me when I realise that the sky is filled with dragons. I let it fill me up then roar my greeting and let my wings take me forward head first into my new life.
Roar.