8- Gredients

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Acid breath

has no practical purpose

for a hunting creature.

Hunting

supplies food for eating

and acid

corrodes

what you’d eat.

Fire breath, too,

might scorch your meal

just as easily

as cook it.

Therefore,

logically,

dragons hunt

with talons, teeth, tails

and they have breath-weapons

to defend themselves–

do you remember that lecture?

You scoffed at Dr. Mizto

and yelled

over the cackle-demons’ laughter,

“What’s a giant, scaly, winged thing got to defend itself against?

And why don’t I get fire breath

to defend my

tiny, squishy, slow body?”

Dr. Mizto answered that

they didn’t know much about squishy humans

but they did know

nights

hunted dragons–

and we both thought he said

knights

because yes,

we spoke English

in the school in Australia

since no spells

work in English–

we thought Dr. Mizto said

knights hunted dragons

like some European

medieval fantasy

and that sounded silly to us

but anyway

we’d already killed a knight

by then,

or,

a big military guy

in a helicopter

(more or less the modern equivalent),

and stolen his life force,

so we thought we were basically

stronger than a dragon,

but sometime after that

we learned about real nights

that hunt dragons–

did you ever meet a night,

Clarissa?

How did that go for you?

Did it steal your knowledge of me,

of English,

or were those already gone

by your own design?

You know, I haven’t spoken human tongues

with anyone

in ages,

that’s part of why I’m writing,

writing down things

both of us should remember

in our native language

just in case I forget

both.

Yesterday, or the day before,

I had to remind myself

we definitely spoke English in school

not any demon

or dragon tongue,

but I’m still not actually sure

if we definitely spoke English.

My only evidence now is that

no spells work in English

so I think everyone spoke it

regularly,

but what if I’m wrong?

What if we spoke something different?

And if I don’t remember that for sure,

what if I remember you all wrong too?

Clarissa, you have not met a night,

as far as I know–

but I met a night

or maybe it’s spelled different,

I don’t remember,

like

Nyte

or Nite

or Niht

or Nighte

Mnight

Nighbt

Nightt

but I met one.

I touched it.

And I think it sucked half my brain away.

And I needed

to write down

what it felt like

before finding the spell in my books

to restore my memory–

yes, I did remember how to light a match

to summon my books–

so I wrote

while teetering in a daze

and I won’t send you the hopes

that soared in that haze,

but basically

I wrote to ask how you’ve been

because I forget you didn’t exist,

I forgot you weren’t around

I thought

you might come tapping with your cane

around one of these blue-ish trees

and laugh at how silly I’d been

to touch a night,

then you’d help me

get my memories back

and help make up a spell

to remember if we spoke

English or not

in school

since there’s not a page in the books for that

cuz memory spells are hard like that,

you have to remember what got stolen

or what did the stealing and when

to bring it back

and I only possibly recall

this tongue that time might have taken–

but no

it wasn’t you

who helped me

recover from the night,

I have the proof here in the dirt

of my own book

flipped to the page

of memory spells,

and another match stub

is eroding in my pocket

to witness I did it myself,

but it was sort of beautiful, I guess,

to not recollect

where I was

or what I was doing–

but now I remember

how the night

floated above me

all

shadows

consuming the horizon

with stars

and moon eyes

and a mouth that crooned

lullabies

and I touched it

I don’t know why

I got goop on my fingers

now it’s smeared on my coat

and I fell down this feeling

where I needed to write

things I forgot

on the edge of my mind

and I can’t show you what I wrote

in that haze

but I’m keeping it for proof

that at least I didn’t forget

your name.