Belachew

Notes from The field:

BELACHEW the inconspicuous dragon comments on envy, jealousy driven by hate.

BIO:

Meet Belachew, a 120 feet tall, saccharine on the inside, scaly on the outside, chromatic dragon with a penchant for getting lost in the details. After all, details are all he has left, ever since he was driven out of his den, during the Egg Incident. Something he refuses to speak about, because … he just doesn’t want to speak about it. Since the aforementioned egg incident, he has ventured into the human world, hiding inconspicuously and taking note of what fascinates him. He has collected his observation into a document… Field Notes. (he will come up with a better nomenclature)

Entry 1: Envy

It has been 42 days since I got kicked out of my den, and to survive, I was hired as a fire station dispatcher in the human world. It was shockingly easy but, I never liked hunting and I’d rather not question my luck at the moment. Well, during my night shift, I overheard two of my co-workers, as they’ve just heard about who got this big promotion. It was their other friend. And I find myself quite perplexed by what I’ve overheard.

Let’s call them Thing 1 and thing 2… (I’m not creative with names and I’m a dispatch officer there so…)

Thing 1: Can you believe they promoted HIM?

Thing 2: Who?

Thing 1: Thing 3 (they obviously didn’t call him that, but I can’t name them, if I do, they’ll know who I am, and if they know who I am, it’s only a matter of time before MOTHER knows where I am and I’d rather not deal with her or her supposed wrath at the moment, so let’s call this friend THING 3.)

Thing 2: Oh, … kinda

Thing 1: He barely shows up to work

Thing 2: I’m sure they saw something!

Thing 1: What? His search history?

Thing 2: That happened like one time and if they looked at any of our histories.. you know what would happen…

Thing 1: Whatever… but you really think that was deserved?

Thing 2: I don’t know… yeah?

Thing 1: But… I keep correcting his emails.

Thing 2: so?

Thing 1: He is the new director of communications! How will he communicate, if he doesn’t know how to spell.

( I really wanted to interject and say… fair question but… they can’t see me. Anyway, it was a fair question, in Draco-byssinia you really need to know… pardon my Drenchenese (French dragon speak…), you really need to know your sh*t for you to lead anything. Or at least be the strongest and vilest… which is a skill in and of itself… easier to acquire but a skill nonetheless)

Thing 2: It doesn’t matter (it does matter)

Thing 1: He slept with someone up there

Thing 2: It’s a fire station… relax

At this point, Thing 3, showed up. Thing 1 further interrogated him on how he got the promotion. He didn’t get anything. Thing 1 wasn’t happy, he started name calling, even called Thing 3 a tailtickler (I cannot say the humanspeak version of this… it will immediately get me cancelled and I’d rather not do that.). Thing 3 tried to reason with him, even offered him to show him tips and tricks on how he mounted the career ladder (humans have such odd expressions) but he would have none of it. It was horrendous.

Thing 2, was lovely, calmed things down. Gave Thing 1 a pep talk (apparently this expression comes from the word pepper, which translates to spirit, but all pepper does is make you sneeze and suddenly you spit fire at a …where was I? Ah, pep talk), reassured him that the promotion was earned because of some powerpoint thing 3 designed for the “fire fighter con” and it was a hit with the fire-tech people. Thing 1 apologized and gave Thing 3 a hug. I wanted to join in but the minute I hinted at my presence, the only person to who have seen me went livid… but all was well that ends well. Or so I thought.

Later in that afternoon, Thing 2 visited the fire station chief and showed the chief how much THING 3 was um… tailtickling on company time. The station chief wasn’t shocked but was rather impressed at THING 3’s commitment to his… tailtickling craft and booted THING 2 out the door. That to me, was an unexpected turn of events. Even more perplexing was Thing 2’s attitude towards thing 3, he was brown nosing (we do have brown nosers in our world but the material used to brown our noses is very different and quite expensive) him the entire afternoon.

Us dragons, would’ve approach this very differently.

You hate someone, you fight them, one of you survives. That’s it. No rumination, no lingering feelings, nothing to get over. Then, we all go back to business as usual… which is sometimes more killing.

Is it better? I’m not sure but it does feel a lot simpler and more honest.

It did get me thinking… which is more honest? And is the more honest expression of this emotion, the better one? I’m not entirely sure.

The human world does have a plus. All clouds come with their silver linings. The confusion, the silence, the secrecy, all offer room for improvement. Maybe in the future, Thing 2, will start to work on himself instead of projecting his hatred? You can’t do that in dragon-world, there, the cycle of envy ends with absolute certainty. Death.

Note to self: Remember to put on dragon-voice modulator when speaking to humans, especially over the phone. Getting a job is a nightmare for a dragon in this economy, let alone one at the fire station.

Side note: I still don’t know why they hired me. They fight fires, I know how to spit fire. Were they thinking, “Hmmm, if he knows how to spit fires, he surely knows how to take them out, cheaply and effectively”?