*Soda Can Dragon

Intro: I used to write stories about dragons all the time. Every story I wrote or read had to have dragons in it someway if I was going to enjoy it. While all of the novels I write now are science fiction and none of them even hint at dragons there is still a part of me that dreams of flying.

On Joanne’s fourteenth birthday she found an unopened can of lemonade, the traditional yellow kind. Pink lemonade was nothing but a mockery or lemons, Joanne thought. If you couldn’t find it in nature, it shouldn’t be digested. Pink lemons definitely did not appear on her family lemon tree in Arizona.

She knew she shouldn’t drink it. After all she found it lying forlornly against a chain-link fence partially hidden by a bush. There was no telling what devious person had made microscopic punctures and laced the lemonade with something disastrous like arsenic or bleach. She knew she shouldn’t have even picked it up, but there is was, in the side drink pocket of her backpack as she continued walking home from school.

Other kids complained about their parents. Joanne remained silent because she had no experience with cruel mothers or unjust fathers. Her parents were a happy couple and although they had little money to spare on frivolities, they were never wanting. Frivolities consisted of things like candy bars or soda pop. Joanne was happy with the freshly squeezed orange juice and warm chocolate chip cookies.

In her room she reverently set the can on her desk. She looked at it for a little while. She hadn’t noticed before but the writing on the can wasn’t in English and didn’t look like any brand she’d seen before and she knew her lemonades.

She gently rubbed the top again and sighed. As her finger brushed at the metal she caught site of the sell by date. It was today, giving her another excuse not to drink it. Rarely did she see any soda can so close to expiration.

To prevent as much temptation as possible, she set the can on her shelf, next to her other treasures. Instead of doing her homework, like she’d planned, she took down one of her favorite books and started reading. It was a retelling of a fairytale and she basically had the whole thing memorized. The end still filled her with butterflies.

The can fell off her bookshelf. It rolled slowly across the desk and fell to the carpet. Joanne stayed on her bed, her feet tucked under her and watched. The can cracked, the shiny metal edges flashing in the light. She covered her face but nothing squirted out. Instead there was a low chirping sound.

A polished silver dragon stretched out on the carpet and mewed. The can lay in pieces around it. Large light yellow eyes regarded her thoughtfully. Joanne moved closer to the edge of her bed, holding her breath. When her father came into the room, the can of lemonade sat in the middle of the floor looking innocent.

That night as she laid in bed her gaze kept drifting to the cylinder doing absolutely nothing on her shelf. Her eyes drifted closed and something mewed softly in her ear, with one hand she raised the blanket and felt a warm metal shape, like holding a tin mug of hot chocolate when camping, move under the covers and take up position behind her knees. She smiled to herself and dreamt of flying.

From that time on, the can never left her side. She carried in her backpack every day to school and more than once she had to stop someone from opening it. Once, when she was a junior, someone flipped the tab before she could stop them. Only the tab wouldn’t flip. It remained firmly in place as if welded to the can itself.

Every night and every waking moment she was alone, the little soda can dragon would come out of its can and watch her. Though the dragon never grew larger, it comforted Joanne to know it was always there and would rest on the back of her hand while she worked. It didn’t weigh much being made from aluminum made it light and glistening.

In college one of her roommates threw the can out. It took Joanne two hours to find it again. That night the dragon wrapped around her wrist and showed no sign of ever letting go. The idea that the dragon wanted to stay warmed her heart. She never saw the dragon eat but the cans in the recycling bin never added up to how many her roommates drank. It made her wonder what the dragon had done when she’d been living at home.

Her junior year of college she met a nice boy. They sat next to one another in an economics class and he’d asked for her number. When her phone rang two days later it was the dragon that nudged it her way. It watched her expectantly as she talked. From that point on, the dragon always brought her the phone at precisely eight fifty eight, in anticipation of the nightly phone calls.

A year and a half later they were married. She had packed the can in her suitcase out of habit but it wasn’t there when they arrived at their hotel. Her new husband could tell something was wrong but she pushed the worry away and turned her focus on him.

She moved into his place and as she was unpacking her last box, she found the soda can resting at the bottom. Even stroking its warm sides didn’t provoke an answer.

He looked over her shoulder, his eyes wide with shock. Joanne hastily picked the can up and tried to splutter an explanation about keeping it for the unique can. He only smiled and held out a can of pink lemonade. As she stared at the strange markings the can shifted and a long toothy snout poked briefly out of the top before disappearing.

With a grin, he placed his soda can on the mantle. Joanne tentatively left her can next to his and they walked out hand in hand. They risked a glance back and saw the two dragons, one with pink eyes and the other with yellow, curled up together.