recycling and dragonghast

2022-12-28

I put out the recycling bin and the big recycling truck came a-rolling down the alley, picking up the bins and emptying them into the truck, feeding it like a hungry hungry hippo.

I walked out to meet them and we got to talking, and I started helping them scoop up some recycling that had spilled onto the ground into a special bin shaped like a four-pointed star. I was tossing bottles and cans in one side so that they slid down into the downward facing point of the star-shaped bin. When I looked up, the woman on the other side of the starbin was all flustered, holding her hands up near her face and batting away bottles that shot around the downpoint and splashed up on her side and into her face. I stopped what I was doing because I was embarrassed, and one of the other truck drivers muttered, “That’s why I really don’t like it when they try to help. They mean well but they don’t know what they’re doing.”

Then a huge dragonghast came undulating through the sky. Perfect excuse to exit this awkward situation, I thought to myself, and hurried to where it looked like the it was going to touch down. It was multi-segmented dragonworm thing. Each segment a large gold cube with red glyphs scrawled along its sides and stubby little arms and legs sticking out from the sides and bottom. A wide face was painted across the front of the front cube.

The dragonghast landed in a sort of woodland garden with lots of bushes and trees and rocks for cover. Lucky for me. I got out a bow and arrow, and started attaching a small explosive to each arrow with some clay, and started sniping at the dragonghast from behind cover. I was successful for a while, and I was proud to be putting on a good show for the recyclers, who had set out lawn chairs on the driveway up on the hill to watch.

But then I got a little too close, and couldn’t hide quickly enough, and the dragonghast lunged around a tree trunk and found me, and bit down on my leg, and I felt each and every one of its sharp teeth vibrating in my flesh. I screamed for help and pried its jaws open, but there was no way to hold them open without the teeth also sinking into my hands, and I wasn’t strong enough to hold out for long. I looked up on the hill, and the recyclers had jumped up out of their chairs in alarm, but they couldn’t do anything to help me.