I was woken that May morning by a helicopter-like noise. Nothing unusual I thought - the window to the flat was open and police helicopters searching for criminals were an everyday occurrence in Marsden. I turned over and tried to get back to sleep. But in so doing exposed my better hearing ear. This was no helicopter. The regular beating throb was in the room.
I opened my eyes and sat up. There, some four feet away and two feet from the ceiling was suspended a flapping winged dragon, in silvery green with a wingspan of some two feet and a body length of a foot or so and a coiled tail of indeterminate length.
"Jesus," I expostulated, and then thought,"well if this is the way I'm leaving life in my seventy seventh year at least it's novel, and so far painless."
"Ah, you're awake," said the dragon, although the red lipped mouth movements didn't synchronise with the words - they sounded in my mind. The voice was low but somehow felt female. I couldn't really place it.
"I presume I'm not dreaming, nor in my death throes, and you're real."
"All that is correct. I need to talk with you. I would first say that I mean you no harm."
The creature descended on to the bed and on my legs.
"Ow! That hurts - you're bloody heavy what the hell are you made of - uranium?"
The dragon lifted and flew to the bedside table which creaked ominously as it landed.
"Careful," I said," it's only a flat-pack from IKEA."
"Yes, your apparatus is remarkably fragile."
"If I may ask a question," I said,"how can you fly with your weight and those wings?"
"I do not fly - I translate my position. These," he unfurled his wings," are waste heat radiators. Now you will not understand our anatomy, or what our existence comprises much as we cannot understand the emotional turmoil you must experience with your extraordinary numbers, fecundity and minuscule lifespan. We are, what you might call, shape changers, you can change nothing significant although you tamper feebly with your environment. We are at opposite ends of a spectrum. The only thing we share is consciousness, although yours is formidably limited compared with ours."
"So," I said, "if we are so puny and insignificant and facile, why are you here? And making yourself apparent to one of these many backward individuals. Why me?"
"You have something we," for the first time the voice hesitated," I - lost. I have paid the price to my race for that carelessness. Now I have found it, I must look after it at a critical moment in its existence."
"Um," I said," but what has this to do with me?"
The dragon uncoiled its tail which was some two feet long and tapped its arrow liked tip on a wooden box on my bedside table.
"How long have you had this?" it asked.
"It's been in my family a long time. My grandfather made it. My father had it until he died some twenty years ago, and he left it to me then. So I guess it's about 140 years."
"A very short time then," the dragon murmured.
"Well I suppose so - how long do you live, then?"
"Thousands of your years. Your grandfather may have made the container but what's inside is ours. How did you obtain it?"
"I think my grandfather found it on Southport beach - or so my father said."
"Open the box," the dragon ordered.
I picked up the three inch cuboid box so cunningly crafted by my grandfather. It looked as though there was a lid, for there was a fine groove half an inch below the top. But you had to turn the box upside down and pull the small knobs that formed the feet on which it ordinarily stood, in a certain order to release the bottom of the box and expose the contents.
Cocooned in crimson velvet, now slightly faded with age, was a shiny silver sphere about the size of a golf ball. I tipped it into my hand, as ever surprised at its weight - much more than a steel ball, of that size.
"That's funny," I exclaimed, "it's warm. It was always heavy - like you - made of something heavy, but not warm. In fact usually it was chilly to the touch."
"I know," said the dragon, "you must give it to me." It then shouted in an appalling roar, "Now!"
Perhaps I was too slow because before I could reach out to the dragon with the heavy sphere it fractured into a thousand bright shards and from inside a small creature emerged and flew in dizzying spiral circuits emitting fizzing blue sparks, which prevented me from seeing what it looked like.
The dragon made a noise which sounded remarkably like a curse, and pursued the flying thing around the room. There was ten minutes of pandemonium in the room, and items like pictures and photographs and books were strewn on the floor while I covered my head with my hands.
The dragon eventually trapped the creature in its forearms and put it in a pouch on its belly somewhat like a kangaroo, and peace returned to the bedroom.
"That is now satisfactory," it intoned.
"What was that thing?" I asked, now querulous as a result of this extraordinary experience.
"It is the larval stage of one of us. They are born very rarely and are precious to us. The egg which you had, emits a signal shortly before hatching which I detected - a little too late, but all is correct now. It will develop further in my nurturing pouch until it can become an independent individual. You have cared well for my offspring. Is there something I could do for you in return?"
"Well - er - perhaps you could tidy the room?"
The creature closed its eyes and every one of the displaced objects flew to their correct places within a few seconds.
"Is that right?," it asked opening its eyes.
"Yes. Thank you."
"I will leave you."
"But I have so many questions like where do you live, and how, and what do you know of the universe and time and all of that sort of thing."
"I am very sorry but your race is not equipped to deal with the answers to such questions."
"But,"
"No buts. Goodbye."
There was a flash of blue light that blew out the May morning sunlight, and bedazzled my eyes, and an accompanying bang that left my ears singing - and the dragon was gone.
Only the opened box that my grandfather had made and the empty hollow where the dragon's egg had lain were evidence of the happening. The dragon had even eliminated the shards of eggshell that had been on my bed.
Who could I tell this encounter with an alien race to? No one because they'd think I'd made it up. Well I didn't.
So don't pick up shiny spheres on the Lancashire coast. You never know what may happen in the years to come.
