The Dragonfly
Part I
Journal Entry of A. Goldberry, July 1949
This morning around nine I was in the appellation tending the vines. We are getting close to the Fall Harvest and the fruits are singing for the crush. All Summer, the dragonflies kept me company in the garden and especially on the riverside and Well Pond. They are thick in number and in constitution on these woods, providing – alongside the strumming cattails -- the nigh-imperceptible music of hot days. To me they’re more ‘flies’ than ‘dragons’, though prehistoric and fierce in their own rights. To an anti I imagine they are swooping leviathans. I wonder if they eat ants. To the messenger, they are… I don’t know. I’m getting ahead of myself in excitement.
Anyways, I saw a dragonfly today and a big one at that which is rarer this time of year . As the grapes are getting fat and the leaves start to turn, the dragonflies usually become thin and solidary such that a week will go by on the appellation without seeing one. They’re nearly non-existent this time of year at this elevation. I realize only after these last several hours of frenetic retrospection, how odd it was to see the dragonfly this morning when kneeling to prune the vines and dispatch the volunteers. As I was clipping a dead branch I noticed a dragonfly. It was hard to miss as it landed squarely in front of my nose, like it wanted me to see it. It was like all the other dragonflies at Mushroom Mountain: a thick body of deep red with long soft pink wings unlike I’ve seen anywhere else. The bulging purple eyes I’d never appreciated as such a minute distance. Their iridescence belies something so alien but also deep in wisdom. How it must see the world with such eyes and on wings, I was thinking, when I noticed something odd.
On the insect – which had been patiently sitting on a grape – there was affixed or growing something peculiar which is the subject of this diary and my thoughts since and perhaps henceforth. One it’s rearmost left leg there was a dainty string no thicker than a human but colored in rich green. The string was used to tie to the leg a small piece of parchment, or so it seemed. Amazed, I leaned in closer. The dragonfly did not lift away; it stayed put and flapped its wings snappishly. I gingerly untied the string and took the parchment. The dragonfly immediately buzzed away into the sky.
The parchment was of a course brown paper tightly rolled, and even smaller than a match lengthwise. As I look at it now, I speculate that is may be some kind of dried or treated leaf. I’ll marvel at the engineering later, for it is the contents of this small scroll that still send tremors through my writing hand. I unrolled it with clumsy fingers. There were words – or rather markings – on the parchment. In truth, my heart sunk into my stomach. This was no happenstance that a leaf came onto the leg of this insect that came to me. This was a message; to me or intercepted I do not know. Before attempting to decipher (it was clearly not in English) I ran desperately to my wife who I found in the Cellar preparing the casks. She claims this is not a practical joke, and she has never been one much to joke in such a way. She confirmed we had no guests with us and hadn’t for several days. As far as I know, no man lives with a two day’s walk of this place. Could the original be un-human…
Straightaway then to my study I went and locked the door and there I remain, more in stupefaction than fear. I pulled out this journal to transcribe the scroll should that it disappear into thin air or on the leg of a messenger whence it came.
The delicate writing must have been from a pen (if a pen at all) the size of a pin, or lesser. The characters were intricate and beautiful. My best replication is this:
My studies in linguistics, which I previously considered impressed and now feel feeble, have failed me as a cypher. Perhaps I shall write my friend J.R.R. to enquire.
As I stare at the symbols I am drawn by their “flowing” nature, as it the language of water. The soft, long curves, the sense of movement is river-like. The River. That’s where the dragonflies live. I never felt quite completely comfortable at on the River, come to think of it. Always movement – dunking, sliding, splashing, flickering – in the corner of my eye. Then gone without even a fleeting frog log or turtle shell as evidence. An occasional log or leaf moving queerly through the water. The bird calls unlike any I’ve heard but never seen a feather… could it possibly be?
To the River I must go, now.
[To be continued]
Part I Coming Soon
