Corcho has found a word that can mean both dragonfly and bed (잠자리). A word that contains both a seat and a constellation (자리). Something that to Grendel’s ears sounds like a bicycle (チャリ). And we will just roll with it.
Once upon a time there was a dragonfly that fell asleep on a chair. The stars were already there before the dragonfly fell asleep. So, it didn’t dream them up, it only dreamed about them. Connecting the dots, drawing lines from one star to the next, as if they were the lines coursing through the dragonfly’s wings. And when the dragonfly woke up, there were constellations in the sky.
A little girl saw what the dragonfly had done. And that night, instead of sleeping in her bed, she decided to sleep on the chair the dragonfly had vacated. Because that little girl wanted to dream up constellations too, but she didn’t manage to connect any stars in her dreams.
Disappointed, the little girl went in search of the dragonfly and found it asleep on a bicycle seat. She waited, until the dragonfly woke up, and when it flew away, the little girl looked up at the sky and saw the constellations start to move. Drawing circles, with the stars still connected, as if they were the wheel of that bicycle.
The little girl got on the bicycle and rode after the dragonfly. Eager to catch it, to sleep on its wings as soon as night fell and get her hands on a little bit of magic.
I am afraid of falling asleep on this chair. Haven’t you heard what that other dragonfly did? Look at those constellations, I can’t be the only one that sees the resemblance. Look at those lines. And now tell me that fate isn’t a butterfly net. Tell me that it isn’t a birdcage. I have seen those same lines in my wings. Connecting every molecule of my being. Trapping me. It’s a curse. Three times worse than a given name. There is no escape. And I am afraid of infecting someone else.
Sometimes I wonder why we were named dragonflies. Dragons have scales. Butterflies and moths have that in common with them. But our wings have veins. I read a fairytale once. Apparently, pixies have dust. It falls from their wings, and it works its magic on everything it touches. I never understood how the stars could burn in the dark. I always thought that there had to be magic involved. And I formulated my theory after reading that fairytale. When moths and butterflies die, the Four Winds don’t scatter their dust. Their magic refuses to go quietly, it clings to life, and combusts into millions of fiery stars. Butterflies and moths have that in common with dragons too. But dragonflies only have lines in our wings and a name that doesn’t mean anything. A name that is as pointless as drawing lines between the stars to form constellations. Because the stars aren’t insects anymore. What once were scales is now light. And that magic doesn’t rub off, no matter how many times we trace the same lines.
This bicycle wasn’t designed with dragonflies like me in mind, but I like it anyway. There is no harmony in flight. When I beat my wings, I don’t feel connected to anything in the universe. And before you say it, I know that I could just fly in circles, but it wouldn’t be the same. Take a closer look at my wings. Don’t you see all those veins? When I fly, all I hear is my own heartbeat. No circle would be a match for it. No. I prefer this bicycle. I can take a seat and close my eyes, until the spin of those wheels becomes my whole world. I don’t need music when I can just go with the flow of the universe.
Haven’t you heard? God created man in His own image. That’s what creators do. They leave their mark, while they still have something worth saying, something worth saving. Before the darkness of space silences them for good. Do you see all those stars? They were someone’s last act of love. What that creator refused to surrender to the cold, unfeeling space. I want to create something just like that. But I am just a small dragonfly. Even if I wanted to, there isn’t enough love inside me to light up a single star. But you won’t see me bursting into tears. Words were meant to be borrowed, and that’s what I will do. I will connect those stars. I will write my own love letter over all that silence.
Someone once told me that dreaming is not having our feet on the ground. Going to sleep in something as soft as a cloud and as warm as the sun. He told me that we dream behind closed eyelids to keep our hands out. To keep them from spoiling the beauty, when we settle for what reality allows. But I outgrew my childhood bed a while ago, and I didn’t know where to go from there. I missed my boat. Its white sails. Its yellow rudder. I needed a new direction in my life, before the ground started dragging me down, down, down, and I drowned in the darkest part of my heart. That’s when I found this bicycle, and I put all my hope in it. My feet aren’t on the ground. My hands aren’t free. And now all I have to do is close my eyes and ride towards the horizon. And keep riding, until a dream alights and knocks on my eyelids.
I tried. You have to believe me, I did. But this chair simply isn’t for me. I am not a reader; I am a writer. I wasn’t born to lose myself in someone else’s world. I was born to pedal a bicycle, to spin my own words, and leave nothing but dust in my wake. Not regret. Not envy. Not misery. Nothing but old dust. To make room for the rest of the journey ahead of me. To you, there might not be much of a difference between this chair and my bicycle. To you, both might just represent living vicariously. But there is a world of difference to me. Because when I lose myself in my own words, no one can say that the happiness I feel isn’t real. That it isn’t mine. Something I can take to my grave.
No, thank you, I like my bicycle just fine. I don’t need to fly on dragonfly wings. I have seen the sky. The nothingness, the silence that lurks beyond the color blue, waiting for the right moment to prey on me. I don’t need bliss. I don’t need to experience the type of freedom that would leave me exposed. I prefer the contentment this bicycle offers to me. The gentle breeze on my skin, while both wheels are on the ground. The single track in my wake, that keeps me firmly tethered to reality and doesn’t let me get my hopes up.
Why would I ride my bicycle to go grocery shopping? Eating is what defines everyday life, and I was given two feet to walk this Earth. My bicycle has wheels. They spin. Like galaxies. And since dreams are the closest thing I have to stars shining in my eyes, I reserve my bicycle for the nights I can’t fall asleep. For those nights when worries and disappointment keep me awake, and I have lost my faith in everybody else. For those nights when I need to control the narrative to make sure that my dream doesn’t have a sad ending, to match the depressing reality I wake up to.
It would be different if I had been the one that connected those stars. But this constellation, this scar, is just something someone else saw when they looked at me. I don’t care what you say, that is not who I am. The faults and the virtues, all those stars, they may be part of me, but I am the only one that gets to choose which ones to use to spell out my name. I don’t care for what someone else arbitrarily highlights. It’s my name. My skin. Not your night sky. It’s my universe. Where I live. Not what you see from afar. And I would appreciate it if you never spoke those words to me again. No one will ever know me better than I know myself. Least of all some dragonfly that only ever saw me through a dream.
Why doesn’t anyone dream about me? I have stars too. Why isn’t anyone interested in looking at me and seeing what they want to see? I feel invisible. Slighted. Erased. Do you know what my nightmares sound like? Silly me, how would you know? They sound like the silence of space. My nightmares are a dark forest where trees keep falling to the ground. Like meteorites. But I am the one that gets destroyed on impact. Because even that dragonfly chose to dream about somebody else. It could have broken the fall of those trees, with those wings that look just like a net. It could have given me at least a constellation, just one passing glance, to rope some of my stars and keep them from turning into hurtful meteorites. But that dragonfly chose somebody else, and I woke up to more of the same silence.
Sorry, but I don’t have the answer you are looking for. Those stars are older than I am, and I don’t know their truth. But if it helps you sleep better at night, I haven’t seen anything resembling fate written in them. A lifetime ago, when painting on the walls wasn’t frowned upon and children still looked up at the sky, someone drew these constellations. But children eventually grow up, and everyday life takes up all their time. Dreams. Meaning. A higher purpose. People eventually lose interest in those things. And all I can tell you is that it’s a matter of perspective. Tonight you may still see loss. But tomorrow may be the day you finally feel free. You should give it a try. You aren’t a dragonfly, after all. You don’t have something that reminds me of prison bars ingrained in your wings, and I am sure that you will move on soon enough.
I don’t mind. Let that dragonfly connect my stars. Dreams are just a way to while away the night hours. They don’t mean anything, and I can commiserate. I am waiting too. For the day the stars finally turn the tide, and I get a blank piece of paper where I can write the happy life I deserve.
The dragonfly wants to know what I feel when I ride my bicycle, but I don’t want to know what the dragonfly feels when it flies. Does that make me an awful person? I should care, or at the very least pretend, shouldn’t I? But I can’t. There are tear tracks under my eyes. But if I ran away, there would be footprints in my wake. Most days I wake up to nightmares still echoing in my ears. That there is strength in numbers. And I can’t allow my sadness to multiply. My tears coalesce into tracks, and if I ran, I would just be undoing their kindness. I need a lone tire track in my wake if I want to believe that everything will be alright and, eventually, I will leave my sadness behind. But I see nothing in that dragonfly’s wake. Only air. And I don’t want to have my worst fears confirmed. That sadness makes who we are disappear without a trace.
Don’t shine your hope on me. Don’t tell me that nothing lasts forever, that this too shall pass. Unlike you, I am not a dragonfly, and those words don’t mean to me what they mean to you. I have a bicycle. Its wheels spin. It’s fate. It’s written all over the universe. Earth. The moon. The sun. Galaxies. Everything in my life spins. There is no escape. This sadness is bound to find its way back to me. Time after time. And I don’t know how hope hasn’t worn off your fragile-looking wings yet. The tires of my bicycle are all worn-out. Hope was the first of my words to lose its meaning. How could it not have been, when life is just one return after another?
You should have flown faster, dragonfly. All I have left now are dry tear tracks that taste of resentment. That bicycle should have taken me beyond the horizon, out of the world I knew. But all it did was take me from one dusty point to another, tracing the same constellation over and over again. I hate the pointless back-and-forth of my everyday life. What about you, dragonfly? Does flying make up for it? How does the wind feel on your wings? Does it leave an aftertaste of stardust in your mouth? I look at your wings, and I wonder if the thought that you deserve better is gnawing away at you too.
It’s a trap, isn’t it? I have an inkling that if I get on that bicycle, the rules won’t apply to me anymore. As soon as the last particle of dust falls from my feet, Gravity won’t watch over me anymore. I will fall asleep at the wheel and drift farther and farther away from my life. You can tell me the truth, dragonfly. Maybe you aren’t a dream that works for the devil, but I have seen you fly. Is this one of his gifts? If I were to accept it, would I get away with dreaming a real dream? Something tells me that I wouldn’t have a life to come back to when I woke up. Because I am not a dragonfly like you. I need more than a barely-there touch. I need footprints tethering me to the ground. And if I lived on the Moon, maybe I would accept that bicycle. But I live on Earth. Where footprints don’t wait forever, and life would go on without me.
Look at the world through the wheels of a bicycle and tell me what you see. That’s what the dragonfly told me to do. But I don’t know what answer he expects from me. Dragonflies have wings, and most people have a blind spot when it comes to wings. Should I tell that dragonfly that I am not free? That I have limitations? Should I tell him that, even if I am not trying to overcome them? I was born with two legs. But the thought of buying a bicycle never crossed my mind. The horizon would remain out of my reach either way, and I was happy leaving it there. I saw no point in trying to shorten the distance, and I was happy. Maybe I should tell that dragonfly that I was free. But I don’t know if happiness counts. Not anymore.
If I could be any part of a bicycle? That’s easy. I would like to be the lights attached to its wheels. It’s easy to forget that I am made of stardust when I am flesh and bone, and what I see in the mirror doesn’t shine. So, I would choose those artificial lights, and with any luck the bicycle’s owner would pedal with all his strength. There would be tire tracks in the dirt, and dust would rise, like the sun over the horizon. What do you say, dragonfly? You work for the devil; you know better than me how magic works. Would the dust stick to me? Do you think that I would be able to believe that lie if my eyes brimmed with light?
Some people talk about soulmates, about two halves of an orange, but I have seen enough sunsets during my short life to know that it isn’t a clean cut. Oranges and reds spill all over the sky, and the Night comes to dip the tips of its wings in them before the blood dries up. That starry-winged dragonfly has told me that my soul is riding a bicycle, and I don’t know how I feel about that. Did you know that there are some places where two people aren’t allowed to ride on a single bicycle? Not believing in soulmates is one thing. I can live with that. But I don’t like the loneliness the Night has illustrated for me. It hurts.
Fly away, dragonfly. You missed your one and only chance. I could have carried you in my bicycle’s basket. You wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between the latticework of your wings and the latticework of that basket. I was willing to share my happiness with you. All you had to do was let me make you feel free. But you chose to do it yourself. So, fly away, dragonfly. Find someone else to love you like you want to be loved. See if you find some other winged creature willing to share its life with you.