The Lexical Funk!
Daniel has wanted to be a writer ever since he was in elementary school.He has published stories and articles in such magazines as Slipstream, Black Petals, Spindrift, Zygote in my Coffee, and Leading Edge Science Fiction. He has written four books: The Sage and the Scarecrow (a novel), the Lexical Funk (a short story collection), Reejecttion (short story/ essay collection), and The Ghosts of Nagasaki (a novel).
The Dragon (a short story)
I climbed the mountain and found the dragon. Once feared for his power and cunning, he was now nothing more than an old man in chains.
“As long as I’m in chains I can’t hurt my enemies,” he said.
“How do you know your enemies? You have no eyes.”
“I don’t need eyes to tell my enemies. I can decide by listening to their voices.”
“I don’t think so. You need all your senses to tell who your enemies are.”
“That’s not true.”
“Then who am I?”
“You are the person who waits on fences. You think you need all your senses to work before deciding who your enemies are. You wait, and wait, and finally take the weaker side. Then when things turn out badly, you sulk and wander the earth looking for another fence. You are a stranger in your own country. You have wandered so long that even your parents wouldn't recognize you. And here you are on the fence again. You could free me and have the strongest ally who ever walked the earth.”
I left the dragon -- an old man, yet still too cunning and powerful for his own good -- to linger in his chains. I returned to my wandering and tried my best to forget his words.
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