Tommy’s Dragon

by Jennifer Fischer

Content warning: references to mass gun violence and the accidental death of a child.

Kate made her way to Tommy’s bathroom instead of her own. She sat on the toilet and stared at the white shower curtain with a large T-Rex vomiting out a rainbow on it. 

Her heart raced, but she took her time, listening to an owl hooting in the distance, massaging her temples, and steeling herself for the day ahead. As she flushed the toilet, she focused her attention on the barely there sound of scratching at the back door. Slowly, she washed her hands and examined herself in the mirror: bags under her eyes, messy brown bed-head with a few new gray hairs, and fresh wrinkles at the corner of her mouth. Finally, she reached over and pulled back the shower curtain.

A bloated child, submerged in pink water, a gash on their head, flashed before her eyes, but the tub was empty. The image was from the nightmare that woke her at four a.m. nearly every morning, forcing her here, to Tommy’s bathroom, searching for answers that never came.

Kate shut the curtain and shuffled to the kitchen to fumble with the coffee maker. As it growled, she set the egg timer on the kitchen counter for twenty-three minutes, then responded to the persistent clawing at the sliding glass door off the kitchen.

A small dragon waited outside. When the dragon first appeared, six months after the funeral, she’d thought she was going insane, hallucinating because of insomnia, but as the days and then weeks dragged on and the dragon’s presence remained and their interactions evolved—the feel of the dragon’s scales, its preference for dandelions for dinner, its hum when she tickled it under the chin—she accepted that the dragon was real, that its translucent yellow and pink scales shimmered before her every morning and were not solely in her head.

At first, she tried different sleeping arrangements for the fantastic creature who was becoming an increasingly important part of her life. Rivaling a large tomcat in its size, she collected an array of options: dog beds, foam, a pile of stuffed animals, a bean bag, but no matter what she offered, no matter where in the house she set those beds up, the creature stood at the backdoor until she opened it. The dragon would only sleep on the Lilo and Stitch floatie in the backyard pool which was quickly becoming a pond as Kate forewent any pool maintenance. A few months ago, she lined the outside of the pool with potted plants to enhance the pond effect; the dragon appreciated the extra insects the water and greenery attracted. 

Before, the only dragons in Kate’s life were the ones Tommy drew obsessively. Initially, all kinds of dragons, but eventually Tommy focused all of their attention on perfecting the same dragon: a friendly beast with yellow and pink hexagonal scales, one pink wing, one yellow wing, and a silver tail. Now, Tommy’s yellow and pink dragon was here, happily fire-roasting Kate’s frozen dinners and feasting on dandelions and dragonflies. 

Kate realized that Tommy had seen the dragon well before she did. She’d watched Tommy stare up at the sky for twenty or thirty minutes at a time, seen Tommy chase nothing around the house, and heard them talk to an invisible flying friend.

Of course, imaginary friends were normal for younger children, but when Tommy turned twelve, they still faithfully chased the air. Since Tommy was an only child who didn’t make friends easily, Kate let it be, and, when Tommy came to her classroom, they told her students stories of their mighty dragon and drew special pictures for her rowdy five year-olds: unicorns, butterflies, and dinosaurs. Each student had their favorite creature or character. Tommy happily drew them all.

A nudge from the dragon brought Kate back from the land of memories, and she turned to scratch the dragon across the bridge of its nose, a favorite spot. Then she made her way to Tommy’s room, which remained as it had been on the last day of Tommy’s life: Lego scattered across the floor, art supplies covering the desk, bed unmade, books spilling off a shelf, drawings scribbled on the walls. Kate recalled kissing Tommy goodbye as they stood in their room in their new swimsuit, eager for an afternoon dip on an unusually warm October day. She planned to get pumpkins to carve that weekend, unaware of the importance of this moment, of this goodbye.  

Tommy’s bed, with Minecraft sheets and a unicorn pillow case, was still unmade. Kate sunk into it, pulling Tommy’s pillow tightly to her chest, breathing in the traces of Tommy that remained. Then, like every morning for the last nine months, she wept. 

Nineteen minutes later, the egg timer pinged and Kate stopped crying. She wiped her eyes and left the room, shutting the door firmly behind her. She’d bought the egg timer at Goodwill specifically for this purpose; otherwise, she might lose an entire day amidst Tommy’s Minecraft sheets.

She poured herself a cup of coffee and shuffled to her bedroom to change into jeans and a t-shirt before starting on work, which mainly required opening her laptop. The dragon appeared at her side, demanding the occasional tickle or stroke, playing with its tail, helping her feel not quite so alone. 

Hours later with emails answered and a curriculum project finished, Kate stood up to stretch and eat. The dragon circled her excitedly, also hungry. She peered into the fridge. Unimpressed with the options, she warmed up leftover pasta for herself and filled a plate with dandelions and tomatoes for the dragon.

The two ate together in silence. When they finished, she piled their dirty dishes into the sink, already spilling over, and snuggled up with the dragon on the couch to read. She selected a couple of tabloids resting on the coffee table. Before Tommy died, she read Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, a holdover from her early college years when she thought she’d be a Russian literature major. Or she might read Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, an educational journal, in which she’d once published a prestigious peer-reviewed article. Now, her brain zigged and zagged, lost fragments of thoughts when she was in the middle of them, battled persistent interruptions, memories of Tommy or her students. Concentration was a demanding and difficult task, tabloids were just the right speed. 

The dragon loved it, purring by her side as she absently stroked its head while reading and about J Lo’s love life or the latest UFO sighting. 

When Tommy died, the school district was sympathetic, giving her six weeks paid leave, then offering her a curriculum specialist position when even more tragedy followed. Nine months later, they continued to pay full wages even though the curriculum specialist position was basically part-time and she took longer than she should have with assignments. In August, this might change, but maybe not, given all that the district was facing.

Kate tossed a magazine to the floor and felt the now familiar craving for nicotine. She never smoked before, but since Tommy’s death she’d started sneaking a cigarette or two here or there. She never bought a whole pack and never smoked in the house. She told herself it was because she didn’t want to make it a habit; really it was that she didn’t want the dragon to know.

Unfortunately, this meant she had to leave her house and venture to the one mini-mart in town which sold loose cigarettes. That was something else that changed over the last nine months: her shopping habits and her social life. Before, she enjoyed her weekly foray to the farmers market and her daily chat with the barista at her favorite coffee shop, her weekends filled with family hikes, yoga classes with friends, and trips to the library or thrift store with Tommy. Now, she rarely left the house. Groceries, clothing, books, and any essentials could all be delivered.

This allowed her to avoid the we-think-we’re-being-subtle-but-actually-not-so-subtle gossip that her presence precipitated: the stares, the way her existence pulled all of the air out of a room. It was worse when people spoke to her, their tone implying that she was a young child with a limited vocabulary and not a forty-three-year-old woman with two degrees.

The craving this afternoon was especially strong, and it had been weeks since she’d left the house. She knew she should at least drive the car around the block now and again. Mark, her husband and the parent at home when Tommy slipped and hit their head as they fell into the pool, was the kind of guy who would drive the car around the block once a week. He was “the responsible one.” Everyone agreed, yet Mr. Responsible packed a suitcase and disappeared as soon as the police were finished with him. 

Kate’s throat tightened. She turned the car radio on at full volume to push Mark out of her mind, grateful that their ancient Toyota Corolla had started with ease because now she really needed that nicotine fix. 

On the way to the mini mart, Kate spotted a former co-worker’s truck in the parking lot of a baseball field. A smile almost crossed her face. It was Tony’s truck, and Tony always had cigarettes. He rolled them himself. 

Before, after a particularly exhausting day in her kindergarten classroom, she would find Tony, usually with a mop bucket in the cafeteria, and the two of them would head outside to chat while he smoked. The ballpark, Tony, and those hand rolled cigarettes were what she needed today. She wanted to be joy-adjacent. Still as she stepped from the car, she almost turned back. The vibrancy of life assaulted her: hot asphalt, popcorn, hotdogs, fresh cut grass, fans cheering. She was offended to see that life simply went on.

She walked over to Tony, who stood along the fence watching his twins out in right and left field, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the back of his collared shirt slightly wet from sweat, the shirt untucked, and work jeans on despite the heat. 

“Long time,” he said, not looking away from the game as she came up beside him. 

“Too long,” she admitted. 

“Nah,” he nodded towards his kids. “It’d been me, I’d probably never leave the house again.”

“Or, you would be in the big house already because you’d have rung your wife’s neck,” she offered.

“Or that.” 

A silence hung between them for a few minutes, but finally Tony asked about her husband. 

“Heard from Mark?” Tony inquired.

“Not a peep,” Kate replied. 

One of the twins, she could never tell which, caught a fly ball in right field that ended the game. 

Cheers abounded and the kids came running up to their father who embraced them.

“There’s Gatorade and cookies in the dugout. Go celebrate. I’ll be back in a sec,” he nudged them toward the rest of the team.

The kids rushed off. Tony pulled two hand-rolled cigarettes from his shirt pocket and walked with Kate to a dirt field behind the baseball diamond. 

“Thanks,” Kate offered as he lit her cigarette. She took a deep drag and felt a light buzz immediately. Tony’s cigarettes were stronger than your standard Marlboro Lights, or maybe he mixed a little marijuana in with the tobacco leaves. Or maybe the buzz was coming from Tony himself, from the intimacy of another person, something so absent from her life these days.

“Linda and the kids keep hoping I’ll quit and I know I should, but. . .” his voice trailed off as he shrugged.

“They’re right,” she responded. “On the other hand, I’m trying hard not to make it a habit.” 

“Less incentive now,” Tony mumbled.

“Yep, no one to stay healthy and alive for anymore,” Kate replied. 

The cigarettes swallow up the rest of their attention. A pile of unnecessary words (Tony’s condolences, Kate’s obligatory gratitude) drifted to the ground behind them as they returned to the baseball field.  

At the dugout, the twins rushed their father, asking in unison. “Can we go over to Jimmy’s for pizza? PLEASE!!!” 

“Yeah, all right. Get outta here,” Tony answered before turning to Kate. “What about you? What are you up to?”

“Back home, I guess,” Kate responded.

“If you have a minute, I want to show you something.”

“Yeah. I got a minute. I gotta lot of minutes.” 

On the road, Kate quickly realized where they were going. They passed the 7-11, then the KFC/Taco Bell combo, and then the playground. Beyond that lay an array of buildings that, until 1:42 p.m. on October 17th, teemed with life as three hundred Kindergarten through 5th graders walked the school’s hallways, ran around the playground, and stuffed their faces in the cafeteria. 

She’d taught at that school for fifteen years. She hardly ever missed a class; the day of Tommy’s funeral was the day an eighteen year old and his AR-15 wreaked havoc on their small town, moving the town’s attention away from Kate and Tommy and toward some kid who decided to kill kindergarteners.

When Tony unlocked the front doors, Kate started to shake. Tony put a hand on her shoulder to steady her. “Deep breaths,” he whispered. She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. Tony looped his arm with hers and walked her down the hallway. 

As they approached her classroom, Kate heard odd squeals and the blipping sounds she associated with video games. Tony unlocked her classroom door and pushed it open. Kate’s eyes widened in excitement, her cheeks glistening. Her classroom was full of creatures: unicorns, tiny dinosaurs, an oversized butterfly, Mario, and Pokemon all roamed the room, playful and happy. As soon as the creatures noticed Kate, they swarmed her, their respective noises reflecting their excitement and joy.  

“Crazy, huh?” Tony asked.

“Not as crazy as you might think,” Kate replied.

“Yeah, you don’t look as surprised as I expected.”

“Well, I have a dragon at home.”

“Oh,” Tony shrugged as if she’d mentioned a cat or dog she’d recently adopted from the pound.

“They offered to send me to work at another school,” Tony explained,  “but I knew they still needed someone to dust and keep things manageable here before the trial, so I stayed on. This was my school, my kids. I couldn’t leave them. I had to do something. That day, Kate, I should’ve—” he choked on the thought of all that he hadn’t done; Kate placed a hand on his back.

“Tony, you did what you could. You got those other kids out. You did what you could. I should’ve—” and now it was her turn to choke because this was her classroom, her students. She should have been with them in the end instead of a sub they didn’t really know. Kate could have joined Tommy that day and saved a twenty-two year-old’s life. 

The creatures pulled Kate and Tony out of their self pity. Mario led Kate to the ABC carpet in the corner of the classroom, which was filled with blocks. She sat, criss-cross applesauce, on the floor beside him. Two unicorns and a giant butterfly joined them. They built towers, crashed them down, and built them back up again. Over and over for what felt like hours. 

“Recognize them all?” Tony asked, working on another block tower.

“Yeah, I think so. From their drawings or the stories they would tell on the rug on Fridays. I would read a book and then everyone got a chance, if they wanted, to tell a story. Cole always told stories about Mario,” she pointed to Mario still, like Cole, playing obsessively with the blocks. “Meg and Maggie drew pictures of unicorns all the time,” she smiled toward the unicorns racing each other in circles around the tables in her classroom. “Casey,” Kate gestured toward the butterfly soaring above them, “always begged me to read The Hungry Caterpillar and would add on to the story with an adventure for the butterfly after they emerged from the cocoon.”

Kate spotted a microraptor hiding beneath a table and made her way over it. “Josie,” Kate whispered.

Kate crawled under the desk and said gently, “I love your long blue tail and your shiny wings. Why don’t you come out and show me how well you can fly with them?” The microraptor cautiously tilted its head back and forth, assessing Kate.  

“You know, I have a dragon at home,” Kate encouraged, “You’d like it.” She recalled Josie high up on the swings as Tommy pushed her during recess. “Let me see you fly,” Kate coaxed. Finally, the microraptor crept out from under the table, spread its wings, and soared around the room, the other creatures chasing it with squeals of delight. 

Kate, enraptured, wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back and forth, amazed by the joy now surrounding her in this place of pain. She imagined the microraptor and dragon flying together on the school playground. 

As if he was reading her mind, Tony came to her side and spoke, his deep voice out of place among the creature sounds of the classroom. 

“They can’t seem to leave the school,” Tony offered. 

“Yeah, I figured.” Kate nodded, wiping a stray tear from her cheek. “Tommy’s dragon can’t go beyond the backyard. He sleeps on a floaty in the pool.” 

“They sleep under the desks or in the cupboards…”

“Where they died,” Kate finished. 

“Yep,” Tony sighed. 

Kate walked to her desk at the front of the classroom and took a few tissues from the fresh box. Tony was taking good care of the place. She wandered back to where he stood, near the doorway, alert now, as if a new danger could arrive any minute. 

“What are they gonna do with the school?” Kate asked, hoping to calm Tony’s nerves.

“I don’t know. The original plan was to demolish it, but then two, three weeks after it happened, I showed up one day, and here they were, the creatures. We have to keep it under wraps, you know, can’t let the press find out. They’ll have a field day and this town needs some quiet. But I don’t think they’ll demolish the school now. We’ve set up a visiting system and schedule for the parents. Seemed the least we could do after…” His voice trailed off for a few minutes then returned. “Jackie wanted to force the parents to sign NDAs, but in the end…” 

“No need,” Kate finished his sentence for him. 

“Yep,” Tony nodded. 

“Shit,” Kate shook her head. “Shit.” There was nothing else to say.

“Exactly,” Tony agreed. 

They stood in silence watching the happy creatures and characters at play for a few more minutes. Tony was the first to break the spell.

“Drive you home? You probably have a dragon to feed.” 

“Back to the ballpark. My car’s there.” 

“Right,” Tony replied, his brain slowly returning to the real world. 

They drove back, past the KFC/Taco Bell and the 7-11, arriving at a now empty ballpark. 

Tony walked her to her car. “One more cigarette?” he offered, pulling two more from his shirt pocket.

“No, I’m good. But,” Kate shifted her feet, “if you ever want to come by the house for coffee or a beer, you know, I’m home most of the time. Bring Linda and the kids, if you want. They could meet Tommy’s dragon.”

“They’d probably like that,” Tony replied and put his hand on Kate’s shoulder before getting into his truck and leaving Kate alone in the empty parking lot. Her thoughts turned to the dragon as she unlocked her car, the blare of the radio startling her when she turned the keys in the ignition.   

By the time Kate returned home, the sun was setting. She sipped tea on the back patio while the dragon hunted mosquitos, nymphs, and dragonflies until it was dark. Then, she kissed the dragon on its forehead, and it curled up on Stitch in the backyard pool-pond. When she returned to the kitchen, she took the egg timer off the counter and shoved it in the junk drawer. She no longer feared losing an entire day in Tommy’s bedroom. She walked into the living room, paper towel in hand, and dusted off the record player that rested on a walnut audio cabinet. She pulled out a recording of Raymond Lewenthal playing Alexander Scriabin, her favorite Russian composer. She dropped the needle and soaked in Fantasy in B Minor smoothly coming through a set of hi-def speakers, an anniversary gift from Mark.

She floated over to the kitchen and tended to the pile of dishes she’d ignored for weeks. After the dishes, she attacked the tower of tabloids beside the couch, filling the recycle bin. Finally, she took Crime and Punishment off a bookshelf and went into Tommy’s room. She laid down on his bed with the thick book. Three pages in, she fell asleep, well before midnight. She didn’t wake until almost nine the next morning. She might have slept later if not for the dragon, scratching at the back door and throwing flames across the backyard. Instead of her usual nightmare, she’d dreamed of dinosaurs, unicorns, and an entire thunder of yellow and pink dragons. 

Travel in Blue

by Mahmoud Elmardi

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Jennifer Fischer is a writer and producer whose films have been featured by NBC Latino, ABC, Univision, and others. Her film “THE wHOLE” premiered at Amnesty International’s 50th Anniversary Human Rights Conference. Her writing has been featured in various lit mags and publications, such as JAKE, Literary Mama, Barzakh Magazine, Temz Review, Ms. Magazine, and others. She has essays in What is a Criminal? Answers from Inside the U.S. Justice System, an anthology from Routledge Press and Awakenings: Stories of Body and Consciousness, winner of the 2024 IndieReader Discovery Award and a finalist for the International Book Awards best nonfiction anthology of 2024. She currently lives in Albuquerque, NM with her life partner, two children, and a teacup chihuahua. 

Mahmoud Elmardi is a Sudanese visual artist and novelist born in 1988 in the city of Khartoum, more precisely in Bahri, a region known for its cultural richness and ancient history. From a young age, Elmardi was influenced by Bahri’s vibrant and diverse environment, which played an integral role in the development of his artistic talent and unique style. Elmardi continued his higher education in visual arts, earning a bachelor’s degree in painting from the College of Fine and Applied Arts, Sudan University of Science and Technology in 2018. His formal education, combined with his personal experience and varied professional background, has enriched her artistic perspective, allowing her to explore and integrate diverse elements into her work. Outside of his studies, Elmardi has worked in several artistic and technical fields, including in screen printing from 2010 to 2017 and in graphic design from 2020 onward. He has also gained practical experience in the dental industry as a technician, which refined his attention to detail and precision, qualities which are reflected in his artistic works. Elmardi is recognized for his distinctive style, which combines abstraction and symbolism figurative painting. His works, which include paintings like “Cities of Boredom,” “Blue in Travel,” and “Old Tree,” explore themes such as collective memory, identity, belonging, and the interplay between tradition and modernity. His ability to integrate elements of his immediate environment into his art, such as the town of Bahri and the Sudanese landscapes, allows him to create works that are both personal and universal. In addition to his work in visual arts, Elmardi is an accomplished writer. He has published two novels, “Secret of the Chisel” in 2022, which won the Free Publication Prize and was selected for the long list of the Nirvana cultural competition in Sudan, and “The Lost in the Mango Orchard” in 2023, which received third prize in a literary competition and was published for free. Elmardi’s third novel, “The Walls of Guernica,” is forthcoming in 2025. This novel has not been published yet and is expected to achieve great successes. These novels, like his pictorial works, explore themes of displacement, memory and the quest for identity. Elmardi has also been honored for his artistic contributions, including winning the Katara Prize for Fine Arts in 2022 in Qatar. One of his paintings was chosen as the official cover for the novel “Cities of Boredom” by Palestinian writer Nader Manhal, 2024 Elmardi won in the Arab Union for Culture Award 2024, and Peru Biennial Selected Elmardi the be in list of artists selected for exhibition to be held in the city of Lima, Peru 2024, cementing his position as an influential and respected visual artist. Mahmoud Elmardi continues to live and work, dividing his time between Sudan and Egypt, where he actively participates in exhibitions and book fairs, such as the Cairo International Book Fair. His work, imbued with the cultural richness of his Sudanese heritage, makes him an important voice in the contemporary art scene, offering a unique perspective on issues of identity and belonging through his paintings and literary narratives.