This is the first short story I wrote,
c. 1980, while I was a student at Northern Virginia Community College
(Annandale, Virginia campus). It won the contest's third prize;
later, at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, it took first place.
After writing it, I submitted the story to Twilight Zone magazine, the publisher of which was Serling's widow, Carolyn. Although
the story was not accepted for publication, I received an encouraging
letter from Mrs. Serling in which she told me "The Flight of the
Dragon" had been held by the magazine's editors for a second
reading, a sure sign that it had been seriously considered for
publication. I am posting it here along with a few endnotes that may
provide a few tips on techniques and authorial decisions that,
hopefully, may help aspiring writers new to the enterprise.
The
Flight of the Dragon
Copyright 1980 by
Gary Pullman
The
children sat quietly
in their seats, facing the front of the little, one-room schoolhouse,
their eyes focused attentively on the boy who stood, awkwardly,
his head down, beside Miss Watkins. He was black-haired, and
almond-eyed, with the saffron complexion that marks the Asian
people. The description of Wang's physical appearance includes
references to his racial characteristics.
“Boys
and girls,” said Miss Watkins, their teacher,
“I want to introduce a new pupil. His name is Wang Li. Wang comes
to us all the way from Taiwan, by way of Boston and Denver, where he
lived for a time. Taiwan is an independent republic on an island off
the coast of China, formerly called Formosa.”
Wang
lifted his head and gazed at the class uncertainly, shyly.
Encouraged by the smiles he saw, he smiled in return.
“Wang,”
said Miss Watkins, “won't you tell us a little about yourself?”
He
did, amazing himself at the extent of his speech. He told them of his
parents' deaths, and of his grandfather,
with whom he lived, and of how his grandfather made kites,
and of how they had come to the United States when he was a baby, and
of the fact that, today, he was nine years old. And he told them
about Chinese customs, about their reverence for ancestors,
and about how their respect for their elders, and, above all, about
their history and heritage.
“Very
good,” Miss Watkins said when he had finished. “Has anyone any
questions to ask Wang?”
A
hand shot
up.
Miss
Watkins scanned the audience. “Surely someone must have a
question,” she said.
The
hand waved, quivered, flapped.
Miss
Watkins suspiciously
eyed the bulky boy
to whom the insistent
hand belonged. She frowned. “Yes, Sammy, what is
it?”
“I
have a question, Miss Watkins,” he announced primly, the primness a
practiced form of sarcasm.
“Well,
what is it?”
He
looked at her innocently.
“I was wondering why the chinks, such as Wrongly, have such
screwed-up eyes, and does it affect their seeing?”
Miss
Watkins regarded Sammy coolly.
Beside her, Wang had hung his head, as if he were shamed, suddenly,
of his Chinese heritage.
“We
do not refer to
Chinese persons by so vulgar and crude a word as 'chinks,' Sammy,”
she intoned emphatically. “Do I make myself quite
clear?”
Sammy
side-stepped
the question,
saying, “My dad does.”
“That
is his
problem,” replied Miss Watkins. “You
are mine.”
The
class giggled, despite
their fear of Sammy.
“In
my classroom,” Miss Watkins continued, “we shall address one
another by our proper,
given
names.”
“But
I wasn't talking to
him,” countered Sammy. “I was talking about
him.”
“We
will neither speak of others, nor address others, by any name other
than their proper, given names.” She regarded his bulk. “After
all, you wouldn't like it if I called you 'Fatty,' would you?”
Sammy blushed, averted his eyes from her piercing,
unwavering stare. “No, ma'am,” he admitted.
“We understand one another, then? Fine.” She turned
to the boy beside her. “Wang, you may be seated now. Thank you for
your excellent talk.”
Wang
took a seat, away
from Sammy.
Sammy raised his hand.
“Yes,
Sammy?” Miss Watkins noticed her
jaw was clenched, her teeth gritted;
she relaxed. “What is it now?”
“You didn't say why the Chinese have such screwy—I
mean, screwed-up—eyes.”
Miss Watkins explained.
“Does having such screwed-up eyes affect the Chinese
people's ability to see?”
“They
see just as clearly as we do, Sammy,” she said, smiling sweetly,
“and a great deal more clearly than some
of us.”
This time the class openly guffawed.
When, a few moments later, Miss Watkins turned her back
to the class to write the day's homework on the blackboard, Sammy put
his fingertips just below the outer corners of his eyes, pulling them
outward, away from his face, and grinned at Wang's reaction.
Jennifer, the red-haired girl who sat next to Wang,
said to him, “Don't pay any attention to him. He's just a big, fat
bully.” And she turned her pretty face on Sammy and glared.
The old man held a fine, bone-china teacup in his long,
slender fingers.
Across the table from him,
his grandson sat, eating a buttered rice cake.
“Did you enjoy your first day at your new school,
Wang?”
The boy shrugged. “It was all right.”
The old man studied him, stroking his chin through his
long, gray beard. His small, dark eyes were thoughtful, sympathetic.
“Did someone ridicule you, my son?”
Reluctantly, he nodded. “Only one boy. But Miss
Watkins, my teacher, and Jennifer, were nice. They seem to like me.”
“Jennifer?” His grandfather looked at him, his eyes
twinkling.
Wang blushed. “The girl who sits next to me in
class.”
The fan of wrinkles that spread out from the corners of
the old man's eyes deepened as he smiled.
“That is good, indeed.”
“Oh! I almost forgot to tell you. Miss Watkins asked
me to stay after school.”
“Wang! You did not fight the boy—”
“No, grandfather. She wanted to ask me to ask you if
you would come to school and give a talk on kites. Will you?”
“When did she say that I should come?”
“Tuesday afternoon, if you can.”
His grandfather nodded. “I will come.”
“Grandfather?”
“Yes, Wang?”
The boy hesitated.
“What is it you would speak, my son?”
“The boy who ridiculed me today—he called me a
'chink.' He asked me why my eyes are . . . as they are.”
“You are Chinese, my son. Be not ashamed of your
heritage, for it is an ancient and an honorable one.”
“I know, grandfather.”
“Do your eyes not serve you well?”
“Yes.”
“They are a gift, freely given you; be thankful for
them, and sorrow not.”
“I am thankful. I just thought—I thought he might
say things about you, too, insult you. I don't think he likes Chinese
people.”
The old man laughed. “I hold many years, and, I hope,
a little wisdom. My old ears do not hear the proud disdain of enemies
I do not know.” He pushed his cup away and rose. “Would you like
to see your birthday present?
I have finished it.”
Grandfather and grandson
stepped into the garage that Mr. Li had converted into a workshop.
Kites of various sizes, shapes, and designs hung on wooden pegs set
in the walls. From the ceiling was suspended, on silken threads, a
fabulous and wonderful one, a newly-made one, a kite that was a work
of art, a masterpiece.
Wang gazed at it, open-mouthed, his eyes sparkling.
It was a dragon.
It was a dragon, twelve feet long.
It was golden-eyed and shining-eyed. It was armored
with scales the color of the sea. Long, delicate, featherless wings,
thin and pliable, spread out, slightly drooping, from its sides. Out
of the snarling, fanged mouth, fire issued forth, red and yellow and
orange.
Wang moved forward slowly, holding his breath, his arm
outstretched before him. He knew that it was made of tissue and cloth
stretched over bamboo. But his hand paused in mid-reach.
The hairs on the back of his forearm stood on end. His heart beat
fast. He put out his hand and touched the fearsome beast. It turned
slowly toward him on its silken threads. He exhaled. It was
paper and cloth.
“It's beautiful,” said Wang softly, “beautiful,
beautiful. Oh, thank you, grandfather!”
“It looks real?”
“I was afraid, almost, to touch it.”
The old man laughed. “The fire is made of colored
tissue paper. It will seem to burn in the wind. The wings will rise
and fall with the slightest changes in the currents of the air.”
Wang ran a hand over the dark green scales. “Soon it
will fly,” he said.
Sammy having taken ill with the flu, had been absent
from school all week.
Without his constant threats, insults, and ridicule, there was
lightheartedness and laughter. In the classroom, children who had
never done so before raised their hands and spoke their minds
and, on the playground, at recess, Wang was permitted, even asked, to
join in a game of tag or kickball or simply a round of conversation.
Miss Watkins seemed more re;axed, too. She smiled more often and made
jokes more often and laughed more often. But, best of all, Jennifer
and Wang had become fast friends. She had visited him at home several
days in a row.
She was visiting him there now.
She was, like Wang, enchanted by the dragon. “It's
the biggest, best, most beautiful kite I have ever seen,” she said,
“better even than any others your grandfather has made.”
Wang asked her whether she thought the other children
might be interested in having a kite-flying contest “with the
dragon as the prize.”
“With a prize like that, I know I would,” she
replied.
“Good!” he said, “That settles it.
I'll see whether Grandfather will sponsor one. He could provide the
kites and be the judge.”
The next day, Tuesday, found Sammy's seat still
empty.
History followed math, which followed geography, and, after recess,
Miss Watkins finally
introduced Wang's father, and he began his talk on kites. Much of
what he said Wang had heard before, about how an ancient Chinese
general, Han Sin, had invented the kite for use in war, and
about how Benjamin Franklin had employed a kite in his famous
experiment, and about how cameras had been attached to kites to
take pictures during the Spanish-American War, and about how
Alexander Graham Bell uses a large box-kite to carry a United
States army lieutenant to a height of one-hundred-and-seventy-five
feet
while testing designs for a successful airplane, and about how a kite
had been used in the building of the suspension bridge over Niagara
Falls, and about how the United States Weather Bureau uses kites,
even today, to record barometric pressure, temperature, wind
velocity, and humidity. And Wang, of course, had seen the kites his
grandfather made, the gaily decorated Chinese lanterns, the
flowerpots, the storks, the insects, the kimono-clad Chinese women,
and the musical kites that had little cups as their tops which turn
in the wind and operate with clappers which strike their gongs. Only
one detail was new to Wang, and that was the story behind the Chinese
celebration of Kite Day.
“So, you see, children,” Miss Watkins said, when
Mr. Li had concluded his talk, “we Americans owe a great deal to
the Chinese kite invention.”
Miss Watkins thanked Wang's grandfather for coming to
school to speak on the kite, “especially on the short notice I gave
you.”
Mr. Li bowed, a dignified, stately bow.
“I only hope that the children enjoyed it half as much as I,” he
said, and smiled. “But there is one more thing I should say to your
class, if I may. I promise I shall be brief.”
“Please do,” Miss Watkins replied.
He told them about the kite-flying contest to be held
on Saturday. “A contest is always worthwhile, and so is this one,”
he spoke dramatically, “for the prize is a most elegant and
fabulous one, the only one of its kind in the world. The contest is
open to all, and I am furnishing the kites of your choice.
I do hope you will come.”
There were loud, excited cheers and affirmations.
“Than you, again, for coming, Mr. Li. We certainly
enjoyed it. Your kites are truly wonderful creations, and you
know so much of the lore of the kite. You are, indeed, a remarkable
man.”
“Thank you. I trust I shall see you at the contest?”
“I'm thinking about competing myself,” she said,
with a smile.
On the way home, Wang asked his grandfather to tell him
again the legend behind Kite Day.
“Why is it you've never told me before?” he asked.
“It is a very old story, Wang, as old, perhaps, as
the kite itself, or nearly so. In truth, I suppose I had forgotten it
myself, if, in fact, I ever knew it. But, in preparing for my talk
today, I reviewed the writings in the old books,
and, there, I discovered it.”
“Tell it to me again, grandfather, please.”
The old man smiled. “It is a short and simple tale,
my son. It seems that once, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, a
Chinese man dreamed that, on a certain day, misfortune would befall
him and his family and his house. Thus, on that day, he and his
family departed from their home and went apart together to a hill far
away and amused themselves with the flying of a kite. And, in the
evening, they returned home, and, lo, their house was still standing,
undamaged, and they themselves, also, were unharmed. It is said that
it was because they flew the kite that day that they escaped the
danger dreamed of by the man. And that is why, my son, on Kite Day,
kites are flown in China and in Taiwan, for a kite carries evil from
him who is its flier, if he be of a good heart.”
Wang was silent for a time as they walked along. “Is
the legend true, grandfather?” he asked at length.
“There is the truth, and there are truths,”
the old man replied.
Wang, his boyish face serious, said, “I don't think I
understand.”
The old man smiled sadly, ruffling his grandson's hair.
“Oh, my son, my son,” he said softly. “One day you will know
the meaning of the story.
Let it be said, until that time, that it is true, in a way,
and, in that way, it is true, indeed.”
“The kite carries evil from its flier?”
“So it is said.”
Wang thought of Sammy and of the dragon, and he was
quiet for so long that finally his grandfather asked him whether
something was the matter.
“I am thinking, grandfather,” he relied, “only
thinking.”
“This—”
Miss Watkins, standing beside Wang's grandfather, said, waving an arm
to indicate the children running to and fro across the open field in
efforts to gather enough momentum to launch their trailing kites or
standing their ground and tugging at the end of the string they
gripped in their balled hands in an effort to raise their kites
higher and higher and higher—“would
probably have been impossible if Sammy hadn't taken sick.”
“Sammy,” Mr. Li repeated. “Is the boy yet ill?”
“He hasn't come back to school yet. But it's just the
flu. He'll be back soon enough.”
Miss Watkins resumed watching the children. True to his
word, Mr. Li had invited them to choose from among the kites the one
each liked best and that one he had given them. They had chosen large
ones, medium-size ones, and small ones; red ones, yellow ones, orange
ones, blue ones, green ones, and rainbow-colored ones; square ones,
rectangular ones, triangular ones, and diamond-shape ones. They had
chosen kites fashioned after animals, birds, fish, and flowers. They
had, since Mr. Li had announced the contest last Tuesday (and
especially after Wang, the following day, had displayed the fabulous
dragon prize) filled the open field behind Wang's house; their kites
filled the sky.
“Seldom have I seen them so enjoy themselves,” said
Miss Watkins happily.
“I am glad,” answered Wang's grandfather, “that
my kites have brought them joy. Tell me, if he is well by Saturday,
do you think young Sammy might join the contest?”
Miss Watkins laughed. “He'd be more likely to
discourage, or disrupt, it.”
“Might he not compete if he knew that the winning of
the dragon is the desire of every child here, of every child in his
class at school?”
Miss Watkins considered his question. “He might,”
she said, “for spite's sake. But why are you so interested in
having hi compete?”
The old man looked at her. “I made the kites—I make
them—for children like Sammy, too,” he said.
The next day was Friday, the day before the kite
contest.
During recess, Sammy, newly returned to school, personally passed the
word: “The chink kid is my enemy; anybody who likes him enough to
fly his grandfather's kites in some dumb contest is my enemy, too,
and will be dealt with in the same way I intend to deal with him.”
Sammy held his left hand out, flat, open, from his waist, and slammed
his right hand, a closed fist, into it.
“Don't let his threats worry you, Wang,” Jennifer
said. “No one's going to listen to him, not now, not anymore.”
Jennifer was wrong. One by one, the children let him
know they would not be participating in the contest.
When the day ended and the children left for home,
Jennifer called to Sammy, “I'm going to the contest tomorrow,
Fatty, and you can't stop me!”
Sammy stopped, turned. He glared at her fiercely across
the short distance between them. “What did you say?” he demanded.
Jennifer felt a lurching lightness in her stomach. Her
knees felt weak. “I said,” she repeated loudly, “that I'm going
to the contest tomorrow and you can;'t stop me—Fatty!”
Sammy let his books fall, darting forward, toward
Jennifer.
Jennifer spun about, to flee, but she was tool ate. The
bulky boy flung himself on her, bringing her down to the ground. He
raised a fist to strike.
Wang rushed toward the boy and leaped, knocking him off the screaming
girl. They rolled over and over on the dirty pavement.
“Boys, boys!” yelled Miss Watkins, who had heard
the noise and come out of the schoolhouse to see what was the matter.
“Here, here! What is the meaning of this behavior?” She
took hold of the bully's ear and twisted hard. “You, Sammy! Get off
of Wang!”
Sammy got up quickly, struggling to free himself from
his teacher's grip.
“Jennifer! What are you doing, all dirty and your
dress torn?”
“Sammy knocked me down,” said Jennifer. “Wang got
him off me before he could beat me.”
“Sammy, is that true?” Miss Watkins demanded, her
tone severe.
“She called me a name,” wailed Sammy. “She called
me 'Fatty'!”
“And you think that was reason for you to fling
yourself on her, a girl a third your size, you big bully?”
She gave his ear a mighty twist and shoved him toward the
schoolhouse. “Your parents will be informed of this,” she stated.
“Bravo!” shouted a small. Freckle-face boy with
sandy hair.
“You were great, Jennifer,” said another boy, “the
way you stood right up to that big bully and even called him a name.
You were great, too, Wang. I'm ashamed of myself, really ashamed. And
I tell you what, if the contest's still on, you can count on me to
come.”
“Thanks, Mike,” Wang replied, “and the contest is
still on, for as many as want to come.”
“Well, like I said, I'll be there,” Jennifer said.
“Thanks, Jenny.”
“I'm coming,” said another boy.
“And me, too,” said another.
The boy named Mike laughed. “It would be easier just
to see who's not coming.”
“Let's do that, then,” said the boy with the
freckles. “Everybody who's not coming to Wang's kite-flying
contest tomorrow raise your hand.”
No one raised a hand.
Smiling, Wang turned to Jennifer. “Thanks again,
Jenny.”
“That's okay; that's what friends are for. And,
besides, I was getting tired of Sammy's bullying me and everybody
else in school.
I just hope to win the dragon.”
“You will. You've had more practice than anyone else
but me, and I can't enter the contest—grandfather said it wouldn't
be right since he's going to be the judge. Anyway, you'll win. Just
remember everything I taught you.”
Saturday, at last, had come. The day was cool.
The sky was overcast.
It was a windy, blustery day.
“Grandfather, is it late?” Wang, sleepy-eyed,
looked from the clock on the kitchen wall to his grandfather, seated
at the table, sipping his tea.
The old man smiled. “I woke early; all is ready.”
“You should have awakened me. I could have helped
you.”
“I needed no help, my son. I have prepared for many
such contests.”
A thought occurred to Wang. “What about the dragon?”
The old man rose. “Come,” he said, “and see for
yourself.”
Outside, in the open field behind their home, Mr. Li
had set a star-spangled tablecloth upon the picnic table, along with
paper plates and cups and plastic cutlery. There were cake and
pastries and cookies and candy. All this, Wang took in at a glance as
he ran, ahead of his grandfather, to a large white stone in which was
set an iron hook. Over this stone, attached to the hook by a line,
the great dragon kite hovered, low in the darkling sky.
“Take the line, my son,” called Mr. Li, over the
sound of the wind. “Guide it; make it fly.”
Wang grasped the line, pulled it. Above, as the line
drew taut, the dragon, a moment later, responded. It ceased its
wavering, its quivering, its flapping.
Veering to the left, it climbed higher aloft on the currents of the
air.
“Grandfather!” Wang cried delightedly, “it
flies, it flies!”
“Yes, Wang, it flies,” the old man said, nodding.
His voice was too soft to be heard above the wailing of the banshee
wind.
“The dragon fights against me, grandfather,
like a thing alive. It—it seems so real, Grandfather! I am
frightened.”
The old man, standing now beside Wang, put a hand on
the boy's shoulder. “Do not be afraid. I am here.”
“I wasn't sure you wouldn't cancel the contest, Mr.
Li,” said Miss Watkins.
“Cancel it?”
“Because of the rain. It's supposed to rain today.”
She ran her hands up and down her goose-pimpled arms.
“You can feel it in the air.”
“Yes, the weather report does call for rain, I
know,” said Mr. Li, “this afternoon. Thunder showers. But, by
then, the contest will have ended.”
“Did Wang tell you about his fight with Sammy?”
“I have told him not to fight, that there are other
ways, better ways to—”
“Yes, but Sammy started the fight. Of course,
I told his parents. Hmpfh! They said they'd 'look into it.'”
Mr. Li shook his head, frowning. “I had hoped that
Sammy might come today.”
“You are a kind man, Mr. Li, a very kind man.
But there's such a thing as being too nice,
you know—especially where people like Sammy are concerned.”
“Perhaps you are right, Miss Watkins.”
Sammy lay on his stomach, behind the garage, peering
round the corner
at Wang, at Wang's grandfather, at Miss Watkins, at Jennifer, at his
other classmates, who were carefree, shouting and talking, running
and leaping, laughing at themselves, at one another, at their kites,
at the darkened sky, at the howling wind, at the gathering storm.
“I hate them,” he said bitterly. “I hate the
all.”
It began, gently, to rain.
“Oh!” said Miss Watkins, “now the contest will be
ruined.”
“No,” said Mr. Li. “I have watched long enough to
name a winner.”
Miss Watkins called the children, and, when they had
all gathered round, Mr. Li named the winner.
“Oh, Jenny! I'm so glad!” said Wang, smiling. “You
won! You won!” He kissed her cheek.
“Let's go fly the dragon,” Jennifer said excitedly.
The rain fell harder suddenly.
In but a moment, the sky grew dark as night.
“Get inside, children,”
Miss Watkins ordered, “quickly now.”
The children sped
toward the house.
“Let's get the dragon down,” Jennifer said to Wang.
“Never mind that now,” said Miss Watkins. “Into
the house!”
“Look!” cried Jennifer.
Lightning had flashed, and, in the sudden flare of the
white light, Sammy was revealed. He stooped over the white stone, a
penknife in hand, sawing at the line to which the dragon kite
was tethered.
“Stop!” cried Wang.
But the deed was done. There was a look of triumph
in the bulky boy's eyes
as he glared at them. And then he was running, the kite line in his
hand.
“Come back here!” yelled Jennifer.
The sky was now dark, now light, as the lightning
flared. A gust of wind blew across the field, nearly knocking Wang
and Jennifer to the ground.
“Children, are you all right?” asked Miss Watkins.
There was a scream of terror.
“Sammy, was that you?”
“Help! Help!” screamed Sammy. “Somebody, help
me!”
“Sammy, where are you?”
Lightning flashed.
“Up here!”
Still hanging onto the kite line, Sammy was ten feet
off the ground and rising.
“Let go, Sammy!” yelled Miss Watkins. “Let go!”
“Nooooooooo!”
wailed
Sammy.
“Mr. Li, Mr. Li, what can we do?” cried Miss
Watkins.
“Nothing. Nothing.”
The sky went black.
They crouched in the rain-drenched field and watched,
looking for Sammy whenever the lightning, for a moment, lit the
clouded sky. The boy grew smaller and smaller as the wind carried the
dragon higher and higher, through lightning and thunder and
darkness.
Wang remembered the dragon, how it had looked, its eyes
gleaming, its wings beating the air, its fiery breath burning in the
wind. It was real, he thought. No! It wasn't. It wasn't! It
was a kite, only a kite. He shivered in the darkness, thinking.
“Remember Benjamin Franklin?” Jennifer said to him,
over the roaring of the wind. “His kite was struck by
lightning.”
Thunder pealed. They waited tensely for the lightning
that would follow.
Miss Watkins screamed. Jennifer his her face in her
hands.
Wang looked to his grandfather.
The old man, gazing into the sky, wore the inscrutable
look of the “Chinaman.”
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