Isaac has been expanding his list of nighttime fears. In addition to the dark itself, and t-rexes, he’s added dragons. Last night we lay awake on into the wee hours because of the risk of dragon attack. I started out trying logic. There are no dragons. Dragons do not exist. They are imaginary. They are pretend. Someone made them up. They are not real. Isaac listened to all this and then began once again to literally tremble, “I’m afraid a dragon’s gonna come!” he whispered hoarsely.
I tried psychology, by getting him to comfort his doll, Nils, who as chance would have it is also very worried about dragons. Isaac told Nils, “There are no dragons. They are not real,” while patting his tummy very soothingly. Then, two seconds later, Isaac said, “I’m afraid a dragon’s gonna come!”
I tried pragmatism. IF (in the unlikely event) a dragon did come, Lena (the dog) would bark, and the dragon would be scared and would run away. And IF Lena couldn’t scare him away, I would be here and I would say, “Get out of my house! Leave my little boy alone!” And IF I didn’t scare him away, the poor dragon would have to tangle with Daddy. Isaac even went so far as to explain this all to Nils. Then we lay in silence for a few moments before Isaac began to tremble anew and said, “I’m afraid a dragon’s gonna come!”
I went back to the fact that they don’t exist, running through the litany again and then adding, “There are no dragons anywhere on Earth!” Then I thought that maybe the whole Earth was a little too big to grasp, so I added, “There are no dragons in Cleveland.” By then I was getting very tired of this conversation and tired in general.
Isaac said, “Why?”
“Well, they don’t like it in Cleveland.”
“Why they don’t like Cleveland?”
“Oh, it’s too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer and rainy in between.”
“Why they don’t like rain?”
“Their scales get wet and they don’t have umbrellas.”
“Why they don’t like it’s too hot in the summer?”
“Their scales sweat and mosquitoes go into their ears.”
“Why mosquitoes go in their ears?”
“It’s the only place they can bite because their scales are pretty much like armor.”
“Why the dragons wear armor?”
“Dragons aren’t real. Let’s pretend they have feathers, then the mosquitoes can bite them anywhere.”
“Dragons don’t have feathers!”
“Sure, why not? They are just pretend. Let’s pretend they blow bubbles instead of fire and they are very friendly.”
“Dragons aren’t friendly!”
“I’m just saying… we could make them like anything, because they aren’t real.”
“Why?”
I paused for a while and said, “Seriously. It’s time for bed. That’s enough now. You’re very safe here.” I hugged him tight and waited for a little while. He turned over and hugged his Fred Dog, who has been a source of comfort lately. It seemed that maybe we were out of the woods! Sleep! Close at hand. Then the little voice piped up again, “I’m afraid a dragon’s gonna come!”
etc.