Whitney FI’s Reviews > When Women Were Dragons > Status Update

The yard was a riot of bright colors set in a backdrop of vibrant green. Everything the old lady once grew in her garden had morphed into generations of feral offspring. A thicket of volunteer squash vines tangled in a mound with yellow flowers, and squash all manner of sizes, shapes, and colors. The strangest cucumbers I'd ever seen snaked up the side of the ruined chicken coop & wild strawberries were everywhere.

The librarian refused to vacate, and the officers were forced to arrest her. She waived her right to remain silent & wanted the following to be recorded in this report: There is nothing lewd about biology or basic facts, gentlemen, and you make yourselves fools when you try to classify the quest for understanding as obscene. The only thing more patently obscene than ignorance is willful ignorance. Arrest yourselves.

“I never said that numbers were magic. I said that your mother was magic. A sorceress, specifically, but let’s just say magic. It’s easier. But here’s the thing, Alex, my love. This isn’t new information, and your mother isn’t alone. All women are magic. Literally all of us. It’s in our nature. It’s best you learn that now.”

I was four years old when I first saw a dragon. I was four years old when I first learned to be silent about dragons. Perhaps this is how we learn silence—an absence of words, an absence of context, a hole in the universe where the truth should be.