'Dragonbeasts' by Alexandra Otto

Jonah vaults his toy monster truck across the cracked leather backseat. “Watch Dragonbeast’s wheelie, Mama!” 

WHEN he twirls the truck, the dragon wings extending from its cab almost fly. JONAH’S always talking and talking about ignitions, suspensions, and tires. It’s his addiction. I claw at a bottomless itch on my cheek as I search for parking. 

I pull into an abandoned strip mall lot and turn off the car. We’ll fall ASLEEP here. Quarter tank of gas. Enough to drive to the Willow Residential Center tomorrow. Already the cravings are slipping away, I tell myself. I NEED to bundle Jonah’s clothes into A makeshift pillow, but he’s not ready for sleep. Jonah’s racing his truck as I hold him. He can’t stop. He’s powerful. He’s HIT his stride, he’s a tornado, he’s a god. The Dragonbeast tamer. 

“VROOM! Across your racetrack!” He pushes his truck up the trail of collapsed veins on my right arm. Some things don’t slip away. The needle scars, the indentation on my finger from my pawned-off wedding ring, the power TO reach up and grab stars, the way I could FEEL music bleed from my stereo, as if it were as ALIVE like me, the bare hospital lightbulb blinding me like an eclipse when Jonah opened my eyelids after my overdose.

We rock back and forth as ONE, resisting the LAST cravings that try to slip into our heart-shadows this TIME, hiding in plain sight. 

I too can tame beasts. 

---

Alexandra Otto writes stories and short screenplays. She's working on a feature screenplay and a novel. When Alex isn't writing or teaching, she is outsmarting the largest bears in the world in Southcentral Alaska. Follow her at @alexottowrites on Twitter or Bluesky.