The Dragon in the Parking Lot

    I walked by a dragon this afternoon, a dragon that no one else could see, a dragon no one knew but me. I walk by it twice a day at work, a black line across the pavement, the parking lot crack covered by a soft, dark line. The top of the line gracefully tilts up, just long enough to be a head, while there is a soft shape of his claws underneath that head. I met him early one morning, and he showed me that all the black lines in the parking lot were dragons, though most had their heads buried, or were absent. For the black lines I could see are where they sleep during the winter, something more than shell and less than a cave. I often nod to him during my breaks, taking care not to step on him. After all, he was my first friend of their kind. But by the time I reached halfway around the parking lot today, it startled me to realize that no one else knew about him. Seeing him twice a day, he had become a normal part of my day, something that brought a smile of friendship every time I saw him. He became normal. But walking around the parking lot, I had an instants thought to what another person's reaction would be if they saw me saying hello to the filled in a crack in a parking lot; I would be considered cracked myself. Funny how the extraordinary, if seen every day, became ordinary enough that it took me a moment to understand why someone else would be startled.
    But I saw something else this afternoon, something that stirred a story. Taking care to step over the dragons, I saw running over and around them other shapes, softer, quieter shapes that seemed to have more movement and less substance. I saw in an instant that they were the dragons' playmates, friends that appeared every so often, that were a source of fascination to the dragons, because the shadows were mute and yet like themselves. The dragons loved to play with them, calling them friends as long as they lasted, joyous to see them again everytime the sun was clear enough to cast the shadow of a tree.
   But I remembered Plato's cave, and thought with a smile that here, shadows were not a substitute for reality, but an exhilarating addition. When we have reality, the shadows add wonder and mystery. Shadows, things not real, or not life--literature, art, imaginary friends, dragons in the pavement--are a blessing when they season reality. Who couldn't use a playmate that was like and yet unalike?