Day 123: The Roundest Object in the World

The Roundest Object in the World
by
Matt Zurbo

Dragons are special and rare. It takes a miracle for one to be born.
(Image of the sky, nothing in it except a cloud or two.)

Amie didn’t know this when she set out to find the roundest object in the world.

She wasn’t even sure why. Other kids loved sport, drawing. Colours.

They liked to dream of flying.

Amie wanted to find something perfectly round.

The letter ‘O’ was round.
A person’s mouth was round wen they said it. Especially in breathless wonder: “Oh…”

Like when looking at a full moon, which was also round.

Dingos’ mouths were round when they howled.

Bubbles were wobbly and round. They carried rainbows, bowed views of the world.

Tractor wheels were round as they ploughed the soil.

But none of them were perfectly round.

Word soon spread about Amie’s search. Some people called her mad. Others brought her soccer balls, teardrops, the heart of a daisy after he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not, the spinning of a coin…

Then a magician came, walking along the earth’s round curve.

“This is mine, but all good things to needed homes,” she said.
And for the price of three years of Amie’s life, gave her a magnificent, round emerald.

THe jewel felt smooth beyond words.
“Oh, it’s beautiful,” Amie gasped. 

When Amie held it, she noticed a crowd gathering around her.

Like they did around performers, fights,
campfires,
people of song.

She became aware of the way the town surrounded them, that the bush surrounded the town. How ocean surrounded them all,

the weather circled above.

The wind, it spiralled.

The clouds billowed and turned.

And a traveling music troupe, oh, Amie saw, and heard, some played guitars, some played drums, flute, each instrument, where the sound came out, round.

Songs that looped.

Sweet, flowing round sounds.

And people, oh, people danced.

Baby, mother and grandmother, circles of life. Perfectly imperfect.

Bullies and the bullied. Circular stories, as old as time.

And, as the Earth span and sun rose and people laughed and talked and danced, dragons, from mythology, history, from hushed midnight tales, flew in a ring around them, watching what they watched,

seeing what they saw;

Amie’s emerald crack, splinter, and fall away from the baby dragon inside.

The dragon let out a baby’s cry, burped, and tried to fly, circling to the right, every part of it following itself, except its left eye, still, in the middle of it all.

Watching,
(Close up of baby dragon’s eye.)

faultless,
(Dragons hovering, turning, just above Amie’s still outstretched hand.)
perfect.

A thing of imagination.
(Baby dragon flying off.)

The most perfectly round object in the world.
(Crowd back to normal, shuffling about, seeing stuff, kids running. Amie in the middle of them, looking to the sky.)

 

The End
(Image of the sky, nothing in it except a cloud or two.)