If you're wearing slippers....

Liz and I were walking to the Union one night, and Liz had, for purely aesthetic reasons, neglected to put shoes on. She wore slippers instead. They're quite nice slippers, red and purple polka dotted fuzzy ones. She kept sort of shuffle-running, a result, so we guessed, of our mad dash across the road to avoid crazy college drivers. Liz just... hadn't stopped. And, as I kept laughing uncontrollably, she said, "I feel like if you're wearing slippers you should be running from something."

This, as you can well imagine, was an incredibly inspiring statement, which caused me to write the slightly insane bit of fiction I'm posting below. I could talk about the wonderful book of poetry I got yesterday, or the class of '45 alumni reunion, or sitting out in the sun, the dusk, and the downright dark with Liz and Lucy tonight, or even about my green apple Jones' soda, but instead you're getting fiction. Don't you feel lucky? Aww.... don't cry honey... it's not that scary....

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“I knew I shouldn’t have worn my slippers to the cafeteria,” Liz thought to herself. “I feel like if you’re wearing slippers you should be running from something.”

“Something,” in Liz’s case, happened to be a dragon. The school still had occasional problems with them, despite the janitorial wards. They were mostly harmless once they’d reached the age of four and had fully developed brains, but they made a mess, and the janitors objected. Still, every now and then a young one whose pain receptors weren’t fully developed would stumble onto the grounds and run amuck. No one understood why dragons’ brains took four years to finish developing after they were born, but what the science professors called “a fascinating phenomenon” managed to cause a lot of problems at the school.

Of course this dragon had chosen to interrupt breakfast, to Liz’s mind the only decent meal of the day, and overturn the yogurt bar, her favorite part of the meal. This, combined with the fact that it decided to fix on her as the yummiest target, put Liz in a very bad mood.

She kept running, cursing her pink and purple spotted slippers, so soft and comfortable at breakfast this morning, but so hard to run in. At least she’d worn her pajamas with her slippers, so she didn’t have those awkward robes to run in. The administration sternly discouraged students from wearing street clothes on campus, but who wants to wear academic robes all the time? Not Liz, that’s for sure. It wasn’t so much that she liked being a nonconformist - it was just easier to break the rules.

A growl behind her made Liz’s heart nearly stop, and she lamented to herself, “Why couldn’t it be one of the adventure or hero majors who got chased? They’re trained for this sort of thing!”

A branch hit her in the face and she nearly ran into a tree stump, but she managed to right herself in time and keep going toward the emergency cave. No one knew why they’d built it so far from the commons, but if you weren’t a very fast runner, the three hundred yards could very well kill you. Dragons averaged about 7 feet tall at maturity, and they covered ground fast. Even a young one could catch you, and could easily rip off an arm or leg. Or head.

“Don’t think about it,” she told herself, as her mind involuntarily supplied a picture of a gory severed head, then started mentally wailing again. “I’m just a music major! What’m I supposed to do, sing it away?!”

Suddenly Liz saw the opening she was looking for and slid inside, backing well away from the entrance. She hit the emergency gong (which would supposedly set in motion a chain of rescue, the exact mechanics of which no one had ever bothered to explain to the student body), and waited anxiously. After ten minutes or so she’d caught her breath, and was beginning to wonder if she should ring the gong again, or at least start working out in the near future - after all, you never knew when dragons would show up, and dragons had an uncomfortable habit of chasing the same people again and again. No one knew how they could tell if you’d been chased before, but they seemed to have an uncanny instinct for repeat victims.

For a long time she heard nothing but crashes and scrapings outside the cave. Then, finally, after she’d resigned herself to missing all her classes and being on the bad side of Professor Sekwa again, she heard voices. “Hey up Hey ya Move along there ” Mercifully soon after these absurd yells began, a janitor, clad in the traditional purple trousers of the profession, poked his head inside and indicated that she could come out. “Funny bunch, janitors,” thought Liz, somewhat ungratefully.

As Liz poked her head cautiously out of the cave, she saw a jumble of colors which made no sense to her beleaguered brain. As the scene continued to move, though, the scene righted itself before her eyes. A stand of trees just blossoming, whose beauty Liz had entirely failed to take in during her flight, several downed trees, the work of the dragon no doubt, and the backside of a dragon itself, ridden by the backside of a tall blue person - an elf, Liz realized - surrounded by a squad of purple-uniformed janitors, helping keep the dragon pointed off-campus.

“Where did they get an elf I wonder?” Liz wondered, as she tried to decide what color the dragon was, and how they managed to keep it from turning around and biting their heads off. Everyone knew elves were magical and rode dragons, but usually they avoided those with unformed brains. Even elves got injured when immature dragons made an appearance.

The dragon, Liz decided, was the color of mist. A unique color, even for a dragon. They all ranged close to white, but she’d never seen one of such fluctuating and indeterminate shade.
It fluctuated been grey and pure white - dark grey one minute, the next its scales glittered like an imperfect opal. The elf, as if sensing her confusion, turned back to give her a superior look. His skin had a blue cast to it, or perhaps, Liz decided as she looked longer, it was just a deeper shade of dusk than the dragon’s scales. His eyes were darker yet, a clear, deep grey, shielding an unfathomable mind. An unfathomable mind that was clearly laughing at her, or at something just behind her. Liz turned and saw the Dean of the School of Music approaching.

“Stuffed shirt,” she thought irreverently, wondering how soon he’d have a coronary. His complexion was, without doubt, the reddest she’d ever seen.

“That’ll be a fine for wearing street clothes,” he barked at her on his way to speak with the head janitor. “You’ll receive a notice in your mailbox within two days.”

“So much for being concerned about my welfare,” Liz muttered discontentedly to herself as she walked back toward the commons, kicking dispiritedly at the ill-fated stump which had nearly tripped her. “No yogurt, too much exercise, a fine, and late to Sekwa’s class. Can this day get any better?”

Immediately she regretted it, as the sky began to pour down rain. Within minutes she was soaked, and went squelching to her dorm room, complaining with a vengeance, “I knew I shouldn’t have worn slippers this morning.”

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Caveat Emptor: Liz is not lazy, ungrateful, unobservant, or a music major. She is, however, wittily irreverent. Messiah does not have trouble with dragons, an adventure major, or a hero major. There are no elves here either. No janitor in my knowledge wears purple overalls.