The Obstructive Bridge

STEVEN CONTINUED on his journey in the morning with a light heart, a ridiculous hat, and sore feet that were slowing his normal walking pace. He changed socks in the morning, washed out his first pair, and hung them from his pack to dry. He discovered that he had blisters from the previous day and they made walking painful.

He had traveled only 11,256 steps that day when the blisters got the better of him and he was forced to make camp to tend to his feet. He used a pinch of the wise woman’s herbs on them, ate a meal of dried snake, and went to sleep, dreaming of the home that was now 30,510 steps behind him. He had been unable to walk along the edge of the river because of unpredictable marshes and terrain, but he had managed to keep it in view periodically through the day and was confident that he was still taking the only possible course to the dragon. He only hoped that he would reach a crossing before he encountered another tributary which, like the one downstream from his home, would lead him away from, rather than toward his destination.

The next day his feet were better and he was able to make more progress. He came to a small brook, but a tree had fallen across the water and he was able to scramble along its trunk far enough that he could leap to the opposite bank from its limbs. Now, if only there were a tree large enough to fall across the big river, Steven might manage to cross over on its limbs. This thought kept him occupied through the night and the next day.

On the fifth day of his journey, the lowering sun shone in Steven’s eyes as he crested a small rise. 86,201, 86,202. Suddenly, he saw before him the dragon. It prowled, huge and lumbering, and as it moved it used its little hands to pop round creatures from the ground up into its gaping maw. Steven was horrified.

He strung his bow and nocked an arrow. Steven approached slowly this time, not wanting to repeat his fiasco of the first day. He wanted a closer look at this strange creature.

“Ho, Dragon!” called Steven as he approached more closely with his bow at the ready. “Stand and meet your fate for today you have met the dragonslayer.”

The dragon looked up, and then did a most remarkable thing. It stepped out of itself. Steven stared aghast as a man stepped forward.

“What do you want, stranger?” yelled the man. “Why do you come armed into my garden?”

“I’ve come to save you from the dragon that was intent on devouring you,” called back Steven looking at the rest of the dragon the man had left behind. The dragon was beginning to look more and more like a large basket.

“There’s no dragon here,” called the farmer.

Steven relaxed his grip on the bow and removed the arrow. He approached the farmer shyly and returned his offered greeting. Steven squinted his eyes at the basket, but he could no longer get it to look like the monster he had first taken it for. It was just a big basket that the farmer dragged along on his back while picking melons.

Steven told the melon farmer that he was on a quest to slay the dragon that harried his village, but confessed that he had never actually seen a dragon and mistook the farmer and his basket for the foe. The farmer got a good laugh out of this. Since Steven was there, and it was the peak of melon harvest, and it appeared he was capable of carrying a great deal on his back, the melon farmer convinced Steven to help him pick melons which amounted to Steven dragging the huge basket while the farmer placed the precious melons into it.

When evening descended and Steven had walked another 5,768 steps in service of the melons, he sat with the farmer in the evening light looking out at the river.

Suddenly Steven leapt to his feet and pointed across the river.

“The dragon!” Steven exclaimed. “I can see the smoke from his fiery breath.” This set the melon farmer off on another fit of laughter at the naiveté of his companion.

“That is not the dragon,” he laughed. “That is the town of Lastford. That is where I take my melons to be traded for the goods I need for the next year.”

“The next year?” asked Steven. “Do you mean you live here, but your village is on the other side of the river?” He began to get very excited. “Then there must be a way to cross the river. Is there a great tree that has fallen across it so we can walk across?”

“A tree? You mean a bridge across the river?” Now the melon farmer sounded both furious and insulted. “This is a ford—a place to wade across the river. Bridges are a great barrier to commerce.”

“I don’t understand,” said Steven.

The melon farmer nodded sagely. “You don’t know much, do you?” he asked. “I tell you what. I’ll tell you about bridges and help you get across the river if you will tell me the story of that very interesting hat you are wearing.”

“You mean you want to once-upon-a-time each other?” asked Steven. If there was one thing that Steven loved more than anything in the world, it was a good once-upon-a-time. If he could trade stories with the melon farmer, his quest would be far more exciting. When he returned home, he would have more stories to tell his village. “I agree. You go first,” Steven said. The melon farmer agreed.

ONCE UPON A TIME, a long time ago and very far away, there lived a melon farmer, like me. One trait of melons is they do not grow well where many people are likely to travel and trample their vines. But it is a trait of people who live together to want melons to eat because they are sweet and moist. So there have been melon farmers from the beginning of time who would live far from the towns and villages to cultivate the melons under favorable conditions, and then transport them to the towns and villages in exchange for the necessities of life.