My Social Media-less Life

I needed an outlet for my overactive brain. This story started out based on a true story, but it’s definitely fictionalized.

There I was, minding my own business, when a friend walked up to me in my shop one day and said, “I found the cutest thing and I think you’ll like it a lot!”

So I followed her back to this spot where there were these snakelike things on the ground, in what looked like a hastily-dug hole.

“What are those?” I asked, warily.
“Dragons!” She exclaimed. “There are only these two… I bet they were left behind by their mom. A lady was selling them for basically nothing and I thought to myself, who better to take the second one than my good friend, Erica?”

I didn’t know how to argue with that logic. I had never had a dragon before, much less seen one in real life.

“How old are they? What do they eat?” Suddenly I was thinking about all the things I would need to do to keep this dragon alive.
My friend just laughed. “Dragons are pretty self-contained, I think. They’re mostly like cats.”
“Except they shoot fire out of their mouths! Cats might wish they can do that, but you and I both know, they do not.”
“Well, I’m sure we’ll figure something out. The lady said, these ones probably won’t get much bigger than this.”

Until this point, the dragons had not moved, but as my friend reached down to grab one, it moved. I jumped back in surprise as she turned around, holding the red one.

“I’ll keep the green one,” she said. “Green is my favorite color, after all. Besides, I think this one likes you better. He hasn’t taken his eyes off you since you walked over!” She continued to hold the little red dragon toward me, but I didn’t make a move.

“I’m not really sure about this,” I said as I finally looked at the dragon and realized… he had been looking at me the entire time. I just didn’t realize his yellow eyes were… eyes.

The way his body shimmered, what I had been looking at this whole time were his eyes and his head. But now, I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. Slowly, I reached out my arms and just as slowly, as if he was making up his mind about me, he made the transfer from my friend to me.

He was about the size of my forearm, but very sinewy. His black wings matched the black horns on his head and the black spikes running down his body. I was glad he probably wouldn’t be getting much bigger. I don’t know that I could have an animal much larger than a Great Dane in the house I lived. His claws were sharp, but he was never harsh to my arm. Instantly, I felt a bond with him.

Just as I was beginning to warm up to the idea a “pet” dragon, my friend brought me out of my reverie.

“Welp, I suppose I should take my dragon and continue on my way.” And she picked up her dragon as if she had already made a bond with the creature and walked off, suddenly leaving me alone with this large lizard-like being that I had only met two minutes ago.

I looked down at him and he looked back at me as if to say, “Well, what are you waiting for? Let’s get going!”

And away we went.

I returned to my shop, with my new, as-yet-unnamed friend on my shoulder. He got a lot of compliments over the next few hours, and I could tell he reveled in every one of them. It helped lift my spirits, I noticed, to have this small dragon with me while I worked.

Finally, one customer asked me, “What’s his name?”
“I don’t know,” I answered sadly. “Nothing has come to me yet.”
“How about Hot Cheeto?”

I looked at my dragon for a long moment and tried the name out. “Hot Cheeto. Hmm. Never would have thought of that… I like it. Thank you!”
The customer simply nodded, satisfied with their work and moved on with their day as if they didn’t just make my life that much easier.

Later on, my friend returned to the shop. “What did you name him?”
“I didn’t. A customer did. They named him Hot Cheeto. And since nothing else has come to mind, that’s what I’m going to call him.”

And then I felt Hot Cheeto purr on my shoulder, and I knew I had picked wisely.