Maxy's Dragon

Maxy, an easy-going peasant, is awakened by louder than usual shrieks of Pummkin's mother. Pummkin, Maxy´s "fiancée," has gone missing and with Maxy´s less than stellar luck, Skag the Sinister, villain of villains, is sure to have taken her. The townsfolk urge Maxy to rescue her (the sooner he goes, the sooner they won't have to) and the usual tug-of-war between his risk-averse brain and his audacious mouth ensues. Unfortunately, his mouth outdoes itself and he is off on what most human brains assiduously avoid: a Heroic Quest that will force him to face who and what he is.

Told as a classic heraldic tale, nothing in Maxy's Dragon is what it seems. Not in a land where the protagonists play against type, and physical journeys become psychological explorations, as fundamental existential questions are laid bare. Reluctant Maxy´s Quest soon becomes a social satire, a philosophical rite of passage and a metaphor for mental health, each chapter illustrating a personal quality necessary to develop it. Throughout, unanticipated allies and inexplicable foes appear and reappear to inspire or to foil him, in particular the aforementioned thirty-foot dragon who is prone to sardonic philosophical ruminations on human nature.

Maxy is immediately faced with the reality of choice, for he must cross the Lost Forest to obtain the aid of the "perfect" Emerald Prince. With a moxie born of desperation, he does so by charging at what he fears, then by choosing the ostensibly impossible, and last by giving up what he thought he could not. Finally asleep by the road in the Prince's realm, he is blasted awake by a dragon and, despite his successes, Maxy freezes. Bemused by this "bravery," the dragon initiates a chat, the first in a series of dialogues vis-à-vis the folly of human nature. Things, the dragon admonishes him, are not what they appear to be.

Finding hope in the face of hopelessness, he presses on only to learn the ensuing deaths were a test, an illusion. Yet had he given up, he truly would have died. In a life-changing moment, Maxy realizes it is his mistaken beliefs that thwart him. True ignorance is the unwillingness to deal with the what-is and the abandoning of the what-might-be.

As the dragon insists on reminding him, the answers are within him but he had to be on a true path to grasp what they are.

What they were for Maxy, they are for us all. If you complete the quest with him, you will learn the dragon was right.