It is an early Sunday morning when the sun peeks over the horizon. A skinny young lizard named Monte stretches and pokes his head out of his cave. The crawl chompers, big ugly birds with pointy teeth, were already out hunting; therefore, Monte decided to wait in his cave until they eventually caught something to eat. When the crawl chompers left, Monte decided to go visit his big brother, Lamu, who is usually hiding underground in his secret tunnel. When the big brother lizard spots his little sibling, he runs over to him and pulls Monte inside the tunnel faster than a miche, a smaller version of a mouse, could eat a seed from a chanka, which is a really smelly vegetable. Once the brothers reach the main room of the tunnel, Lamu gets Monte a rock to rest his tail on. “Brother, have you lost it? You can’t just stand outside for four minutes straight waiting for me to answer through the rock and let you in. Knock, you silly reptile!” “Sorry brother, I just wanted to see you”, Monte confesses. Lamu’s face brightens. “Oh”, he says, “well perhaps you should move in or something. I can’t have you eaten or clawed to death by a vicious predator on your way to see me. Just move in with me, brother.” Monte shakes his head, “No brother, I can’t leave my own territory just because I am fearful of crossing paths with a crawl chomper while heading to your overly built tunnel. I would look like a wimpy lizard if I did that”. “Brother, we are lizards” shouted Lamu. “We are supposed to hide and be afraid of everything. It’s how we are meant to live!” Monte yells back, “but what if I’m not willing to live like every other lizard on this planet? I’m tired of this banal life” Lamu responds sadly, “Then you will die, Monte. You will die.” Monte shakes his head in frustration and runs out of the room and out of the tunnel.

While he is walking back to his territory, Monte spots a tree with a hole carved through it. He decides to check it out and finds an old wizard owl sitting on a tree branch growing inside the hole. “What you doing boy? If you are here for advice on how to solve life’s problems, I’m going to have to escort you out of my tree hole”. Monte shakes his head, “No, Mr. Owl”. The wizard interrupts, “My name is Ponke, not Mr. Owl”, he says grumpily. “Oh, my mistake Ponke, but may I ask why do you have a cauldron?” Ponke’s eyes widen. “Well, I must say that I have a history of creating potions that solve the problems of many.” Monte ponders this new information. “So you have the ability to help me with my problem?” he asked. Ponke chuckled and responded by saying, “The results may not be benign. If you are willing to change form or be turned into a rock or get poisoned, then yes”. Monte freezes in his tracks. “Actually, I might be willing to change form”, he responds. Ponke shakes his head and says, “Trust me boy, it’s not worth it. Live life happily with what you have.” “Please sir”, Monte replied, “All I’m asking for is a potion that will make me the antithesis of what I currently am. I want to be strong, giant, and free from being attacked by any predators; please, Ponke, help me!” The owl pauses for a moment. “Um, alright fine, but I have to warn you. No creature lives a perfect life. The bigger you become, the more easily it is to spot you”. “Yes sir, thank you! Don’t worry, it won’t matter if I’m spotted. I’ll be too big to be dealt with by predators. Not one creature will want a piece of me.” Ponke collects his thoughts for a moment and responds to Monte by saying, “Be careful, my friend. Don’t let your size encourage you to do anything dangerous, and don’t underestimate “the beings”.

 Monte was so excited to get his wish granted, he hadn’t thought about what Ponke meant by the word “beings”. The young and careless lizard insisted the wizard give him what he was requesting. Ponke grabs the potion, and throws it on Monte. As his body starts to grow, Monte’s scales start getting larger and larger. His tail stretches out longer while his sides start to grow wings. Monte is thrilled about his new body. He turns around to thank the wizard but realizes the tree has disappeared. Monte shrugs, flaps his wings, and ascended into the sky. “The sky is so beautiful! I could stay up here forever!” He was so excited that he didn’t see that there was a net flying towards him. “Ahhh!” Monte yelled in surprise. He tried to break free while he was falling but it was no use. His wings got caught in the net and could not tear the ropes apart. Just as Monte was about to reach the ground, he felt fire come out of his mouth and burn the ropes. When he finally broke free, Monte spotted a “being” below him holding a net launcher. It was Raka, the dragon hunter. Just as Raka was about to launch another net towards him, Monte shot a fireball his way. Normally Raka would have used his shield, but since he had his launcher in his hand, he wasn’t quick enough to dodge the fireball. The old hunter fell to his knees as he burned to death.

When Monte realized what he had done, he felt remorseful and like he was a monster. He had always been the one being hunted and now he become more than a hunter, he had become a murderer. Monte knew he could not live in the form of the creature that killed a man. Monte flew far away into the sky, past the clouds. Some say he flew into the sun; others say he flew back to Ponke, the wizard owl, and changed back to his original form. Legend has it that his great grandsons roam the earth today sharing Monte’s story about the dragon’s wish to all creatures around the world reminding them that not one creature lives a perfect life, but we should choose to live life happily with what we’ve been given.