Hydrogen Bubbles
by Emily Jo Scalzo
They hold an MFA in fiction from California State University-Fresno. Their work has appeared in various magazines including Midwestern Gothic, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Blue Collar Review, New Verse News, Halfway Down the Stairs, and others. Their first chapbook, The Politics of Division (2017), was awarded honorable mention in the Eric Hoffer Book Awards in 2018.
It started on the day of my big math exam, following a night of feverish study after work. I splurged to grab lunch from the student union after the exam and before Chemistry 101, and the sleepy full feeling coupled in deadly marriage with my exhaustion; I wanted to crawl out of my seat, spread out on the lecture hall aisle floor, and nap through class with the hope I would somehow learn through osmosis. Instead, I used every trick in the book to stay conscious, from copious note-taking to pinching myself.
Professor McPhallen had a tendency to stop the lecture five or ten minutes early so he could demonstrate a chemical reaction. Today he was setting fire to hydrogen-filled bubbles, which amused or terrified different students depending on how close they were sitting—and whether or not they were actually awake.
I had witnessed this experiment with glee several times in high school chemistry, but now I just stared with fatigue-driven disinterest.
Of course, that was until the dragon emerged from the hydrogen-fueled flames of a particularly large bubble, jolting me quickly to full attention. The creature was two to three feet long, bright orange with blue markings, as though it had been made from the flames it’d emerged from. It soared over our heads in the lecture hall for several minutes before perching on the light above the chalkboard and eying the class.
The bubbles continued to pop in fiery brilliance, and the professor continued to explain the experiment, but I barely noticed. Instead I glanced around the class, only to find no one was reacting to the presence of the dragon. How that was possible, how they hadn’t seen the dragon emerge and loop over us, was beyond me, but somehow despite an orange and blue dragon sitting right in front of over four hundred people, no one was pointing or gaping at it. There was no pandemonium.
My eyes were drawn back to the dragon, which seemed to be studying the class. It was different than I had imagined a dragon might look, with four clawed limbs and separate wings sprouting from its back. Somehow I had imagined dragons as similar to bats, with their forearms doubling as wings. I froze as it fixed its gaze on me. We stared at each other until a student walked in front of me and broke the connection, class having ended while I was transfixed. When I glanced above the chalkboard again, it was gone.
I chalked it up to a lack of sleep and filed out of the hall with my classmates, feeling like an idiot for buying into what must have been a hallucination. I hadn’t been getting enough sleep since my roommate had skipped out and left me to pay all the rent and utilities for our two-bedroom apartment. She was supposed to be my best friend, but less than a month into our first semester of college she’d moved in with a new boyfriend, and I hadn’t heard from her since. The complex manager didn’t care, just said I was responsible, so I’d been catching double-shifts for weeks to make ends meet and avoid accruing student loans, coming home exhausted and with waitress-weary feet. I had to keep my grades up, too, to retain my scholarship, the only reason I was able to go to college in the first place—foster kids didn’t usually have many options. I barely interacted with anyone outside of work as a result; I wasn’t exactly an extrovert, but I was starting to feel withdrawn from the world.
The rest of the day and the entire weekend passed hallucination-free, though busy. I spent the weekend grabbing as many double-shifts as I could between doing homework and readings for my classes. My tips enabled me to put gas in my car that might last me a couple weeks. I had almost completely forgotten about the incident before the next lecture Monday afternoon.
The memory came surging back as I entered the lecture hall to see the dragon soaring above our heads again. I stood in the aisle staring at it until someone bumped into me, reminding me that class was about to start. I took my seat and hesitantly peeked up again, hoping the dragon had just been my imagination playing tricks on me as punishment for lack of sleep, but it was still flying around.
As Professor McPhallen entered, the dragon settled on the light above the chalkboard again, and I tried to turn my attention to the lecture as it began. However, the dragon was staring straight at me, and I found my attention pulled to the electric-purple eyes that were set in its angular head. When I made eye contact, it snorted, sending a small cloud of smoke billowing up toward the ceiling. I was half-afraid it would set off the fire alarm, but the smoke dissipated before reaching the detector.
I reminded myself that the dragon had to be a figment of my imagination and couldn’t possibly set off the alarm, and turned back to the lecture, trying to keep my eyes on the professor, trying not to allow my eyes to wander above the chalkboard.
I could feel the little dragon’s unwavering and unnerving gaze for the rest of the hour, and my eyes were continually drawn to the little creature. Each time I noticed something different: the little ridge around the crown of its head, the single tiny dark orange horn that curved backward from its forehead, the blue frill along its spine. I wound up having to text Dave, my lab partner, to ask for his notes.
u ok clara?
headache hard 2 pay attention
check ur email
The recurring hallucination bothered me, but my chemistry lecture was only three days a week, and at least my mind wouldn’t have an excuse to play tricks on me for another couple days. I pushed concerns from my mind to focus on my job, serving the dinner rush and managing to make a decent amount in tips. It was midnight by the time I got home, and I had to stay up to study for my first class until 2am.
Early the next morning on my way to my computer programming class, while I was enjoying the way the early autumn heat mixed with the scent of impending winter, an orange-blue blur swooped down in front of me, shocking me so badly that I stumbled into another student and nearly knocked them over. Shaken, I apologized and hurried to class, not looking up for fear I would see the dragon.
I needed to start getting more sleep. Even if dragons were real, they certainly wouldn’t randomly show up on a college campus in Indiana, of all places.
But when I reached class, it was already there, perched on a computer monitor. It let out a tiny puff of smoke when it noticed me, and I skirted around it to sit as far away as possible. To no avail—the dragon moved to sit atop my monitor as soon as I sat down, spreading its wings to balance itself until it found a comfortable perch. I couldn’t help but notice, with it so close, the delicate, scaly orange and blue membrane that made up the dragon’s wings.
I tried to ignore it and concentrate on the coding assignment, hoping no one noticed me crane my neck to look around nothing at the board.
Three different days had me starting to question my assumption that this was a figment of my imagination, an exhaustion-induced hallucination. On the one hand, it had to be, because dragons aren’t real, and because no one else seemed to be able to see it. On the other hand, the dragon was too persistent a hallucination to not be real.
I wasn’t quite ready to admit I might be losing my grasp on reality.
I concentrated on coding, since the assignment we were given was complex, and the dragon had evidently decided not to bother me. At the end of class, I saved my work, logged out of my account, and left the room, not looking back at the creature.
I hoped it wouldn’t appear or follow me, and was relieved when nothing happened on my way to the library, where I needed to finish an assignment for Spanish. The dragon wasn’t in the library, so I was able to get my mind into Spanish mode and complete a short essay. With two hours between my classes, I even had time to read the chemistry notes and get my math homework done in advance, which would maybe let me get to bed a bit earlier.
When I arrived at class, though, the dragon was on the overhead projector, like it was waiting for me. Like it knew my schedule. The moment I sat down, it glided over and situated itself on my desk. I took out my notebook, using the bit of desk it wasn’t on and trying to ignore it and avoid touching it. Touching it would make it real, and logic told me it couldn’t be.
The dragon had distinct markings, orange with a blue that lightened and darkened almost marbled through its scales. The blue frill that ran down its spine looked as delicate as feathers and accented the blue in the scales. I wondered briefly if the dragon was male or female, then shook my head at myself for wondering such a ridiculous thing about a figment of my imagination.
The dragon stretched out until it hogged the desk, and to avoid touching it I was forced to move my notebook to my lap to take notes, earning an odd look from the girl next to me. The dragon seemed content to survey the classroom, then curled up on the desk and took a nap, releasing a steady tendril of smoke from its nostrils. When the professor asked me a question, the dragon chose that moment to let out a yawn that made it breathe out a tiny bit of flame. I was barely able to stammer a halfway-coherent answer, Spanish suddenly completely foreign to me, even though I’d taken three years in high school.
The end of class was a relief—Tuesdays and Thursdays ended by noon, and I could hopefully catch a nap and rid myself of the hallucinations before work.
As I left the room, a weight settled on my shoulder. When I turned my head, expecting a student or maybe the professor, I discovered the dragon was perched on my shoulder. Moreover, I felt the weight of it on my shoulder, which certainly wasn’t normal for a hallucination. I tried to shake it off, but its claws clung to my shirt and people began to stare. I stopped trying to dislodge it and headed home, hoping it would go away on its own.
But it was still there when I reached my apartment building, despite the fact that I’d ‘accidentally’ bumped my shoulder on everything possible on my way home. Only when I entered my apartment did the dragon take off from my shoulder, settling on the back of the ratty couch I’d seen a neighbor putting by the dumpster last month.
I retreated to the kitchen and rummaged in my cabinets, looking for something to fix for lunch. There wasn’t much left; I desperately needed to go shopping when my next paycheck came in. I just hoped it would be enough to cover the electric bill and groceries. Pretty much all I had left was stale bread, peanut butter, ramen, eggs, a tiny bit of milk, and a few pickles. I’d been subsiding on ramen for the past several days, so I decided to treat myself to the rest of the eggs and milk before they went bad.
I cooked myself a plate of scrambled eggs and poured the remaining milk into a glass, then sat at the table to eat. The dragon abruptly launched itself from the couch, skittering uncertainly on the edge of the table before catching itself. It slid across the slick wood surface to the plate and sniffed at the contents briefly before helping itself to a bite of egg.
I moved the plate away. The egg had actually disappeared into the dragon, again challenging my insistence that it was a hallucination. The dragon hissed and clawed its way closer to take another bite, prompting me to move the plate against my chest. I shoveled egg into my mouth, eying the creature. The dragon stared at me for a moment, then moved closer and tried to stretch out to reach more, but I blocked the move with my arm. It stayed there, neck stretched, begging.
Disturbingly, I could smell it, the scent of snakeskin and burnt matches, light and barely tickling my nose.
When the dragon moved away, it was a relief. It gingerly moved to the glass of milk, sticking its small snout inside and drinking. Before I could react and grab the glass away, it tipped and spilled the contents over the table and my lap. The dragon hissed and moved out of the puddle of liquid, shaking the milk off its claws like a cat might, then lapped at the milk on the table.
I was frozen—the milk, unless the dragon was real, had tipped over by itself. And the idea that the dragon could be real struck me as insane. I shook my head—I must have jostled the table. It had to be the fatigue, so I got up and left the mess at the table, called in sick to work, and headed to my bedroom. I obviously needed a small break. It was barely noon, but hopefully getting sufficient rest would cure me of my hallucinations.
I woke to the light of the setting sun streaming through the blinds, nearly six hours later, feeling better than I had in a long time. I was well-rested and clear-headed, at least. I could still do my chemistry and English homework, and then get a regular night’s sleep on top of the ‘nap’ and catch an extra shift at work later in the week. Everything would be fine.
I stretched, and my foot hit something unyielding on my covers. I glanced down to find the dragon curled at the foot of my bed, sleeping quietly. More than that, it sleeping atop a bed of coins—certainly not mine, since I was broke.
I stared at the creature for a while. This dragon couldn’t actually exist, and apparently only I could see it. Logically, that and the fact that I believed I could touch and smell it meant I had to have lost my grasp on reality. I didn’t feel crazy, though. Nothing else about the world had changed.
The dragon stretched and yawned, looking like a weird cat. It glanced at me with sleepy purple eyes before turning and nibbling at its wing. Hesitantly, I reached out to initiate contact for the first time, flinching back slightly as my hand encountered the scaly creature, its body solid and real. I ran my hand along its side, surprised at the warmth and softness of the scales, the texture of the scales like tiny ridges tickling my fingers. The dragon pushed its head against my hand, insistent that I scratch around its horn, then let out a contented trilling noise and blew out a tiny puff of smoke when I did.
I reached with my other hand and took a coin experimentally—dragons were supposed to be protective of their hoards, after all. It rose and stretched again, then pushed more of the coins toward me with its claws. Just at a glance, it was enough for a few groceries, some food to last us through the week.
I sighed, resigned and a little elated, and a little hopeful for the first time in some months.
“I really hope you’re housebroken.”
© Hydrogen Bubbles by Emily Jo Scalzo. 2023. All rights reserved.
