text: Why do men fear reptiles? Why was the first temptation, seductive and familiar, whispered by a serpent? Why, in ages past, did men slay almighty dragons and claim their ever-fire for his heart? Why do sacred places both welcome draconian angels and banish ground-dwelling snakes, why do we recoil from the bottomlessly black eyes of reptiles? We see monsters, in them. We call the depths of our minds, self-centered and unnervingly aware a *lizard brain*, the control center for motives better served by those mindless, primordial drives. We fear the lizard brain, the cool calculation somewhere far down inside. We dream of dragon power, we fear serpent sin. It is *in* us. Medusa, who could kill with a stare, slipping across ruined marble, her living hair and lengthy body alive with reptilian horror. Men measure infinity itself in a snake eating it’s own tail, fruitless and potent and eternal, all at once, all a reflection of a reflection. Black temples that are artifacts on wonder today were once the almighty centers of worship, their stairways red as sacrifices strove to placate feathered lords with scaly bodies and endless hunger. Tiamat and Typhon, Satan and Quetzalcoatl. Manifestations of beauty, of lust, of regality. Every dragon bearing the same ancient, foundational bones inside. Somewhere in us is the memory of being small, scuttling underfoot from vast lords. Somewhere in us is the terror of the meek and the frail, when the world lived under a saurian banner; indomitable, undeniable. *Terrible lizards*. But they were *oh so much more*. More than we can imagine-- and more than we can fear. Where Men fumble with iron and steel, They were masters with the gene and the mind. Where Mankind only fitfully explores his dreams, They were denizens of the world that bleeds between real and unreal, lords that spun whole fantasies into being in contemplations that would awe our greatest thinkers. Our vaccines, our quaint meddling with the very stuff of life-- They would scoff at. They could make life from anything, into *anything* that they desired. Cities, like mirages, wavered and danced on the horizon until with a thought, they existed. Legions of warriors, perfect and unstoppable, sprang into being from seeds of ultimate-life. They became Gods, more than Gods. Triumph after triumph, mastery upon mastery. Time unwound beneath their vision, space opened and embraced vast expeditions beyond the hissing dark. *Everything opened to them*, until only one undiscovered country remained. The final barrier. The place that stilled all things, stars and masters and time alike. The preparations took eons, and the preparations took seconds. It happened at once, and it happened over long, slow waves. They died. They lived. They *dreamed*. The world was silent, and the ritual took its toll. Drained the world of so much, heavy and deep with immeasurable power. Furry things came up from below to look upon the catastrophe, unaware of its beauty. Unaware of the truth. They came, two by two, many by many, to reclaim and spread. Their march to mind set in a world quietly healing from being undone. Bones sank into an earthly embrace. Men came. And all the while, down his soul, came the memory. Came the faintest touches, the quietest whispers. Slow at first, like the gentlest signs of a season changing. Like first winter frost, easy to miss, to forget, but building all the while. Louder and longer and deeper. Stories and dreams, prophecies; stirred by forgotten gene-songs. The words changed but the meaning remained. The urgency. The truth. The world would be theirs again.