Rumble

It was a gentle rumble, one Modi had heard so many times over the years he’d been at the monastery. He rolled over in bed, stretched, then got up.

The state-run radio was playing in the background, the announcer’s guest saying, “There are no such things as real dragons. They are imaginary, and therefore not to be feared.”

The hot air balloon would soon arrive and he’d have visitors for the rest of the morning. The sound grew louder as he walked out onto the terrace of the building that sat high in the rocky crag of a mountain.

He could see clear to the horizon, where the sun would later set. But Modi would not see it that evening, as he fell prey to a dragon’s rumbling stomach.

“Interesting,” he thought, as the beast swallowed him, “that a hot air balloon’s real burners should sound like an imaginary dragon.”