Deep in an inky black hole, in the heart of the sacred mountain of Memyselfandi, there lives a large, black, terrifying dragon.  Many years ago, when the mountain town of Memyselfandi was born, a dragon emerged out of the depths of the mountain into to the light.  Neighboring towns were frightened and annoyed by the possible damage the beast might cause, so they made the people of Memyselfandi lock up their dragon, deep, deep, deep in the heart of the mountain.  A lifetime passed and the people of Memyselfandi forgot they even had a dragon locked away.

Memyselfandi was a peaceful place peopled by gentle souls.  The folks there got along well with the neighboring people until a new town sprung up right beside Memyselfandi.  The new town, Negativicity, was full of faster moving, money making, nose up in the air types who began dumping their garbage at the borders of Memyselfandi.

The people of Memyselfandi saw the garbage but thought, ‘Well, anyway, the garbage is outside our boundaries.’  So, not wanting to be critical or unfriendly, they didn’t say, or do, anything about it.

Before long more and more garbage was being dumped at the outskirts of town and sometimes even within the boundaries of Memyselfandi.  This bothered the gentle people so, out of kindness, and with a desire to have a good relationship with the neighboring town, they mentioned the garbage as nicely as they could.  ‘Certainly the people of Negativicity would see their error and correct it,’ the town’s people reasoned with themselves.

Instead of understanding and a friendly working out of things, the people dumping garbage refused to speak to the simple people of Memyselfandi.  Instead, they glared with mean looks and walked away, saying, “That’s your problem.  You fix it.”

More and more garbage piled up inside the gentle people’s town.  “What can we do about this?” they asked themselves.  Every attempt at talking to the people of Negativicity  earned them nasty looks, mean words, and cold shoulders.  The sadness that crept up on the people of Memyselfandi was bitter and painful.  They had a serious problem and didn’t know how to solve it.

One day, the garbage trucks from Negativicity rolled into town and the townsfolk of Memyselfandi ran away from the snorting, rumbling machines.  To the heart of the mountain top they ran, chased all the way by the garbage trucks.  Then, when there was no more place to run to, the garbage trucks began dumping the stinky garbage right on the people of Memyselfandi.  The weight of the garbage crushed the people until the ground gave way and all the citizens of Memyselfandi fell down, down, down into a deep, black hole where the dragon lived.

When they landed on the cage that held the dragon, the cage broke into pieces and the dragon was free.  Up, up, up the dragon flew.  Up through the inky, black, oily hole, carrying the people of Memyselfandi with it.  As they flew up, the people became part of the dragon and the dragon became part of the people, and together they flew all around the mountain of Memyselfandi, breathing fire on all the garbage trucks and garbage of Negativicity until all the garbage was gone.

Everyone was rather shocked at the turn of events, but the gentle people were glad they had released the dragon, and glad the dragon burned up all the garbage that was being thrown all around their beautiful town.

As the days passed, the dragon came out of the mountain to burn up even the littlest of problems.  The opening to the deep, black hole was becoming larger and larger, and it pained the gentle people to have such a frightening beast ready to pop out at any moment.  They went to visit their wisest elder, and explained the situation.

“Have you got a guardian at the opening of the dragon’s hole?” the elder asked.

“No,” they answered.

“You might want to consider that,” the wise one kindly suggested.

“That’s an interesting idea,” the townspeople said.  They considered the idea and liked it.  “Who shall we have be the guardian?” they asked themselves.  They all knew at once who the guardian would be.  The most loving, powerful, smart person in the town.  This person was as full of white light as the dragon was full of blackness.  The white guardian loved the dragon and the dragon trusted the guardian.  The guardian watched over the town and the dragon, and took care of the little things and calmed the dragon so the town’s people and the people of the neighboring towns would not have to encounter the dragon unless it was absolutely necessary.

Knowing the dragon existed changed the people of the town.  They were still kind and gentle, as they were before, but they were no longer as timid or afraid.  They no longer felt hopeless or helpless.  They became happier and more confident because they learned how to protect their boundaries, so the dragon wouldn’t have to.