It was a crisp morning in the village of Merewood when Old Jason Weaver was found burned to death in the meadow behind his apothecary shop. His body was badly burned, and the grass around him was scorched in a perfect circle.
Detective Charles Elderberry arrived on the scene shortly after the night watchman raised the alarm. A long-time civil servant with an over-polished badge and a thick book of improbable theories, Charles surveyed the scene.
“This was clearly the work of a dragon,” he spouted, pointing to the smoldering ground.
The villagers blinked.
“A dragon?” asked Ella McDonahue, the blacksmith’s wife. “We haven’t seen a dragon around here in… well, ever.”
“Exactly,” said Charles, tapping his temple. “That’s what makes it so clever. An invisible dragon.”
Within an hour, Charles set up a perimeter and drafted a report. He theorized that the dragon swooped down in the middle of the night, incinerated Jason, and vanished into the clouds
Borris the baker said, “There’s no sign of wings, or tracks, or… anything. Wouldn’t a dragon leave something behind?”
“Not if it’s a clever one,” Charles replied. “This one clearly has windless flight and targeted flame projection. Look at that burn radius. Circular, precise, no collateral damage. Classic dragon.”
Dr. Johnson, the village physician, arrived next with a far less mythical option. “Thomas has been fiddling with homemade distilling equipment. I told him it was dangerous. There’s a ruptured copper still and shattered glass in his shed. More likely, he caused the fire himself.”
“A likely story!” exclaimed Charles. “That’s exactly what the dragon wants us to think.”
Over the next several days, evidence continued to pile up, none of it matching Charles' theory. A group of children found scorch marks leading back to Jason’s shed, along with a broken pressure gauge. Villager after villager brought forward pieces of the puzzle: burned wiring, fire-blackened tools, the singed remains of Charles’ notebook with the words “test batch too volatile?” scrawled inside.
But Charles was unfazed as he answered, “You’re all looking at evidence. But evidence can lie. The truth is in the theory. He drew pictures on the chalkboard in the tavern. “Note the circular scorch pattern, too clean for an accident. Only something hovering like a dragon could burn like that.”
“Or the sill exploded in a flash fire while he was holding the ignition wand,” muttered Dr. Johnson.
Charles said, “The wand is missing. Perhaps it was taken by the dragon as a trophy.”
“We found it this morning,” said Borris. “It was lodged in the hedge near the shed.
“Planted,” Charles whispered. “To throw us off the trail.”
The town magistrate stepped up and said, “Charles, we appreciate your… creativity. But the evidence points to a tragic accident.”
“But the dragon theory explains so much more!” Charles cried. “We never saw it because it is invisible. We never hear it because its wings are silent. We never found a trace because it burns its own footprints!”
“Or,” said Ella, “it’s because there is no dragon.”
The villagers quietly held a memorial for Jason, then returned to their lives. The scorched meadow was reseeded. Dr. Johnson built a safer still for the town apothecary. Children played in the fields again.
But Charles kept searching the skies, sketching flight path maps, and theorizing about lairs in the hills. He cataloged every barn fire, chimney flare, and summer lightning strike in his leather-bound notebook titled “Signs of the Serpent”.
Have you known anyone who sticks with a theory no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary? It’s human nature to resist change, especially when it comes to long-held beliefs. It’s even more difficult when they have a personal stake, or what some call “skin in the game”. It will become an unquestioned assumption, and if something doesn’t fit, they will elaborate, add, and bend the theory to accommodate. This has occurred repeatedly with the accepted theory in the secular scientific community regarding the origin of the universe, the Big Bang Theory.
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