Coco's Journey - a children's story with dragons and their pet parrots

I've always drawn on my school notebooks - dinosaurs, animals, dragons, cartoons, characters and scenes from the books I read until I began drawing my own stories. My favorite place to draw was the math notebook, but I was careful not to discriminate any subject - they all had their share of my drawings.

I went on sketching on my notebooks through high school and all over my algorithm books at University. The stories I shaped with my drawings became increasingly complex until I felt the need to write them instead of unrolling them in endless comic strips - and I was also running out of notebooks to draw on. Now I'm a software developer by day and a writer by night. In between I draw. I like connecting ideas in unlikely ways to create new things the same way you'd connect Lego blocks and then I illustrate them. I publish most of my work and ideas here, on Stirring Steer.

I had the idea for this story a while back, sometime before high school, as a token of inspiration from my own pets. As most of my stories, it started with countless sheets of drawings and scribbled characters on the edge of the school notebooks until it became a comic strip stretching on many pages. Later on, I took the writing from my comic, added a little more detail and after some thorough editing which turned into a complete rewriting, "Coco's Journey" the book emerged.

The drawings on my school notebooks.

The first page from "Coco's Journey" comic strip.

A few illustrations from "Coco's Journey" the book.

"Coco is an ordinary cockatiel who lives in the kitchen of a dragon family. One night, his beloved mate is kidnapped by a mysterious figure and Coco sets out on an amazing quest to rescue his sweetheart. But the dragons' house is huge and dangerous, full of hidden rooms and surprises. How will he find his mate in this maze? Embark on this exciting journey to meet Coco's friends, enemies and unlikely allies who all live in the dragons' lair."
- Goodreads

After the book was done, I decided to visit some of the characters to see if I could get an interview and updates on their lives.

Coco seemed to be doing... fine after the whole adventure. He and Moldy now have four featherless little joys.

Fifi has published his rhymes. His feathers still haven't grown back, but he's thinking seriously of booking a plane ticket out of here.

Mary refused to give an interview.

One of my favorite sayings is "The whole story is fiction, except for the parts that aren't." by Michael Crichton. Coco, Moldy and Cleo, my pet parrots, actually existed and the cockatiels did have four featherless bundles of joy.

When the baby parrots were still small, Coco wouldn't let us approach to change the sheets so we had to lure him away to clean the nest. While he was away, the babies would hiss at us noisily sounding like a nest of snakes instead of adorable parrots. But as they grew up they followed us all over the house and snuggled on our shoulders. Bringing them up was a great experience.

Cleo was the most sociable of all birds - he always came on my glass of water to take a bath when I was trying to drink and he would always screech loudly when he saw mum's red nails and fly around in circles close to the ceiling.

You can read the story for free here in exchange for a review or an opinion or a spoonful of feedback or whatever you'd like to say.

You can also buy the eBook from several online shops - Amazon,  iBooks, Scribd, Kobo, Copia and Ciando are just a few of them.

Enjoy! ^^

Muck and Light

Somewhere deep inside, down in the darkest part…

… the cold was unbearable. But something was there, something which thought it was alive.

That something was big, huge in fact – it had a robust body, two long and thick arms and two short, not very functional legs. It had no eyes, no ears, no nose and no head, only a mouth half as big as its body. Its skin resembled the muck – cold, slightly wet and sticky. This creature lived inside a cage which was under a mountain so high it couldn’t be climbed, all made out of the same muck as the one on the captive.

Annoyance, boredom, frustration, anger, hatred… all of these the creature felt and it was furious. It thundered its massive arms against the walls of the cage, it slammed and hit, it dragged and pull, it banged and squeezed all while it was roaring and hollering unintelligible, but soul piercing sounds. Despite the cold outside, the creature was boiling inside. Surely, it couldn’t have always been this way, but it couldn’t remember a thing, as if it had no memory. Its inner fire was storming in it, fueling its rampage and hate… towards itself. Even if the cage was made out of muck, the harder the creature hit, the harder the cage became, the smaller the cell shrank, the heavier the mountain above grew and the bigger and more shapeless the creature came to be.

Soon, the cell became so small and the creature so big and helpless that the captive couldn’t move. The wild and deadly flames inside slowed down and were turning to evolve into a closed, fire bomb. But before that happened, before the fire and the hatred could start preparing for hibernation, something extraordinary happened. There was a light…

High above the mountain, shone a narrow, bright light straight on the creature. The captive was bewildered and it stopped dead for a moment to enjoy the feeling of the light on itself. It stopped struggling, it ceased to roar and it relaxed. The cage walls began to soften, the creature found the feeling of the light was beautiful and so the light grew stronger and a little wider. The muck began to melt, the creature rose to its feet and stood in the light; it thought the feeling of more light was pleasant and enjoyable. The mountain of muck poured over the creature like a slowly falling cascade and when all was clear of muck, out of it emerged a small, little, feeble dragon.

It was so small and so slim it looked like a broken twig. Its neck was thin and crooked, its scales were ragged and shabby, its tail lay dead on the ground, its flimsy arms clenched close to his chest and its legs lacked power to support the virtually inexistent body weight. But his eyes… his eyes were wide, bright blue as a newborn’s and they were looking at the light.

For the first time in a long while, the dragon felt gratitude and it lowered its head easily and with effort trying to bow to the light. As it stayed with his eyes closed and head lowered, he felt an itch on its shoulders. Then he felt strength throughout its body and its tail moved. The itch in the shoulders grew. He felt energy and when he looked at its body, he noticed his neck was muscular and slender, his scales were shiny and tough, his tail was swift as lightning, his strong arms were ready, his legs were springy and he had grown a magnificent pair of wings. But his eyes… his eyes were wide, bright blue as a newborn’s and they were looking at the light. With the first flap of wings, the dragon rose much higher than the mountain of muck had once been and continued to go on, higher and stronger into the light.

Somewhere far beyond, out into the open light…

… it was warm. A beautiful dragon stood calmly on the edge of the abyss. His neck was muscular and slender, his scales were shiny and tough, his tail was swift as lightning, his strong arms were ready, his legs were springy and his wings were magnificent. But his eyes… his eyes were wide, bright blue as a newborn’s and they were freeing muck trapped souls with the light of love.

MS - Dec 2013