When Women Were Dragons

The Mass Dragoning takes place on April 25, 1955. Alex recounts the facts after years of archiving them and sifting through her own memories to locate the unadorned truth. While the actual figure for how many people transform into dragons before and after the event is incomplete due to society’s active erasure and censorship of the phenomenon, it is established that 642,987 women dragon on April 25. Although there are multiple first-hand accounts of the event, any film recordings or testimonies showing homes destroyed, husbands eaten, or women taking flight are censored or banned.

Alex then recounts the many events preceding the Mass Dragoning, in which smaller groups of women transformed. In one example, a group of women at a factory who are meant to be laid off instead disappear entirely, their factory in ruins. Although the bodies of the male employees are recovered, no women are ever found. In another case, a mother leaves her child at a park and takes flight, while other brides all over America abandon their husbands in a similar fashion. The reasons for these absences and incidents of destruction are blamed on the perceived “flightiness” or “unpredictability” of women and not, as is the actual cause, on dragoning itself.