“Dragons were never meant to breath fire,” Lisa said as she crushed the cigarette she was holding. “Originally, they were just large, magical reptiles that kidnapped princesses and terrorized people. Then someone decided that wasn’t enough. So they created fire-breathing dragons.”

I looked at her skeptically. “So what you’re saying is that the stories evolved, then?”

“Evolved isn’t the right word for it,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s more like a curse that people put on them. A regular dragon could be just misunderstood, but a fire-breathing one is always a threat.”

I was confused. “You know dragons are fictional, right? A way to explain dinosaur bones?”

She laughed. “Dinosaurs. Believe that one, do you?” she asked me. “We’re always creating the past. The past right now is that dragons never existed; dinosaurs did. That hasn’t always been the past. Just like I never crushed that cigarette.”

She walked away and I looked at her, confused. Then I noticed the uncrushed cigarette in her hand.