by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Hot Chocolate for the Unicorn and Other Flights of Fancy
The Unicorn stretches his snowy neck, leaning his nose down to taste the dark liquid in the mug before him. He’s been blowing on his hot chocolate, quietly nickering, to cool it, but it must be too hot still. He lowers his translucent horn to the surface of the drink. Cold suffuses. With the lightest touch, the chocolate is cool enough to drink.
“Will you tell me a story?” the Unicorn asks.
“Which one do you want?” I say, leaning my back against the front of my living room couch and stretching out my legs on the floor.
“One about me,” the Unicorn says.
I nod, knowing exactly which story to tell.
* * *
“When I was five,” I begin, “there was a monster that lived in the pantry. My father called him a cookie monster, and my aunt called him a cuddle monster. My mother said that when he was bigger, he’d keep us safe from the real monsters that live in our world. He’d be our guard dog. Fight fire with fire, she said. So, I named him Blaze the Fire Monster.
“We put an old blanket on the floor, in the corner of the pantry, and set out two bowls for Blaze’s food and water. He’d curl up there, a tiny, brown ball of fluff, and I’d lean against the pantry door, idly rearranging the cans on the shelves, and tell Blaze stories about the things we’d do when we were bigger. Much like I tell you stories now.
“I couldn’t make myself grow up any faster, but I thought up a way to make Blaze grow. Hotter fires burn brighter, faster, bigger, and, since Blaze was our little fire monster, I needed a way to make him hot. Or spicy.
“So, I raided the spice rack and stole every jar whose contents made my tongue sting. Poor Blaze! He ate his beef and rice pellets, liberally sprinkled with cayenne pepper almost every day.”
* * *
At this point in my story, the Unicorn wrinkles his nose, and the Dragon, the other member of my audience, snakes his slithery, slitted tongue hungrily. He snorts a puff of gun-powder smelling smoke from his nostrils, muttering, “I like a bit of cayenne.”
The Unicorn shoots him a glare, and pointedly turns the attention back to me, asking, “Did it work?”
* * *
“Puppies grow. If you feed them anything, they’ll grow,” I say. “So, yes, Blaze grew bigger by the day. His fur grew out red and bushy, and his body filled out with strong, lean muscles. He was a wildfire of a dog, and, before I finished kindergarten, he was as big as me. Seventy-five pounds of romp-in-the-backyard, beg-under-the-table, follow-me-to-school dog. We had a blast all summer, roaming through the forests behind our house. A real estate company was planning to clear those forests out, but construction had been delayed. So the forests were as wild and untended as Blaze and me.
“By the time I started first grade, Blaze was so big I decided I would ride him to school like a pony and make a real entrance for my first day. As I braced myself against him, burying my fingers in his bushy red fur, Blaze grew grumbly inside. Before I knew it, the grumble turned into a snarl, and Blaze snapped.
“The bite wasn’t deep, and my mother said I should know better than to try riding a dog like a pony. Even one as big as Blaze. But it was the first time Blaze had ever bared his teeth to me, let alone touched me with them, and I was shaken. The bandage only stayed on a few days, but every minute served as a reminder.
“I decided to stop feeding Blaze cayenne. He was big enough now. Instead, I tore open one of my mother’s bags of chamomile tea, and I sprinkled the leafy bits over his food hoping to calm him. My mother always found it calming. Blaze, however, took one sniff of his tea-laced food, huffed a sigh, and blew all the little bits away.
“He wouldn’t have any of the other soothing spices I tried either: rose hips, honeybush, echinacea. He liked ginger and ginseng, but the mere fact that he liked them made me wonder if they were such a good idea. So, Blaze went back to a normal doggy diet.”
* * *
My tea is cooling quickly, so I stop the story for a quick drink. The unsweetened lemon tea is bitter, sour, and tangy on my tongue. It’s soothing, but it also makes me strong. My fantastical guests wait politely as I finish my drink and prepare to continue the story.
* * *
“Later that year, I decided to teach Blaze how to fetch. I got him a blue tennis ball, and took him out to our backyard wilderness. Throw after throw, Blaze would simply watch the ball sail into the forest. He’d grumble and huff a little, like he was laughing at me for thinking he’d chase it.
“So, I gave up on the blue tennis ball. But, I didn’t give up on fetch. I figured, I just needed to throw something that Blaze would be more interested in chasing.
“I offered him a variety of dog toys, but Blaze snorted derisively at each of them. A twisty pink rope. A red rubber bone. A stuffed toy squirrel with a squeaker inside. No go.
“That’s when I got creative. First, I cut the tennis ball in half, then I stole the left-over London broil, all minced up for tomorrow’s sandwiches, from the refrigerator. I duct-taped the tennis ball back together, with the minced up meat, all juicy and saucy, squashed inside.
“Blaze wasn’t all that interested in chasing the doctored tennis ball, but he sure was interested in having it. That’s when I got my second bite. This time, I didn’t show my mom. I didn’t want her to worry. I decided to keep all the worrying for myself. I thought I was tough. I thought I could handle it.
“After Kindergarten, I started first grade. I met a lot of new kids, and suddenly Blaze wasn’t my only friend anymore. Or even my best one. I’d still cuddle up with him on the pantry floor sometimes, and when my head rested against his fuzzy back, the warmth of his body radiated through me as toasty as a campfire. But as the years passed, I paid less and less attention to him.
“By the age of ten, he looked like an old dog to me. Maybe he was. Big dogs don’t necessarily live that long, and he was a rescue in the first place. So, we don’t know how old he really was when we called him a puppy. He could have been several years old, just scrawny and undernourished…”
* * *
The Unicorn whickers softly, not wanting to interrupt my story but unable to hold back his judgement of anyone who would underfeed an animal. I agree with him, but there’s not much either of us can do about the hypothetical mistreatment of a long gone dog that happened before I’d ever met him.
I run a hand through the Unicorn’s mane comfortingly. The silky, ivory curls of his locks are almost as soft as his ever-melting heart.
* * *
“This is where the story gets sad,” I say. “This is the beginning of the end.
“I got into an argument at school. I was in fifth grade, and our classroom wasn’t in the main school building. The fifth grade classes were in mobile rooms that had been added to the school by placing them at the edge of the playground. So, when our teacher came back late from lunch, my whole class — a whole troupe of twenty-some ten-year-olds — was left huddling around the locked door of our classroom, and there weren’t any adults to notice.
“If our class had been inside the main building, one of the other teachers would have noticed us loitering around in the hall, making noise, and causing trouble as we waited, but not at the edge of the playground outside a mobile room. Out there, it was just us, and kids that age have a way of turning mean fast when there aren’t any adults around.
“I don’t remember what the argument was about, but I was articulate, imaginative, and clever. So, I probably made the class bully feel like a fool somehow, and while he couldn’t outclass me with words, he knew how to pick up a rock and throw it.
“The mobile classroom was positioned on a bed of gravel, so there were plenty of rocks. Soon enough, the whole class was standing in a circle around me, jeering and throwing fistfuls of gravel.
“I ran away. It’s the only time I ever ran away. I ran all the way home, but it was the middle of the school day, so there weren’t any adults expecting me at home, only a sleepy old dog with fiery fur. I climbed in through his dog door and found him curled up, sleeping under the kitchen table. I crawled under the table with him and buried my face in his warm fur, drying my tears with his heat and softness. Blaze was my campfire, keeping me warm against the coldness of my classmates, the coldness of a world that ever lets children think they can get away with acting cruelly.
“My cuts and bruises weren’t bad, so when I felt calmer, I dragged Blaze outside to romp through the brambly wilderness. I always felt better out there. I never had succeeded at teaching Blaze any tricks. He came when called, and he stayed close to me, even off-leash, but that was it.
“It was a cold day, cloudy overhead. I don’t remember what the weather was like on most of the days of my childhood anymore, unless it matters to the story, I guess, but I could never forget the thick gray skies of that day.”
* * *
The Unicorn whickers again, this time excitedly. He knows where the story is going. He’s heard it before. He’s heard all my stories, even before I tell them, but this one is his favorite.
His love of the story pulls me forward, even though I have mixed feelings about this memory. There is a good side to it, but in some ways, the sadness is more real. The good parts are a story I’ve made up. Something that helps me sleep at night. Something that gets me through the day. Like my friends.
The Dragon snarls, impatient at my hesitation. “Go on,” he insists. “If we must have a story before our chess game, then go on with it and get it done.”
* * *
“Blaze and I romped through the forest, and it might have turned into a normal, forgettable day. Except Alex Golding, the class bully, chose that day to come explore the wilderness as well. It was a large patch of land, and other kids did come play there occasionally. Maybe he was looking for me. Maybe he felt bad about what he’d done, encouraging the whole class to turn against me, letting it get out of hand. Maybe he’d been chewed out by an adult and told to come looking for me to halfheartedly apologize. Maybe it was just a coincidence. I don’t know. I never sought him out later to find out, because I don’t really care about his side of this story.
“I do know, though, that Alex had a history of torturing animals. Yes, he was that kind of bully, and I think Blaze sensed it. I think Blaze could smell the cruelty rising off Alex’s skin as soon as he saw him tripping his way through the forest.
“I tried to hide behind one of the dead trees, half fallen over, but Alex saw us. He called out, and he came running toward us, fast and startling, like a predator bearing down on their prey.
“To be clear, Alex really could have been coming to apologize. I don’t know, because he never got the chance to say a word.
“Blaze snapped. I swear, as he lunged at my bully, Blaze swelled up in size, growing like a bonfire with a bottle of whisky poured on it. He wasn’t just a dog anymore; in an instant, he became a giant, snarling, canine demi-god of vengeance.
“I have so many feelings when I look back on this moment that happened on the other side of my life from now, but at the time, I was too stunned to feel anything. I just watched as Blaze chomped down on Alex’s arm. His jacket caught on fire and within moments, he was entirely engulfed in flames. A fire shaped like a fifth grade boy. A fire that used to be my dog.”
* * *
My voice has gone hollow as it always does when I hit this point. Toneless, inflectionless. I don’t need to express my feelings. I couldn’t if I tried. They’re too deep and myriad. But I know my friends understand me. I can feel the Unicorn’s and Dragon’s eyes on me, even though they’re not real, even though they’re just facets of myself, projected outward onto imaginary friends: a tape recorder to capture the words of my story and automatically transcribe them, and a digital chessboard that will play against me when I’m ready. That’s what I see when I look with my eyes, but when I look with my heart, the Dragon’s eyes are green and piercing. The Unicorn’s eyes are gold and loving.
* * *
“They didn’t stay that way. The flames licked upward, climbing toward the sky, crawling away from Alex, leaving him clutching his arm to his chest and looking almost comically horrified but free of fire.
“As soon as he gathered his wits — at least, what wits a bully like that has — Alex ran away from the comet tail of fire, rising past him, but I ran toward it, reaching the empty place in the forest where the conflict had happened just in time to burn my hand on the last wisps of fire before they flitted out of reach like the whimsical flip of a sleeping dog’s tail.
“My dog, who had been my best friend for half of my life, my bonfire, my companion, my guiding light — my Blaze — had became a ball of fire rising into the sky, already out of my reach, but the sharp bite of that burn on my fingers felt like his last kiss. One last time his tongue licked me.
“I stood there in shock, staring up through the naked winter branches of the trees all around.
“On that dark, gray, cloudy day, I watched orange flames rise into the sky, and the thick layer of clouds cleared for them. For one moment, the sun shone down so brightly through a gap in the clouds that it hurt my eyes. The fire that had been my dog joined the rays of the winter sun, and when the clouds closed back up again, I knew Blaze had run away for good. We wouldn’t find him, no matter how long my parents looked, we never would.
“It felt like the sadness would well up inside me, and I’d have no way to put it out. No fire to warm me anymore. But then I saw movement in the trees. A beautiful white creature like the shadow of a deer on the snow…”
* * *
“It’s me!” the Unicorn whickers delightedly, as bright and clear, as profoundly real as he can ever be.
“Yes,” I agree, “it’s you.”
* * *
“The shadowy white creature approached me so shyly. I knew I couldn’t move or he would run away, so I held as still as stone.”
* * *
“I would have come to you anyway, even if you had moved,” the Unicorn demurs, turning his head to the side so he’s looking at me coyly out of the corner of one of his golden eyes.
“You wouldn’t have,” the Dragon chides. “You know it. Yet you insist otherwise.”
“Shh,” I hush them both. “We’re almost finished. Let me finish?”
My friends grow quiet, and I tell them the final words, finishing my story.
“I held so still that this fawnlike creature with snowy, downy fur approached me, and when he got close enough, I held out my burned hand. I don’t know why. But he knew.
“The willowy white deer lowered its head, bowing toward my burned hand, and as I watched, glistening tears filled his golden eyes. He cried, and the perfect tears spilled out over his lowered forehead, meeting right at the point of his forelock. The tears glittered in the cold winter light like crystals as they froze, fresh tears spiraling past the frozen ones before freezing themselves, growing together into a shining, translucent, icicle of a horn.
“The horn grew until the frozen tip touched the burn on my hand, suffusing the bright pink flesh with soothing coldness. It instantly stopped hurting.”
* * *
The Unicorn’s golden eyes glow like they did the very first time I saw him. He loves this story.
“You healed my wounded hand,” I say. “And then you stayed, and over time, you helped to heal my wounded heart.”
Unicorns can smile. Did you know that? I know it. He smiles every time we get to the end. I say the final words like a ritual. I know I have them right this time, finally, after so many practices, I know exactly how the story ends:
“When I was ten, my dog ran away, and I invented an imaginary friend. If I hadn’t lost my dog on that day, he would have died by now anyway. But my Unicorn? He’s still here, decades later, listening to my stories.”
* * *
I turn off the tape recorder, take a sip of my lemon tea, and power up the digital chess board.
The Unicorn has gone to sleep, lulled into dreams by his favorite story, but the Dragon is more than ready now to play.
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