The Unicorn

Paradise was beautiful, all green and flowing. That is the first thing I remember, although my memory is all speckled with holes. It is a struggle to pull my past out from time’s grip. That, however, I am sure of: paradise was beautiful. We animals were waiting for Adam, sitting and perching and standing, in the green leaves and gold light. They say that I was the first one to be named. Some say that this explains my powers. I do not know if it does or not. Much has been lost to me in the fog of my mind’s decay.

I have lived for ages.

My hooves touched the shores of Atlantis years before the oceans. I have paced the streets of Pompeii when they were still cool and not yet locked in stone. I have eaten flowers from Babylon’s hanging gardens. The mouth of my cloven hooves tasted Egypt’s hot sands long before the sphinx’s watchful eyes rested there.

I have run and chased and fought. My horn was longer then, and the world was young, and I still always won. I was as violent and wild as the legends of primitive man. In India they knew me for a killer.

In Asia I grew my hair long and twining. I learned the language of the birds and taught man to write with brushes and symbols. But I left there, as I leave everywhere. I am always moving.

Alexander the Great rode me, and braided peacock feathers in my tail. Prester John welcomed me in his court. But I fled back to the forests, where I learned the taste of betrayal at the hands of maidens and hunters. I hid like an outlaw in the depths of the trees and I ran twice as fast as the deer. Whatever they may tell you, I was only captured in tapestries.

My horn can tear, and rip, and slice; I was slower to learn that it could purify, and heal, and comfort. I give of it sparingly but already it has been worn down to spirals, and I guard it carefully now. Who am I to be expected to destroy myself for them? When all of my horn is gone, nothing will be left of me, and I will lose myself and be gone forever.

I am the only one of my kind; I have never met another. My only children were born of a dolphin of the sea; in the foam-flecked waves, they are often mistaken for me, and they have been hunted for it. For this I am sorry, but I am unable to help them, for the generations have worn away at their memories and they no longer recognize me.

I am old. I have fought men and elephants and wilderness. And I was named.

I am the unicorn.

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