Thinking about unicorns (again)

Whenever I drove past the Unisex hair salon near my grandma’s as a kid, I felt squeamish. Not only did it have “sex” in it, but it also had “uni” which made me, sadly, picture unicorns humping. Which I AM SURE they don’t do. They just sort of wish their babies out of thin air, or conjure them from bit of fairy dust and rainbow or something. I don’t even know if they have a gender….

Okay, now that I think about it, they must, because my friend B. and I had a unicorn family. Or at least a mixed unicorn family—they were half Clydesdale. My stuffed horse Trigger got married to her Unicorn, Uni. (Very progressive for the time.)

I guess we kind of figured that unicornism was an inherited trait but that, like blue eyes, it was probably recessive. So Uni gave birth to two horses, Cotton Candy and Chocolate Chip before she had her first unicorn, Marshmallow, who, in addition to her horn, had a tiny velveteen heart sewn onto her butt. Cute stuff.

I had the strongest urge to rip that little heart out sometimes. It was so velvety soft and hard, like a bit of candy. I would sometimes secretly tug at it, to try to get it to pop out, just so I could hold it in my hands. Then I would be overcome with remorse, because what kind of monster was I? Trying to maim the little baby unicorn! Then I would push on the hard candy heart, willing it deeper into her butt. I didn’t really mean to hurt her because she was such a sweet baby unicorn. But what if the heart was bad for her, like a lump of cancer? What if it had been implanted by some awful magician? Then I should try to get it out because it could kill her! Or was that just me being selfish again? It was so hard to know. In the end, I left it in. Last time I checked on her, she was tied up in a pillowcase in the basement, doing just fine.