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July is Flash Fiction Month! I’ll be sharing short short stories here through the month of July. More notes at the end of the story.
Once, there were unicorns.
Well, I say “once,” but that implies that unicorns are no longer around. But that’s not entirely accurate. They didn’t get hunted to extinction or go to another plane of existence. They’re still here. They’ve just gotten smaller. You might see them sometimes, in dew drops and in the dust that floats in sunbeams. But that’s just the way these kinds of stories begin.
Once, there were full-sized unicorns of every variety you could imagine. Unicorns that were shy, unicorns that were bold, unicorns that brought sunlight wherever they stepped and unicorns with fiery manes and even fierier tempers.
That’s why they became small, you know. Each came into being with their own talents, their own way to shape the world. They couldn’t help who they were. They didn’t want to change. But more and more, humans demanded that they change. Not out loud, of course. No, everyone loved the unicorns. No one wanted them to disappear.
One of the humans when there were full-sized unicorns was an inventor. She loved to work with copper and brass.
I know what you’re thinking. The unicorns must have hated her. Fae creatures hate metal. But that wasn’t true, either. There were unicorns of copper and brass who loved her dearly, and helped her with her work. She loved them back.
Her copper and brass friends let her ride on their backs and took her to the foundaries of the earth, where molten rock and iron glowed. With their protection, the inventor scooped the golden mantle into her bare hands, and they rode back up to the surface.
I know you’re looking up the melting points of copper and brass now. Probably Google’s crappy AI is telling you that copper and brass would melt even in the upper mantle. Stop using AI. I can give you misinformation, and I’m beautiful.
Back on the surface, the inventor did not use that golden bit of mantle to create. Instead, she kept it in a lantern, to forever warm and light the way.
Incidentally, did you know that if you type “-ai” after your Google search, you’re less likely to see AI results? Not always, though, because Google is a beast that devours the world.
And in the time of unicorns, there was another beast that threatened to devour the world.
Wait. The time of unicorns is technically still now. But you know what I’m getting at.
This is why the inventor and her friends made the lantern. The beast could not withstand the light from the pulsing heart of the Earth. They rode forward, pushing back the dark, chasing the beast back to its holes. But the unicorns were getting smaller.
Not as small as they are now, mind. And it wasn’t just brass and copper, it was all of them. But this isn’t a story about the unicorns getting smaller. It was just something that was happening at the same time.
Where was I? Yes. The inventor was chasing the beast. She held her lantern aloft. But she had to navigate through a changing world, one that was changing away from what the unicorns needed.
Okay, I know I’m rambling. You’ve known me all your life, you know I go on tangents. This is just the way I tell stories. And if I’m telling a story about something as ancient as unicorns, there’s going to be a few tangents. Don’t you give me that look. You asked about the lantern, now you’re getting the answer.
Yes, I know, you’re on an epic quest. Yes, I know you have a time limit. But if you don’t have the patience to hear the whole story, then you’re not getting the whole story. So you don’t get to know how our family got the lantern. Nope. I’m outtie. See ya.
When I’m feeling stuck as a writer, it helps to go back to my writing roots. However, when I’m feeling stuck and sleep-deprived, the narrator just quits. I think I want to tell the “real” version of this story later this month, but for now, this is what you get.
Overlooked Books 