Untitled Unicorn Story (Exercise 4)

Today, I woke up and said to myself, “Fuck it, I will not burnish my horn today. I will let my horn mirror how I feel—dusty, raw, and mossy.” For the past twelve deons (a day that feels like an eon) I have been very good about following the rules. The rules state that one must burnish one's horn every morning and evening. The head unicorn prances around and checks that all of us have shiny horns before we are allowed to go on with our daily activities or retire to the candy tent for the evening. I'm tired of sleeping in the candy tent with the rest of them so lately I've been sleeping in the woods just outside our camp. It gets a little cold, especially when it's damp but I much prefer it. I can't handle all that happiness and brightly colored jelly beans. That stuff is for amateurs. I am trying to get in touch with nature. I guess I first realized I was unhappy when everyone was raving about this awesome new jelly bean flavor that tasted like a chocolate doughnut and strawberry ice cream. I tried it. It was awful. I really wanted to spit it out but everyone would have seen. They were all crowded around me asking about the combination of flavors and if I thought it was 50% chocolate doughnut and 50% strawberry ice cream or some other ratio. I had to swallow it. Since then I've been avoiding the candy tent and all of it's luster. Fuck that place. I want to be like Wordsworth. Wandering around in nature and appreciating the leaves, the weather, the flowers and maybe even one day I'll write about Lucy. Not artificially constructed candy. I don't have a lot of friends. Okay, I don't really have any. Except Pete. Pete is a flying squirrel I met in the woods and he's not that into candy either so right away we hit it off. Pete's latest antic has been trying to convince me that I can fly. I told him I didn't have any wings. He says that doesn't matter. He wants me climb the highest tree in the grove and leap and then see if I can stay in the air for a sustained period of time. I'd really like to keep Pete as a friend, but I don't particularly like this trait of his. Plus, I'm afraid of heights. Before my mother died she used to tell me stories about our ancestry. She said we had descended from a group of mountain goats in Sweden. So why, then, am I terrified of heights?