Honest Impossibility

HONEST IMPOSSIBILITY

Okay, so I don’t always tell the truth.  I have been known at times to, let’s say, embellish.  I mean, come on.  Don’t you think life is just too boring unless you add a few little details of your own?  So my little sister actually believed that aliens were coming to bring her back to her home planet.  Is that my fault?  Anyway, that’s not the point.  I’m telling you, I did not make this up.  This actually happened to me.
         It was about a month ago.  I was taking a walk because I needed to cool off and be alone for a while.  Having a twelve-year-old sister can be a full time job.  She was on this Ricky Martin kick that was driving me completely nuts.  If I had to listen to “Livin’ La Vida Loca” one more time I was going to shake her bon-bon right out of the house. 
         So anyway, I was taking a walk.  There is this really cool grove of trees near our house where I like to go sometimes.  It has the tallest trees I’ve ever seen, and I like to lie on the ground and try to see the tops.  It’s also a plus that my sister won’t follow me.  She’s too scared to go in there.  That might have something to do with the fact that I told her that there was a murderer hiding out there.  So I lied....  Anyway, I was walking and suddenly I see a flash of white.  At first I thought it was a bird or something, so I kept on walking to get to my favorite spot. 
I was walking and whistling (that darn “Cup of Life” song.  It was stuck in my head).  Then I saw the white again.  This time I noticed that it was too big to be a bird, and I stopped for a minute to try to figure out what it was.  Okay, so the first thing I thought of was that murderer story.  I couldn’t help it, but then I realized it wasn’t shaped like a man, so that couldn’t be it.  Maybe it was goat or something.  I shook my head and kept going.
I reached the opening in the grove without thinking much more about what I saw.  I sat down on the muddy ground (I knew my mom would be furious at the amount of mud I was getting on my jeans, but I didn’t care).  When I had been sitting there for a few minutes I saw the white thing again.  This time I could see what it was.  Okay, I know this is the part you can’t believe, but it was a unicorn.  Horn and everything!  I swear it was!  I know it sounds crazy, but it was standing right there.  I saw it with my own four eyes (I wear glasses).  It wasn’t just a horse or anything, because its back legs were different, kind of like a deer’s, and the tail wasn’t like a horse’s tail either.  It was long and catlike, almost like a lion’s.  Plus it had a big horn sticking out of the middle of its head. 
         So I was looking at this unicorn and I was thinking, wow, I can’t believe what I’m seeing. I mean, unicorns are supposed to be made up, right?  They’re the things you find in the books my five-year-old sister likes.  In fact, just two days before that I had told my little sister that those books were full of lies.  She cried for an hour, and I was grounded for life.  I got off the next day, though.
So I was standing in front of this Unicorn and I was thinking, what if those stories are true?  That had never occurred to me before.  Even when I was little I never believed them.  Santa Claus was even a stretch.  I never wanted to be as gullible as the other kids, so I just figured that everyone lied through their teeth.  So I lied, too.  But I am telling you, I am not lying.
         Okay, so I don’t blame you if you don’t believe me.  I didn’t believe it myself at first.  I thought maybe I was hallucinating or something.  I was just about to run home and demand that I be taken to the hospital immediately, when it moved.  I understood why I didn’t hear it before I saw it.  It was completely silent.  I didn’t understand how that could happen, but it was.  I thought if maybe I could touch it, I would believe myself.  It was as though the unicorn could read my thoughts, because it started walking toward me.  I held my breath as it came closer.  If it bolted now I'd never know if it was real or if I was crazy.  It didn’t seem scared, though.  It just kept coming toward me.  When it reached me I didn’t know what to do.  I looked up at it, and then it did the strangest thing.  It sort of knelt down, and then put it’s beautiful, graceful head in my lap. 
Then it looked at me with those perfectly blue eyes.  It was like it could see into my very soul.  I remembered something my sister had told me.  She had been trying to be as good as she could, you know, help out mom and stuff like that and I asked her if she was practicing for Christmas.  A little early.  I mean, Christmas is six months away.  She said she was trying to be “a maiden pure in heart” so that a unicorn would come to her.  I almost laughed as I looked down into those eyes.  Pure in heart?  Sure.  And yet…             
         I touched it ever so softly, expecting it to run away at the slightest disturbance, but it just sat there.  I was amazed at how soft it was.  You would think that a creature that had been living out in the woods would have branches and dirt all over it.  Something that has had to live in this world should be hardened, right?
         It felt like Snoogles, my pet bunny when I was six.  The bunny was so soft and I loved to pet it.  I would just stand there for hours petting the bunny until my mom would tell me to leave the poor thing alone.  One day when no one was paying attention I took Snoogles out of its cage and let it hop around.  It seemed stupid to keep such a pretty thing in such an ugly cage.  What I didn’t notice was that the front door was open.  Snoogles hopped right out and away.  I wanted to chase him, but my mom stopped me before I went out the door, not knowing that the bunny had left.  I never saw him again.  Man, I miss that bunny.
         So anyway, back to my story.  The unicorn’s hair was the most surprising to me.  It was white at first glance, but then as you looked at it from different angles it looked red, then blue, then yellow, then black.  It reminded me of my princess costume Halloween when I was seven.  My mom made it, and as soon as it was done I wore it day and night.  My mom warned me that I would ruin it if I didn’t take it off.  I didn’t listen, though.  I loved to sparkle.  A plain girl like me doesn’t feel special very often, so sparkling to me seemed amazing. 
Well, my mom was right.  I did ruin it, and I was forced to wear my sister’s old witch costume for Halloween.  I guess I wasn’t meant to sparkle.
         I looked at the horn on the unicorn.  I had heard dozens of stories by my unicorn-crazed sister that the horn was full of magical power.  She said if you drank out of the horn it would protect you from poison and other diseases.  Staring at the beautiful creature I wondered how anyone could ever hurt such a lovely thing.  I reached out and touched the horn, feeling its twisted shape.  It was hard like bone but smooth.  I stroked it with one hand and stroked the head of the unicorn with the other.  I looked down into those blue eyes.  Were unicorns magic?  The unicorn blinked.  My hand stroked upward to the tip.  The horn was glowing now.  Could anything be magical?  My finger slid to the tip of the horn.  I felt the strangest sensation when I touched it.  I felt like I was glowing.  And then I saw colors.  I didn’t see any particular shapes, I just saw colors.  I saw white and yellow and blue and black and red.  They just kept repeating in front of my eyes. 
The next thing I knew I was alone.  I must have been there for hours, because it was night when I came to.  I don’t remember hearing the unicorn leave, but that doesn’t surprise me.  It didn’t seem to be capable of disturbing anything.  I was lying flat on my back looking up at the stars.  I don’t think I had ever noticed them before, not like this.  They were so bright.  I saw a constellation I had never noticed before.  It formed the shape of a unicorn.  The stars winked at me from above. 
When I got home that night my mom yelled at me for leaving without telling anyone and coming back so late.  She was so mad she didn’t even notice the jeans.  She demanded that I set the table.  Normally I would have told her to set it herself, but not tonight.  I just said, “okay” and got to work.  I didn’t even really think about it.  What was I thinking?  Pure in heart, huh?
I never saw the unicorn again, but that wasn’t the end of the magic.  I see it everyday, I swear.  It’s like the unicorn has touched everything.  Look, there is some magic right there.  Paper.  Isn’t that amazing?  Do you think I could see that if I hadn’t seen a unicorn?  Well, maybe I could have.  I mean, you can see it, and you didn’t see a unicorn.  Did you?