Unicorn and Stone

by Casey Flynn

In two weeks I will find a stuffed unicorn under my daughter’s bed and when I pick it up it will tell me that in two years I’ll meet a woman at a writing conference who will say that two thousand years ago she and my daughter were lovers (and did I know that the stars were so different back then?) and that I was their cat and they sat by the creek the day that I died and buried me in the burbling air and soon after blood was everywhere and they fled from men and dogs and just before they lost each other she gave my daughter a palm-sized water-worn stone from the creek by their home that was no longer home, and the woman at the writing conference will tell me that in twenty years I’ll find that stone while digging a hole to bury my dead cat and she’ll want to know: will I show it to my daughter? Will I dig it up and wash it off and hand it to her and ask, do you remember? And after the unicorn has told me all this amidst cat hair and crumpled socks in the cramped under-bed dark, I’ll stand and place it next to my sleeping little girl and wonder if I will.

Casey Flynn is a Colorado-based writer and artist. His work has appeared in Book XI, Afterimages, Sonic Boom, and elsewhere. He is working on a PhD in religion and likes to play with his kids, play outside, and play banjo. Learn more about his work at caseyflynn.com.