Three and a half months pregnant and all of a sudden, the gut wrenching morning sickness had changed from one breath to the next. I had almost gotten used to the need to vomit at any smell, regardless of how fond of it I had been before being pregnant; God only knew how many times I had to beg off on cooking supper because the smell of raw meat had made my stomach clench in horror. I had been exhausted, queasy, and generally unhappy. For all the pain and sorrow I had been going through, I would have thought to have something to show for it, but instead my stomach was nearly as flat as it had always been.
The smell of freshly brewed English Toffee coffee filled the air and instead of the urge to vomit, I found myself inhaling deeply. The scent flooded the senses with a sense of peace and homecoming, taunting me with its nearness. The rich warmth of the smell of coffee caressed me, a gentle touch that reminded of cold winter nights curled up in front of the fire with my husband.
I glanced over at my husband, Mark, ready to share my thrilling revelation with him when I paused, caught up in his easy beauty. Blond hair, a little shaggy, and in desperate need of a haircut, fell into his chillingly bright blue eyes, and his lips looked soft and tender. It was as though I was seeing him for the first time all over again, and I smiled, musing on how breathtaking he looked first thing in the morning. Sleep still clung to him, eyes hooded against the light of morning, shadow covering his strong jaw. Beautiful, I breathed, and as he took a sip of his coffee, I swallowed heavily.
There, clinging to his perfect lower lip, a drop of coffee lingered, tantalizing, taunting, and tempting me. Soft, wet brown traveled across the pale pink of his lips, caressing them, leaving behind a trail of heavenly coffee flavour. It tormented me as my vision narrowed until all I could see was those lips, with that single drop of coffee that hung poised, before the sight of his deep pink tongue darting out to catch the drop broke my vision.
Without thinking, I leaned forward and caught his lip between mine, halting the progress of his tongue, savouring the first taste of coffee to pass my lips in three months. It was perfection that I hadn’t expected, the taste of the coffee bursting in my mouth, flooding it with the combined taste of English Toffee, and the unique flavour of Mark. I’d forgotten the way he tasted, and took my time remembering just what I had been missing these past few months before pulling away.
Opening my eyes slowly, I was greeted by the sight of my husband as he breathed out on a sigh, smiling sleepily at me. I smiled in return, taking his cup and setting it to the side. There was time yet to return to the coffee—later.
They weren’t real, or so she’d always been told – when she was a young girl her mother had called her a liar, and she had quickly learned not to bother mentioning it to her. A figment of her imagination, she was told, and over time she almost accepted that fact as her own reality; except she still saw them everywhere. She would be on her way to work at the office and there beside the road would be a white horse, running along side the bus, eyes full of sorrowful wisdom watching her. She tried to ignore them, she honestly did. After all, they weren’t real. After mentioning the unicorns to Daniel, her husband of five years, she had learned that her mother was right. Unicorns simply were not real creatures. Nevertheless, they were everywhere she looked, and in time, she began to suspect she might possibly be a little crazy. Who sees unicorns everyday?
It was quickly becoming too much, however, when they started showing up in her backyard. She would be outside, trying to work in her garden, when they would come up and start eating her carrots. She couldn’t reason away the missing vegetables, nor could she reason away the feeling of them nipping at her ears as though they were a delicacy. Daniel persisted in informing her that the missing carrots were, in fact, bunnies, but there was a small fence to protect them from that sort of thing. In fact, if she weren’t so sure that they weren’t real she would have to start believing that they were really there. But when she started to think like that she reminded herself that even if they were real, a unicorn wouldn’t come to her. A unicorn only comes to a maiden, and that wasn’t a word that could describe her for too many years; in fact, she hadn’t been a maiden since her fifteenth birthday when her first real boyfriend, Jack, had decided that two weeks was long enough to wait to get into bed with her. He was her first, and certainly wasn’t her last, both non consensual and not. Sometimes she thanked God that Daniel was at least gentle with her, but there were days when her pale skin was marked with purples, greens, and yellows and she began to wonder just what was wrong with her.
Sooner or later, something had to give, and it was a crisp fall day when she finally caved under the pressure. She’d been working in her garden again, enjoying the feel of the breeze ruffling her hair, the sun beating down on her shoulders. The stack of vegetables was growing larger in the basket, and as she twisted to add another carrot to the pile, it was caught in the teeth of one of the unicorns. Freezing, she gazed into the clear brown eyes so close to her own. There was a gentle tug at her hands and the carrot was wrenched from her limp grasp. Okay… so maybe they weren’t mere figments of her imagination… after all, she’d never heard of a figment being able to do that. Well, there had to be a logical explanation for it, but oh, how she wanted to believe it!
The carrot disappeared quickly, and she felt the velvet nose of the unicorn butting against her cheek, another demand for attention she could normally ignore; but not after last night. Today she found her hand, trembling in suppressed agony, bones twisted and wrenched out of joints, stretching up to pet that nose, startling in its softness. It was nothing like she had ever imagined it could be, she’d thought that imaginary creatures would be, well, softer and more insubstantial. The nose was soft, and warm, heaving puffs of warm air against her fingertips as they stroked silently. It was the gentleness of such a large creature that brought the first tears to her eyes, and she cried quietly in the garden, hand continuing to brush over the velvety nose, and down the cheeks. If something so pure and innocent could allow her to touch it, then perhaps there was nothing wrong with her. The revelation caused the tears to fall harder, and she leaned her forehead forward, resting against soft velvet.
A toss of the head, and her hand had slipped up over firm cheeks to rub down the neck, the hair stiff, coarse, and still so unbelievably soft beneath her hand. Nothing, absolutely nothing, could have prepared her for this. She could feel her hand tingling from where she touched the unicorn, and breathing out on a sigh she moved in to brush her cheeks against the unicorns, her eyes closing slightly. It felt, well, like magic. She imagined that had something to do with the fact that she was sitting out in her garden hallucinating that she was petting a unicorn. The thought slipped away however, and she opened her eyes to look at the creature once more. It stepped back, away from her hand and dipped its head low, horn brushing against her cheek in an almost soothing way. With that light touch, she felt the tightness, the doubt release her, and she smiled, watching as the unicorn left her garden as quietly as it had come. But she was changed, touched, loved. It was time for her to call her lawyer and get out; the unicorn had taught her that she deserved magic and love.
Maybe, just maybe, unicorns did exist.
September 5th
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I’ve been told. But She isn’t. Beautiful that is. Sure, with those soft golden tones, and rich blood red I suppose I can see the qualities that have endeared Her to so many, yet when I look at Her all I can see is death. She stinks of rotting flesh, and it’s enough to make me want to sick up. And that isn’t even close to being the whole of it. She walks around, moves like She owns this place, and with every touch of Her hand blood falls, and bile spills. The yellows and reds that so many people find pretty only make me see death.
September 21st
It seems things are taking a turn for the worse. She scared away the animals today; flocks of geese flooding the sky as they flew from Her. The sound of their call was a bell tolling in the still air. Death Herself appears to be settling in and the blood and bile continues to fill the air with its rank aroma. It seems like the entire world has been flooded with it; the scent, the blood, the bile, the very essence of Her. It sickens me, and I wish that this wasn’t happening.
October 4th
It’s ending, slowly but surely. She’s killed almost everyone and I think my time will be ending soon as well. Blood pours freely from me, and most of my friends stand tall, stripped of their quintessence. I’m one of the last in a dying breed it seems, and I’m doing my best to keep hope, but Death stalks the chilling air, and I’m growing tired. Perhaps it’s the loss of blood that makes me want to drop to the ground and look up at Her, begging for a swift end. At times I begin to think She is beautiful, even covered in the bile of everyone else. And when I think that I hope for Death to take me soon.
October 31st
Samhain tonight and most likely my last night as well. I only have a little bit of life left to me, and that has been stripped quickly by the snow that has hidden the blood and bile that once decorated the floor at my feet. Death stalks me, and She is soon leaving. I will go with Her, after all. Isn’t that what trees are meant to do? Leave with Autumn?
