THE SHARK CHRONICLES: POSTCARD #21

Darren decided not to look at the picture upon the Massachusetts postcard too closely, especially since an unpleasant odor also wafted up from the card. Keeping the card as far away as he could manage to read the text, he began

FOOTPRINTS IN THE SAND

     Melody glanced up at her beloved Adrian, squinting against the sunlight directly behind her fiancÈe’s head. She reached up to stroke his cheek slightly, but stopped when she saw the expression upon his face.
"Are you all right?" she asked. Adrian nodded, his features contorting suddenly, He pressed a hand to his chest, and Melody had the crazy, frightening idea that he might be having a heart attack, in spite of his youth.
     As quickly as his apparent pain began, however, it vanished. Adrian shook his head slightly, and then grasped Melody’s shoulder in reassurance.
     "It was just a sudden sensation- right here- in my chest- a strange feeling as if – couldn’t breathe for a moment- but really, I am quite fine now. " He glanced up at the sun, gauging the hour. Melody slumped slightly, pouting. She moved to the edge of the bed, preparing to get to her feet.
     "Do you have to go so early?" she pleaded, but playfully. She’d known about his appointment since the day before. Adrian favored her with an indulgent smile, showing all of his teeth. Melody returned an equally toothsome smile. Adrian got to his feet, making his way to the dining chamber for a quick breakfast before heading out to the morgue. Just before he vacated the bedroom, he turned to look at Melody once more.
     "I love you, Mel," he told her.
     Adrian nodded at the man standing watch at the entrance to the morgue as he moved forward through the doorway, to come face to face with the lead investigator working the current case. The very case Adrian had been called in to consult for, albeit he was unsure why yet.
     "Hello Adrian, " the portly man standing next to an open body drawer remarked, jabbing a thumb at the stooped, older figure next to him. "This is Dolan, the medical examiner. Dolan, Adrian. I call Adrian in to consult on . . . unusual circumstances." Dolan nodded.
     "Accurate assessment, Casey," the older man said, indicating the body lying upon the drawer. Adrian drew closer, surmising that Casey wanted him to look the corpse over. As soon as he got a good look, though, Adrian’s stomach did an extremely unpleasant somersault. He looked away instinctively before he looked up at the two men. Dolan broke the silence first.
     "Death by asphyxiation," the medical examiner noted, "he was no longer able to breathe- his oxygen source was cut off." A sudden flash of his earlier chest pains made Adrian twitch with uncomfortable recollection. Unconsciously, he touched his chest with a hand as he scrutinized the body more carefully, biting his lip to prevent it from lifting in a snarl of disgust.
     The skin was wrong. It was too smooth, without texture, and of the strangest hue, nowhere near a color match of any being Adrian had ever seen. Not that of people or animals, that was. Perhaps some plants. The skin was far from the only thing wrong with the corpse, though. The eyes were way too closely set; the teeth were broad and flat, much too large. It had way too much hair upon its body, its head. But the neck . . . the neck was the worst part. Besides the hands.
     "That thing can’t be one of us," Adrian exclaimed, how turning his back upon the corpse. Casey and Dolan exchanged glances. Casey nodded at Dolan as if to say yes, tell him. Dolan pursed his lips, and then with a smack, addressed Adrian.
     "He used to be. Blood, subcutaneous skin samples, organ placement, it all checks out. These . . . differences are mainly superficial. Surface only. The one major difference, is of course-"
     "The neck," Adrian finished for him.
     Adrian specialized in studies of the esoteric. The strange, the mystical, the unexplained. He was a scholar in many subjects beyond the ken of his fellow men and women. Casey had called upon him in a couple of cases over the years, asking for input upon objects of unknown origin or an oddly suspicious cause of death. Adrian felt he had indeed contributed to solving some mysterious, but this new case was so far beyond anything he had ever come across in his studies. And yet-
     And yet . . . there was something familiar. Something about beings that were . . . different. Perhaps the library at the University would have some answers. The Special Collections room should have some texts.
Adrian nearly regretted his decision to do research at the library. He’d forgotten how uneasy some of these texts made him. Even to touch them, let alone read their contents. However, his instincts proved true. There had been something familiar about the strange being’s appearance. It was some kind of mutation that cropped up often in the denizens who lived close to the beach, about fives miles out from the town where Adrian resided. The "Innsmouth Look", it was called. It seemed that often, the people who lived there would change in appearance to look more and more like the creatures beyond the seashore, and less like themselves. They’d spend more and more time at the beach, and were rumored to disappear one day forever, gone into the world of deep blue.
     Adrian’s flesh crawled as he looked over the names of the deities that these poor beings had begun paying worship to, effecting the changes that made them so unnatural. They actually believed that they’d become immortal in giving themselves over to these ancient beings of power. So . . . blasphemous. He rubbed his temples, wishing he could blot out everything he’d just read. At least, he could go home for a while, be with Melody before starting a new day. He needed some rest before tackling this case. He did, however, convince the senior librarian to allow him to check out one of the limited access texts- a history of the Innsmouth family lineages. A little fright reading to do at home.
     Contrary to Adrian’s intent, he did not find the opportunity to peruse the text for another two days. When he did, he found the information just as disturbing as he had anticipated. Interspersed with the accounts of marriages and deaths and births, were tales of disappearances, of murders, and of changes. The few illustrations included in the text caused bile to rise into Adrian’s throat. The typo regarding the Whatley lineage made Adrian even more ill.
     It had to be a typo. There was no way that Adrian’s great-grandmother was related to the Whateleys, the clan with the strongest "Innsmouth look" genetics. Adrian decided he needed to go to Innsmouth and find out the truth. The moment he made the decision, a sudden pain flared up in his chest and throat. He clapped one hand to his chest, one hand to his neck, struggling to draw in oxygen. He remained doubled over the table for a few moments that seemed an eternity.
     The voyage to Innsmouth would be a trip requiring a few days, so Adrian began making preparations. Fortunately, he could travel light, since amongst his studies, he had also learned quite a bit of knowledge about fauna and flora he could subsist upon during his journey. Melody asked to come along, but Adrian seemed to feel as if there were a great shadow looming over his head. He even caught himself glancing up more than once to ascertain that there was nothing blotting out the sunlight. He assured Melody that he would return to her in no time at all.
     Early the next day, when it was still dark, Adrian set out on his journey. It was a lonely journey, even if his surroundings were beautiful and serene. He enjoyed looking at the forests, the brightly colored creatures even as he drew closer to the seashore. He stopped for the night at an accommodation for travelers, where the food was fresh, and the company pleasant without being intrusive. Adrian did receive an unpleasant shock when he noticed a couple seated in the darkest corner of the common room. The man ‘s features were indiscernible within the shadows, but the woman’s face was all too visible, along with the strange features Adrian was too familiar with by now. Adrian made his way to his bedchamber, hoping to get some rest. His nightmare-filled veneer of sleep barely allowed him any rest, however.
     The end of the next day, Adrian found himself approaching the outskirts of the town called Innsmouth. He could just make out the edge of the ocean where it met beach. Rather than waste any further time staying over at another place of accommodation, he decided to push on and find a place to sleep in Innsmouth, to begin his investigation in the morning. It was difficult going, in near pitch-blackness, and Adrian cut his foot on a particularly sharp piece of rock (at least he hoped it was rock, and not something else that could cause severe infection). Consequently, he spent another restless night as his foot throbbed painfully, wrapped in a makeshift bandage Adrian had fashioned from the brand, pliant leaves of a useful plant just outside the building.
     Exhausted, nauseated, and anxious, Adrian rose quite early in the morning to track down the town records, to track down the source of the typo.
     It was easily one of the most unpleasant days Arian could remember in his entire existence. He encountered so many people with the "Innsmouth Look", and also saw with his own eyes, an individual at the very edge of the sea, cross the boundary of the water to immerse itself in the beyond.
     Then it was true. It seemed that the people of Innsmouth, having pledged their souls to the strange gods beyond the sea, underwent a horrible change, one that would render them unable to live in the natural world, but to cross the water boundary, to live forever, but as a twisted, perverse creature doomed never to return to the world it had been born into. Adrian’s chest seemed to hurt anew, every time he saw the unnatural features of one of the denizens as they moved around and past him.
     His day only became worse after his visit to the town records office. The evidence was irrefutable. There was no typo. He was a distant cousin of these repugnant Whateleys. There was even a church, built by his disreputable ancestors, in honor of their strange deities. Adrian had taken a look inside, staring at the strange symbols so unfamiliar to him; nothing like the comforting dÈcor of the church he’d grown up attending. The place felt out of kilter with everything else- almost too dry. Extreme pain had seized Adrian then, but no one came to his aid. Because after all, he seemed to be praying, slumped over on his knees.
     Adrian had no recollection of returning to the bedchamber he had rented for the night, but there he lay, upon the bedding, staring up at the stars as they wavered and rippled overhead. The sudden knock upon his doorway startled a yelp out of Adrian. Another yelp escaped his lips when he looked up to see Melody there, her lovely face alight with her smile.
     "Melody!" he exclaimed, his voice fractured with equal parts joy and worry. "How did you get here?" She looked down shyly.
     "I was able to find a trade caravan headed here the same day you left. Although they traveled a little slower, they were still able to bring me here in safety. Oh, Adrian, are you alright, you look so-" she broke off, her fingers to her mouth.
     "It has been a hard two days, my love," Adrian told her, as he approached her. She shrank back just slightly, causing Adrian to stop, puzzled at her reaction. She seemed to overcome her sudden reluctance and went to him, holding him close.
     "You look so changed, Adrian. What has happened to you here?" Adrian took her hands in his, and drew her to the bed.
     "I shall tell you in the morning. I am far too exhausted to get into all of it, if you don’t mind? Oh, but I am glad you are here, you are indeed welcome!" Adrian exclaimed, laying his head in Melody’s lap. She stroked his forehead and cheeks, but when she tried to rub his chest, Adrian took her wrists into his hands as gently as he could to prevent contact with the tender flesh there.
     He fell asleep quickly enough, but then the nightmares came, and he woke up in the small hours of the night wracked with pain and gasping. He could see the false dawn coming. Soon the sun would be up, and Adrian could return home with his love. He was unable to find the balm of oblivion again, however, and lay next to Melody with eyes wide open until the sun was well up over the horizon. He stared at the horizon. He could see the beach. The beach that his strange ancestors so craved, so believed was the way to immortality. Perhaps he should take a better, closer look at this border between the two worlds.
     As subtly as he could, in order not to wake up Melody, he slid off the bed, and slipped out of the room. He glanced back at Melody just before he left. "I love you, Melody," he whispered.
     As he neared the beach, he listened to the hypnotic rhythm of the surf breaking upon the rocks and shore. This rhythm seemed to reverberate within his soul, calling to some mist-shrouded memory within Adrian. This was a sound his blood knew. He drew closer and closer to the shore. Strangely enough, the pain within his chest now sat comfortably within his body, more of a healing itch than a searing agony, so Adrian was able to continue moving towards the shore without being bent in half with torment.
     When he reached the very edge, Adrian paused. He was afraid, but only for a moment. He was a Whatley! He was destined for the other world, to live forever and ever in glory! He thrust his head through the water’s surface, and took a long, deep breath. When he did not die, he laughed and laughed, as he kept on walking.
     An hour later, the frantic Melody broke the surface of the water. Blinking her eyes rapidly at the dry heart of the air, she kept her gills safely below the water as she stared with inexplicable dread at the footprints in the sand. Her beloved Adrian’s footprints, but so changed. She couldn’t even see the webbing that should have been between his toes. Tears slipping down into the ocean, Melody took one last, long look at the terrible, mysterious world of earth and air and sky before she dove down under the water, to swim back home. Alone.

THE SHARK CHRONICLES: 20TH POSTCARD

Darren stared with slight surprise at the postcard he held in his hand as he drank his morning coffee. It featured a photograph of a gravesite, but he did not need to read the caption to know whose gravesite it was. He'd been there, while visiting Baltimore. He wondered idly what had happened to the famed Poe toaster, since the annual visits had stopped apparently, a while back. Having learnt from painful experience, Darren made sure he put down the coffee mug down before turning over the postcard.

NEVERTHELESS

                Upon my word, this is how it really happened. I mean, truth be told, who are you going to believe, some sickly quill-pusher who perceived phantasms and bloodied visages in every darkened corner, or me, who just tells it as is? Why wouldn’t I? I live my life, and that’s all I do.

                Yes, it is true that it was a rather dreary midnight hour, what with it being December and all. Food was hard to come by these days, and the roasted chestnut vendor whom I had been liberating the odd nut from was now wise to my larceny and had taken to carrying a pistol with him. While I could hold my own against those accursed seagulls at the harbor, it was hard to find enough with four of five of these white devils diving at me constantly. So I’d taken to visiting the garbage heaps in the residential neighborhoods. I got my pride, it is true, but I also got a stomach to fill.

                So, it was cold, it was dark, and it was bleak. I’d found a pile of scraps that seemed promising, but I’d also found a very hungry cat, so I was keeping my distance from said pile. That was how I first clapped my eyes upon her.

                The poor woman lying prone upon the ground, scarcely more than a girl, was clad in thin shrouding, that barely kept the wind and snow off her skin, let alone provided any warmth. Incredibly, she lived still but her blue lips exhaled very little breath. I am not ashamed to admit my first thought was that her eyes might make an exquisite delicacy. It’s in my nature, and I am very proud of my nature. I am quite a fine specimen of my species, Corvus corax, that is, when I am not so thin due to a dearth of food. I landed next to her face, taking care to avoid entangling my talons in her hair. I studied her face, looking for the tell-tale signs of life’s flame extinguishing.

                Suddenly, she spoke, feebly pointing with her hand up at a row of houses just ahead of where she lay. “Tell him,” she moaned, “tell him I live. Tell him Lenore still lives, and seeks his succor. Please, I beg of you . . .” she collapsed, but breathed still. I cocked my head. Did she expect me to seek out this man and relay all this to him?  Apparently she did.

                I tell you, I considered just waiting until she expired. Yet I contemplated the possible reward of being a messenger resulting in the happy assistance of saving a woman’s life. Surely I’d receive some recompense.

                “Stay here,” I told the woman. If she heard me, she gave no sign. There were five or so houses on the block, but as the hour was late, only one had a window still alit with flickering illumination. This house, I approached. At the door, I rapped the wood as hard as I could with my beak. There I waited for a few minutes. Finally, I heard a man’s voice muttering something I couldn’t hear clearly though the wood. Then the door opened, and this guy in bad need of a haircut and shave peered out. I recall that he trembled all over. I am not certain it was the fierce wind that sprang up just then that caused him to shiver. I looked up at him, and called out as loudly as I could, “Lenore!”

                The man did not acknowledge my presence since he only scrutinized the darkness beyond his door frame, rather than look down where I stood. But he had heard me, since he blanched and whispered sharply, “Lenore!” then he slammed the door in my face. What ungentlemanly rudeness! But even if he was a craven brute, I was certainly capable of maintaining the moral upper hand. I flew around the corner to his window, where I could now see, through the slats of his blinds, the man seating himself in a threadbare chair close to the pitifully small fire burning in his chimney.

                I rapped the shutter of his window with my beak once again, putting more effort into it this time. The man whipped his face around to stare at the window, his face full of fear. Slowly, he got to his feet. Finally, he seemed to reach a resolution. He strode over to where I perched on the sill, and threw open the shutter. Prepared for such an action, I wasted no time in flying inside (oh blessed warmth!) and up out of reach, onto the top of some woman’s head. Not a live woman, but one carved from stone. The man, at first quite startled, then smiled a tremulous smile. Then he started speaking, and damn me if he didn’t half make sense, so flowery and overly embroidered were his words. I stared at him in complete bewilderment for half a moment before I realized he’d basically asked me my name, even if he’d taken fifty words to do so. I replied proudly. After all, I had a fine, solidly raven name.

                “Mortimer,” I informed him. He started to blather again, but I couldn’t hear him, so I just repeated my name. The man continued to stare at me. Then he sat down. Then he stared at me some more. I stared back. Then suddenly he screamed at me!

                He sat there and started screaming, in that cumbersome language of his, something about respite and Lenore. When I heard the name Lenore, I thought perhaps I could finally perform my duty as messenger, so I nodded and agreed, “Lenore!”

                Now, upon my soul, this is as it happened. Never mind that tale the man published. He obviously not only has a speech impediment, but hearing difficulties as well, because he kept hearing only one word from me, one I never even said. I implore you, how is that my fault?

                Now the man was yelling at me, calling me evil and angel all in one breath (and at this point, his neighbor was pounding the adjoining wall, bellowing, “Poe, shut yer gob, man! You been at the gin again?”) and he again mentioned Lenore, but he kept referring to her as if she had already passed.

                I had to roll my eyes. This man, Poe, was clearly not in full possession of his wits. Even if he were, I doubted said wits would amount to the natural measure found in his fellow men. “Look my good man,” I said, “there’s a woman outside, in dire need of medical attention due to excessive exposure to the harsh elements, who wishes to inform you of her continued existence, and her name so happens to be Lenore, you poof.”

                The idiot leaped out of his chair and shrieked incoherently at me, accusing me of trying to peck my way into his heart (the eyes are much more delicious) and yelled at me to depart. Affronted by such uncivil treatment, I refused to leave my perch immediately. I sat there unmoving, staring as hard at the brute, until I could void my bowels all over the sculpture I sat upon. It’d serve him right. Nevertheless, this is the tale as it truly transpired.

THE SHARK CHRONICLES: 19TH POSTCARD

PERCEPTION

The clerk beckoned to Morgan, trying to be discreet with his exaggerated gestures of secrecy and urgency. Glancing at the airstrip all the while, Morgan approached the counter suspiciously. Morgan was pretty sure that he had covered all the necessary bases paperwork-wise, yet he feared there might be a last-minute glitch. When Morgan was close enough to the information desk to put his elbows on the counter and lean forward enough to hear the clerk’s stage whispering, the skinny little guy blinked rapidly up at Morgan through glasses so thick, his eyes looked like twin blue fishes in side two tiny bowls.

            “I have some Imodium,” the clerk whispered for the benefit of Morgan and half the people in a fifty-foot radius. Morgan brought his eyebrows together; two mystified, hairy bars meeting to form a symbol of confusion.

            “Pardon?” Morgan asked, glancing through the large windows at the airstrip once again. The clerk blinked some more, looking Morgan up and down as if Morgan was a yo-yo.

            “Imodium. For the-“ the clerk smiled nervously, the fishes darting left and right. “-diarrhea.” Morgan stopped glancing at the airstrip, and turned his full attention to the clerk.

            “What?” Morgan asked, shaking his head to show his lack of comprehension. The clerk’s quivering smile vanished.

            “Oh, perhaps I made a mistake?” Forgive me,” the clerk stammered, letting a sudden bray of embarrassed laughter. “I had thought, perhaps- well it’s just that you were so fidgety and looking so uncomfortable-”

            Morgan’s smile of relief was so large and sudden it took him by surprise. No last-minute glitches after all.  “Oh, no, no,” Morgan assured the clerk, “I’m fine, thank you. I’m just expecting a very important cargo. Very important, and I’m anxious for it, that’s all.” Finishing his words of reassurance, Morgan returned to his post by the doors, watching the airstrip.

            The airstrip faded into the memory of another airstrip, another airport. In Nepal from his trip over there the previous year. He’d gone there to fulfill a promise he’d made to his grandmother upon her deathbed to try and see more of the world beyond New England. There, he’d fallen in love. Another promise he’d made to his beloved Gran, but not, perhaps, in the way she had envisioned.

            Still. The magical creature he’d seen in Nepal, while on an illegal safari had captured Morgan’s heart.  He remembered, with undiluted vividness, the impossible whiteness of the creature’s hide.  His guide had raised his rifle, noting the desire in Morgan’s eyes. But Morgan grabbed the wiry dark arm of the guide.

            “No,” Morgan commanded. “I want the unicorn alive.”

* * * *

            The approaching whine of the cargo plane’s engines brought Morgan back to the current moment. He leaned his eager forehead against the glass to determine if the arriving aircraft was indeed the one he expected.  He huffed his delight, yanked open the door and walked out a few steps quickly, nearly skipping.

            He waved enthusiastically at the dour, stocky man who disembarked from the plane, squinting at Morgan’s face-splitting grin with some consternation. “You Cavanaugh?”  the man inquired around the cigar clenched between his yellowed teeth.  Morgan nodded, beaming.

            “That’s me,” he cried,  “Everything okay? It’s in good shape?”  Morgan squinted at the dim interior of the plane through the still-open passenger door, trying to discern his new treasure.  He’d just begun to delineate, in the darkness, a large crate, when his line of vision was blocked by the cigar-chewer.

            “It’s just Jim-dandy,” the man said. “You gotta sign here.”

* * * *

            A couple weeks later, after the mandated veterinary quarantine, and a paperwork Mt. Everest, Morgan was ready to welcome his new possession into his home. Well, not his home exactly, but in the habitat he’d sunk a considerable fortune into as preparation for the unicorn. He managed to annoy the handlers and driver and supervising veterinarian thoroughly with his micromanaging as they delivered, unloaded, and opened the crate. As the creature emerged, blinking furiously at the sudden light, the veterinarian, a near dead ringer for Judi Dench if she’d weighed about 50 pounds less, turned to glare at Morgan once again.

            “My official opinion still stands, Mr. Cavanaugh,” she stated in a voice devoid of every possible iota of human warmth, “this is wrongful possession and reckless endangerment of a rare animal. It most certainly does not belong here. But if you persist in refusing to returning the poor creature to its home, I can at least make sure it can receive appropriate medical attention.” She handed a card to Morgan, and for a moment Morgan thought she’d stab him with the card, she had that much venom in her eyes.

            “Believe me, Ms. Denton, when I tell you that I will take care of him with the greatest respect and attention,” Morgan promised, making a point of placing the card carefully in his wallet.

            Ms. Denton grunted, and turned her attention to the creature as it paced the perimeter of the enclosure slowly, nostrils flaring at the abundance of grass and various edible plants. Then she rolled her eyes and turned on her heels, striding out off the rear deck overlooking the enclosure, to the side gate. Moments later, Morgan heard the slamming of her car door just before it started. The car zoomed off, leaving Morgan to wrap up everything with the delivery crew.

            After he paid them all off with thanks and the most minimal attention possible (since he could barely take his eyes off the incredible creature), Morgan ran inside to grab a lawn chair from the garage, which he brought outside to the porch to sit on and stare at the unicorn. While he watched the unicorn move across the grassy circle, he realized that something was off, something not quite missing, but incorrect. Finally, it came to him.

            “Your horn needs to be golden,” he muttered. He made a mental note to go to the crafts shop the next day and get some gold leaf. Some horse tranquilizer too. Morgan wasn’t fully confident that the unicorn would stand still enough or calmly enough to allow Morgan to fully gild the horn. Despite his being a virgin.

* * * *

            Morgan was already corking the wine in his mind when he saw the half- expectant, half-skeptical smile fade from Felicity’s face.  She frowned at the creature, which looked up to regard her for a moment before blowing air through its lips in a snort.  She looked at Morgan, puzzled.

            “That’s a rhinoceros,” she said, but good-naturedly, as if she suspected some kind of prank.  Admittedly, her reaction was somewhat better than his previous dates who’d either been pissed off at what they perceived as a joke at their expense, or worried, perhaps frightened, regarding the question of Morgan’s sanity. Morgan hoped perhaps he would be able to finish the bottle with Felicity after all. Morgan indicated the creature with the hand not holding his wineglass.

            “Many people believe that the original tales of unicorns are based on rhinoceroses in India, since they were seen in forests, and many people back then had never seen one, but they’d seen horses, so they thought they were seeing horses with horns.” He took a sip of his wine, surreptitiously admiring Felicity as she turned her attention back to the animal. “But, you see, there are no rhinos that color, and this one has a horn that’s not quite in the same place as a regular rhino. I’m pretty sure that it’s an actual unicorn.”

            Felicity considered this for a few moments. “I don’t know,” she conceded. “It’s pretty ugly in any case.”

            Morgan put the cork back in.

* * * *

            Over the next nine months, Morgan brought home approximately fifty or so women, but not one of them saw the beautiful creature that Morgan had fallen in love with when he first saw it. They all saw a snow-white rhinoceros with a single horn located midway up its snout. Morgan felt strongly that a woman with the same perception as he did would be able to connect with him on a deep, meaningful level. Morgan desired a wife, but he found it difficult to maintain relationships with people in general, let alone women. He’d gone the Gates route- focusing on computers in college and making millions off software he’d developed years of advance of his peers.

            Often he asked himself if he was being silly, putting his faith in something as esoteric as a rhinocorn, especially when he got the veterinarian’s bill after Pliny (which was the name he gave the creature) contracted pneumonia during its first Maine winter. Yet when he sat on his deck and watched Pliny, he recalled with pristine clarity the exact feelings he experienced when he’d first seen Pliny. There had to be significance in what he felt.  There was a reason he had this creature in his care.  Perhaps he needed to change the dynamics of his interaction with Pliny.

            Morgan slowly built his courage up over the next few days, spending more and more time inside the enclosure, but at a safe distance from the unicorn. Then the day arrived that Morgan felt he could see if Pliny would allow his touch.

            Interestingly enough, this was also the same day that Morgan’s neighbor, Diana Hodges, had also worked up enough confidence to introduce herself to Morgan, whom she had only admired from behind her windows up until now. She found him to be while not dashingly handsome, to be attractive enough. She knew he was single, and noticing the number of dates he’d brought home recently, he had to have something special going for him. So she baked a huckleberry pie, put on a simple but flattering dress, and with a deep breath, began the short walk two houses over to Morgan’s residence.

            She rang the doorbell twice without any results, and was debating a third attempt when she heard the agonized screams coming from behind the house. After some fumbling with the gate to the backyard, Diana hurried towards the enclosure, where she beheld at once an awful and an awe-filling sight.

            She flinched upon seeing Morgan, now a twitching, groaning body prostrate on the ground, bleeding profusely from a wound in his chest. But then her attention turned to the creature, and she forgot about Morgan. The pie fell to the ground, splattering warm berry juices upon Diana’s feet and ankles. But Diana noticed none of this as she stared at the beautiful unicorn.