HOW THE UNICORN BECAME EXTINCT

Special Guest Author ATTICUS FINCH

Everyone knows that animals can count. What is less well known is that they are really sloppy about it. It tends to go 4,5,6......lots. Which is okay I guess. If a lion asks another lion how many antelope there are over there and the answer is 'lots', it doesn't matter much if there's eleven antelope or sixteen, because 'lots' means lunch is here. Likewise, if an antelope asks another antelope how many lions there are over there and the first antelope says "lots", it doesn't matter whether there's twelve or twenty lions because really we are in deep shit.

Unicorns were at the time a prized delicacy and demand was fierce. Occasionally a worried lion would ask just how many unicorn were left, and of course the answer was always "lots". A group of lions grew concerned when it became obvious to them that the "lots"of unicorn were considerable smaller than the "lots"of the previous year. We're losing the unicorn they cried. We must take action. We must eat less of the unicorn. A pedantic leopard corrected them. You mean "fewer". They smote him mightily because no one likes a smartass, but this didn't hide the fact that they were running short of unicorn. And no-one was keen on the "eating less unicorn" option. Surely there must be another way they cried. Unicorn are so delicious. Especially the horns. Ah those horns. Marinated in cognac and the blood of hyena they become soft and succulent and irresistibly delicious. Or you could just pick your teeth with them. There wasn't a part of the unicorn the lions couldn't savour. As long as stocks lasted. And it was looking as though they might not last that much longer. Quel horreur, said the more sophisticated lions.

And then came the plan. Unicorn Neutral Trading. WTF ? said the less sophisticated lions. "What is this of which you speak, and how would it work ?", inquired the more long-winded. "Simple", said the genius who thought it up: "It's unicorn offset consumption. We keep eating the unicorns, but we make up for it. Or we make up for it by eating something else and pretending it's unicorn. We dress zebras up as unicorns, with horns and everything, declare them to be unicorns, and then for every unicorn we eat, we dummy up another zebra and unicorn numbers will stabilise. Or we can get seriously flashy about it, convert so many zebra to "unicorn" status that we got three times the number of unicorns & then declare that we won't eat half of them ! It's genius. We'll be heroes !"

"That's bloody brilliant", said the lion who was in charge of saying things like "That's bloody brilliant". The others looked dazed and confused and said that although they couldn't possibly see how this would work, it did have the advantage of being a step in the right direction and it made it look as though they were doing something. And think of all the new jobs involved in rounding up zebras and dressing them up as unicorn. There were feelings warm and fuzzy.

But not so much from the leadership. The leader of the lions did not believe that unicorn numbers were really dropping, and even if there were it was a seasonally thing and in no way lion-related.

It was his opinion that the unicorns were dying of natural causes, mostly old-age. He warned against troublemakers and panic-mongers.

"What we need is a distraction", he said, and declared war on the monkeys. It was pointed out that the monkeys had nothing to do with the problem and had done nothing. "Yeah", said the leader of the lions, "But they're really annoying and they give everyone the shits. It's perfect"

 The war went on and unicorns continued to die of natural causes, as you do when lions continue to eat you ....

Are you suffering from blog-narrative fatigue ? Me too. I think we need a nice cup of tea and we'll pick it up in ten minutes.

                                                           

EDITORIAL INTERVENTION: So I've had a bit of peek at the rest of Mr Finch's manuscript and it's all fine stuff but it does go on a bit, so I think we might pull a Dickens here and serialize this story. Tune in for part two. Will Little Nell die a horrid lingering Victorian death ? Will Tiny Tim get smacked around the head for being so disgustingly cheerful and optimistic under terrible conditions ?
Will Little Dorrit get the money next week or do we have to wait for another sodding nineteen episodes ?  What does this have to do with unicorns ?

Till then.