The Gift of the Unicorn and Other Stories Read online

And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

  Genesis 2:19

  He did not know who I was, the man who slowly walked across his fields to greet me. I was not surprised. Although he had rarely entered the houses his kind have built for me, he still had an unshakable if but simple belief in my existence, and I had often found him singing an absent-minded praise to me while churning the fields with his tractor. But none of this would cause him to expect to find me barefoot on his land at the end of a crisp October day. His long strides quickly brought his closer. I straightened, feeling the awkward human flesh enclose me in its mucus-softened envelope, reminding me that I was two thousand years out of practice in moving arms and pulling air into lungs. The man stopped before me, said nothing, eyes curious.

  ‘I have come,’ said I, stretching the awkward mouth.

  He hooked his thumbs into his battered belt, only his eyes moving as he looked me over, showing little surprise at my nakedness. ‘And you are who?’

  ‘The Creator. Spirit-of-All. You would call me God.’

  The man’s face crinkled. Amusement shone in the blue depths of his eyes. ‘Sure. If you’d like. Where did you escape from?’

  I touched his mind then, finding that spark of myself which resided deep in his soul. His mouth slacked open, a thin cry squeaking from his throat. He dropped to his knees, the soft soil dusting his blue jeans. ‘My Lord,’ he whispered.

  I drew back. ‘Stand,’ I said to him. He gulped. The noise reminded me of my flesh shell, and the skin twitched, irritated by the strong sun and the gathering flies. ‘Stand,’ said I again. And the man, slow upon trembling knees, obeyed.

  ‘Why--me?’ He swallowed. My skin twitched. ‘Am I--supposed to tell someone something?’

  ‘No message.’ I shifted the body, felt muscles slide against muscle in all but forgotten slickness. ‘I speak only to you. You because you are a farmer, role-simple... I find workers of the soil and tillers of the sea most like unto me. The ancient earth is at your side.’

  He nodded, then whitened at my slight smile. I thought for a moment of Simon, my Peter, who had flung curses in my face, taunted me to be more like the Jehovah of his countrymen’s angry history. I missed his fire in the man now before me. No matter--this one would not know me for long. ‘What do you want me to do, Lord?’

  ‘Walk with me. Listen to my words.’ I carefully stretched out one foot, then the other, the earth crumbling loosely under the ridged skin. ‘I have come to reclaim my world. It is only proper and right that I give notice to humanity. I have chosen you as the representative of your race. So I tell you this: I am removing the earth from your hands.’

  The man glanced down at his soil-darkened hands, rubbed them together. The dry skin rasped. ‘What’re you going to do?’

  I looked up at the mountains, white-capped in the distance. ‘I will UnName. I will UnName it all.’

  The man breathed in deeply. Carefully. His lungs squelched, and he coughed the remnants of a recent cold. ‘UnName?’

  I turned towards him. This time, he did not shrink from my gaze. I felt him straighten, gather strength, his reflection shining in my eyes. ‘I am going to UnName everything. The earth and the rocks--they shall have no name. The grasses and the bush--they shall be without label. The trees and the hills will raise up unburdened heads. Free shall be the birds and the fishes, and all the beasts through the seas and above and below and upon the earth shall be separate from one another nevermore. All which was once given will return unto me, and I will give it rest.’

  The farmer looked down at his mud-cracked boots. An Aquinas would have asked for the Cause of my decision. An Anselm would have argued that a creature Named was more perfect that one without a Name. But my farmer was neither, nor was he a John to tell me that I had spent too long in the crowds and needed rest. The man met my eyes, questions tumbling over in his mind like the puppies with which his daughter had played this morning. But he only asked, ‘Will we be all right?’

  I felt suddenly weary. The flesh hung heavily upon me, one so long removed from it. ‘I have no choice.’ And then I left, allowing the body to drop back to the dust from which it had been formed.

  I began my work slowly. The hills did not murmur when they found themselves Nameless; they continued to graze the land, unperturbed. Mountains thought deeply about my decision, debating it through the earth in the slow drip of lava, then suddenly agreed. Trees flung their names enthusiastically from their branches, and in such rapture that the insects, as always easily influenced by fashion, soon followed suit.

  It was when the animals had loosened themselves from their bonds that I once again visited my farmer. I found him standing morosely in his field, a handful of earth sifting through his fingers. The crisp smell of rain blew down from the distant hills, and a storm was also clouding the man’s round face. ‘This morning,’ he began to me, ‘this morning--I can’t seem to remember what those brown things my daughter plays with are called. Or the name of the white feathered animals that scratch around my yard.’

  There was a fear in his eyes, the same fear which was spreading across the earth. ‘So it must be,’ I said, longing to ease that fear.

  ‘But you gave them to us.’ My farmer had been reading his Bible. ‘You told Adam that everything was his, and he was to be--’

  Sudden understanding silenced him. I gazed into his blue-grey eyes. The wind ruffled our hair. ‘I meant you to be stewards. You were to guard my world, my creatures, my children. But you placed metal in their mouths, twisted rings through their noses. You chopped tails and trimmed ears, taking what you wanted and discarding the rest. The things of the earth were twisted to your purposes. You chose to control, rather than to co-exist. So you will be allowed to Name no longer.’

  The farmer’s last question hung in the air, mingled with the dust of my leaving. ‘But what will happen to us?’ I steeled my resolve. I would save the earth, before the human race could destroy my creation.

  At last I lifted the names from their machines, the clicking monstrosities which I would never have created. The humans cried out to each other, and found their words without meaning. They left their poison factories, their workplaces, their homes, and wandered lost through their concrete and steel jungles, dying on their greenless streets.

  I felt their despair. It dug deep into the remembered scars of remembered hands and feet, and I recalled my covenant, sealed in my own blood. So I fed them with manna, glistening clear-white every morning on the grass, cracking the streets of the cities, littering the snow.

  Then I touched every human, in the spark of love which is my signature on their souls. My children, said I to them. I brought forward the beasts of my world, the furred runners and feathered hunters, and touched the many swimmers. Meet your brothers. Greet your sisters. You are now one. Go in peace.

  I withdrew. The humans stared at one another, eyes dulled, the fire gone from their understanding. Then a farmer walked slowly to a doe. She sniffed his trembling hand, stepped forward with a wolf to rub him in welcome. A child laughed as several rats played at her feet. A woman smiled, and went into the forest with a panther to gather food for their evening meal.

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  The Temptation of Dragons