Unicorns

by George Mizner

Nels and I were room-mates at Antioch College in the 1948 – 49 academic year and this story took place that year or the next before any of you who are now his family ( except Doc who I think had left Antioch by then ) had yet entered his life. At that time Nels had a girlfriend who was more generously endowed with beauty than with brains. For her birthday he decided to pull her leg a little. He arranged for most of her professors and friends to work the word unicorn into their conversation as though unicorns were part of our every day lives. My job was to sit down with her in the cafeteria and after talking about other things to mention a recent visit to a unicorn farm not far from Yellow Springs. Others mentioned riding them, eating unicorn steaks, the potentially erotic properties of their horn, things about their disposition and their place in art, literature and history. By the end of the day the poor girl was so puzzled about this animal of which she had previously known nothing and which appeared to play such a large role in everyone else’s life that she finally looked it up. That evening she angrily confronted Nels: “The Unicorn is a mythical beast. You beast ! “