As the moon peeked over the field, Vanta stood in the dark and manure-filled barn longing for fresh air and freedom. She’d dreamed of running free out in the lush, green fields, where the wind could play with her sun-bleached mane, and the rich grass could stain her teeth, but Vanta’s life was far from peaceful. She belonged to an evil and selfish master, Mr. Red, who forced her to plow his artichoke fields every day because he was compulsive that way and never got around to planting. He didn’t have a tractor, and planting required bending over. One evening, as Vanta looked through a crack in the barn wall, she watched the sun disappear over the flat belly of the earth, and her heart ached. She wanted nothing more than to stretch her legs with the other horses after a long day of plowing and chase the sun and run away from her master. "I would be so happy.” Her chest heaved with the thought. “And I would run with the other horses.” The next morning, Mr. Red, holding Vanta’s lead rope tight in his gnarled hands, yanked her from her dreaming. He jerked on the rope and led her outside to the plow. Time to pull. Time to sweat. Time to accept the sting of Mr. Red’s leathery words and whip. That evening, as stars dappled the sky, Mr. Red led Vanta into her stall barely large enough for her to turn around. The miasma lay thick on the floor and walls. She was so alone. Staring through the crack at the other horses’ fat silhouettes grazing, Vanta’s chest, tight and heaving, sucked in what little fresh air she could, and allowed her eyes to close. A figure appeared inside the barn. It was a unicorn, his silver mane and tail glistening like tinsel. “Vanta, this is too much for anyone to bear,” he said. Before Vanta could react, the unicorn waved his radiant horn. From the tip of his hooves to the ends of his countless shimmering hairs, a soft, enchanting glow whispered over Vanta’s tired body. Her hair, faded by years of sun, was now as black as her namesake. The barn doors creaked open, and Vanta was free to gallop into the pasture she had viewed from the crack in the barn wall. She felt the cool night air rush over her as she raced to the farthest corner of the field where she could finally run with the other horses. As the days passed, Vanta noticed something strange. She felt different. Oh snap. She was pregnant. She thought about her new life, her new freedom, and the future she would soon share with her little foal. She realized for the first time in years that she was happy. However, her happiness was short-lived. Mr. Red, not recognizing Vanta after her visit from her fairy god unicorn, assumed Vanta had escaped. He didn’t know where this beautiful horse had come from, but the greedy horse miser waited to see if her foal would be as beautiful as its mother.
Time stretched, and the day she gave birth, Mr. Red was so happy to see that her baby was just as beautiful and strong, so he planned to sell the foal to the highest bidder on Ebay. That night, he woke to the sound of hooves and the soft glow of magic filling his room. “That’s my foal,” the fairy god unicorn said, “but you can keep the baby,” he added, “if you can guess my name. If not, you become the rope you led Vanta to plow with to forever hold closed the gate to the field.” Mr. Red, surprised that the black horse was Vanta, and that the baby was magic, agreed. Also, fearing for his life, Mr. Red put adds in Craigslist and Facebook, asking if anyone knew who the fairy god unicorn’s owner was. If he could find the owner, he could discover the fairy god unicorn’s name. If the owner shared its name with Mr. Red, he could sell Vanta’s baby, and he wouldn’t become a rope. After weeks of reading rude comments on Facebook and no information about the unicorn’s owner, he knew his time was up. The night was speckled with stars and littered with shadows. In the barn he grabbed a rope and headed to the pasture. “Here Vanta. Here pretty girl,” called Mr. Red, clicking his tongue. Flashes of black and a shadow of light played before him. Vanta, her foal, and the unicorn danced and snorted around him. “Have you figured out what my name is,” asked the unicorn. “Boba, Snowflake, Carl?” “You silly fool. Humans. Unicorns don’t have names.” The unicorn blew in the old man’s face, flakes of grass landing on his upper lip. “Your time is up.” In an instant, Mr. Red began to change. The rope he had been holding snaked around his fingers and wrist, and his long thinning hair twisted. His arms lifted and intertwined with his hair. His body turned and curled, shrinking as the tension grew, and without a sound from his lips, he fell on the gate as a long, lead rope. In a knot of twisted fate, Mr. Red found himself contorted and wound into a figure-eight holding the horse pasture’s gate closed. As the days passed and horses nibbled at the rope, bits of Mr. Red disappeared, till one day, there was nothing left of him, leaving the horses free to push the gate open and run free.
Author note: "I’m often inspired by simple images like this rope. When I first saw it, I thought, how cool would it be if I wrote a story about a guy who turned into a rope. Then, I asked myself, how would that happen? It would have to be by magic, and my mind magically formulated an outline for the story. The best way for me to write a story with a magical theme is to open my Spotify account, find a fantasy playlist, and simply free-write, so that’s what I did with this story. After writing about two pages, I revised by cutting unnecessary parts, adding details, and abracadabra, a unicorn story was born."
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