Unicorn Destiny: The End & The Now

June 15, her mind decided now, the Presente-Pasado tablet clutched tightly in her hands. That was the day she’d missed her destiny, the time the pins would send her mind back to: It was the day she should’ve called to accept the role of Aunty Unicorn.

Devesh remained on the couch, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. One hand scrolled on his phone, the other wrapped around his chin and mouth.

The moment arrived. No hesitation. On the tablet, Lena’s fingers selected “June 15,” “9 a.m.,” and then entered her apartment’s address. She took a seat in one of the dining room chairs, then her fingers went back to work pinching the pins and pulling them from their case up to her temples. One… two... With the pins inserted, Lena’s eyes closed.  

In her mind’s eye, streams of white and yellow light flew past Lena’s body like passing headlights and up-close shooting stars; lines of words chugged silently by like trains of riddles; Lena was at the center. Suddenly, the lights and words stopped.

The light gathered behind her torso and the words in front of it. For a few moments, it seemed as if the three of them were groceries moving forward on a conveyor belt. 

They halted. Then Lena’s Presente-Self was gazing through the eyes of her Pasado-Self, a human body with a unicorn horn curled up on a bedroom floor.

Look at the window, the mind of her Presente-Self ordered. The eyes of Lena’s Pasado-Self lifted.

The right side of my neck itches. The hand of her Pasado-Self began to scratch.

Get up. Grab my phone and call those producers. I want to do the show. I’m meant to be Aunty Unicorn. I’ll regret it otherwise. 

A tired moan emerged from her Pasado-Self’s lips.

I’ve got to get up! How else will I live? If I’m on TV, people will recognize me. They’ll recognize the horn. They won’t be scared; they won’t feel a need to stare. This is my destiny!

Counterthoughts her Pasado-Self originally had at that time pushed back with reasons why she couldn’t; she shouldn’t; she didn’t want to. After two minutes of this, it felt like a shouting match between Lena’s past and present minds. Lena’s Presente-Self pushed further. 

I must get up and make that call! This is the opportunity of a lifetime! You’re a chosen one. You’ll be helping millions of children. You’re making their dreams - and yours - a reality!

Her Presente-Self’s cries of excitement and opportunity weren’t enough to inspire action. So, with shame, Lena reminded her past self of the deep-fake image. She recalled her first time seeing that recreated image of her nude body brought down to all fours. Then, another thought: the television executives who’d made the problem seem like something small, something easy to eradicate.

Slowly, the body of Lena’s Pasado-Self lifted its shoulders from the ground, then its torso, maneuvered to Lena’s knees, and finally was on her feet.  

My phone is in the junk drawer.

The body dragged to the kitchen, retrieved her cellphone and charger, plugged them into a nearby wall’s power outlet, leaned against the countertop, waited for the screen to illuminate.

Get yourself together. Cheer up! Be pleasant! Who else has had this opportunity in the history of mankind? You’re making history, Lena. I’m making history.

Lena’s Presente-Self carried on this way until her Pasado-Self’s mind was significantly convinced and her phone’s screen lit up. The device scanned her face, then her fingers navigated to the CEO’s number, pressed call. 

Despite the executive having supposedly given out his “direct office number,” Lena fully expected to hear the giggling assistant’s voice on the other end of the line. It was surprising when the CEO himself answered and more surprising was his frantic tone.

“What?!” he answered between gasps for air. “Who is this?!”

“It’s Lena,” she answered cheerily, pushing any hint of confusion from her voice. “Calling back about the show.”

“WHO?!!”

“Lena, the Unicorn Girl, Aunty Unicorn. You said I have until the 15th  to decide. I’ve decided. I want to move forward with the show!” Lena waited for an equally ecstatic response. Instead, she heard more wild gasping.

“I’ve got the logos and hood ornaments of every car I’ve ever owned stabbing through my ass cheeks! You think people still care about your horn?!”

The line went dead.  

What?... Google, go to Google! Search his name in the news. No, go to social media! Go to the streaming service’s social media page. Open the app, then search…

No, no…

All those days keeping her phone off and her self isolated had left Lena completely unaware of the world-altering changes taking place around her.

First, were the news stories. A video from a national news outlet showed overcrowded emergency rooms across the country. Each hospital was a twisted bustling of human bodies crying out. An article told of a man who’d suffocated when plastic bags suddenly began snaking their way up his esophagus. The article’s cover image displayed the bags billowing in the wind, hanging from his slack jaw.

The fingers of Lena’s Pasado-Self kept scrolling. There was video of a woman crying out in the street, her glittering fingernails wiping away blood that streamed from her eyes, their corneas pierced by acrylic nail extensions. In one photo, another woman sat in her living room recliner, mouth gaping at the shampoo bottles protruding through the skin of her arms. 

Thousands of people just so happened to be recording at the moment their bodies warped. The laughter of college students recording at a kickback with friends became distorted screams. There were clips of celebrities who’d been walking the red carpet or attending galas. TV personalities – including Jackie Falloy himself – were in the middle of live shows. Some of the videos were edited to show the celebrities’ disfigurements emerging in slow motion. Someone had linked the clip of Falloy shooing the environmental chemist offstage.

A man wheezed; a plastic six-pack ring had risen like a wave from his chest and wrapped a chokehold around his neck. Another man sobbed; mismatched polyester fabric looked as if it’d been sewn to his kneecaps and wrapped around the backs his knees, buckling them. Bodies leaked blood; plastic straws stuck through the veins of their forearms. Millions of humans, their various body parts packaged in boxes unable to be shipped elsewhere, desperately tore at the now cardboard pieces of their flesh; the logo of a billion-dollar e-commerce company brandished the boxes’ sides. Millions more people secreted rotten food from their pores. Layers upon layers of plastic wrap trapped shut the mouths of people who would now only last a few more weeks unless they could find some mouthless way to eat. Styrofoam hung from and encased genitalia. Plastic forks and knives cut through the skin between fingers. CD boxes crushed and covered ears; DVD boxes blinded eyes. The heads of dolls and other children’s toys turned humans into grotesque mythical creatures. All were among the affected. 

When the eyes of Lena’s Pasado-Self could finally look away from her phone screen, Devesh’s voice echoed in her mind: “Just. . .do something.” 

Then, her time was up. Again, in her mind’s eye, there were the headlights and shooting stars and train riddles, this time flying in the opposite direction they’d flown before. Lena’s Presente-Self shrieked as her eyes tore themselves open and filled with tears. She was in her dining room, fully present again. Devesh jumped up from the couch in distress.

“Nothing’s changed!” he cried. “Did you warn everyone?”

Lena thrust herself forward, the now deactivated pins still piercing through her temples. She seized Devesh by his shoulders. Like a predator reaching its claws to tear at the retreating hind of its prey, she clutched his coat’s collar and pulled down hard, tearing the fabric. There, from the left side of his neck jutted a plastic cup, red as an ulcer, filled to the brim with old parts of computer equipment – heavy pieces of metal and plastic. 

“No!” Lena screamed. The sound was a wild, desperate call ripping uncontrollably from inside of herself. “NO!” Her breath turned ragged. Her entire body shivered violently. Her mind blurred in confusion; eyes blurred with tears. Through them, she spotted the mound of trash bags gathered near her apartment’s front door. She lunged toward her personal landfill.

Lena was nearly out of breath as, half-blindly through the tears, she ripped at the bags. Tearing open the plastic, her fingers dug through unfinished meals and all the other junk she’d wasted away—until there it was. “No,” she breathed.  

As a child, Lena had owned many pony toys; each one came with its own name and mix of colors. One in particular had been her favorite and she’d kept it as a souvenir until deeming it worthless a few weeks ago. In a mix of horror and wonder at how this could be, Lena stared down at the plastic figure held in her right hand: the “Unicorn Pony Purple Peony.”