© Ayr/Gray
From Jenne Gray and C.E. Ayr’s photo prompt, The Unicorn Challenge (12/29/23). No more than 250 words in length. Otherwise, let your creative flag fly!
Summer’s last sigh had arrived too soon. It was time to return to school and be constantly reminded that he was different. He gazed longingly over the concrete and steel shipping yard. His half-grown puppy leaned warm against his side, panting.
No more playing draw down the seagull with a french-fry, to catch a ride through the clouds. No more rambles through the wooded mountain to dance with dryads and flee the jealous ax of the Green Man. Hours spent crawling through hidden mining tunnels to gather jewels that disappeared in daylight? Forget about it. There would be no more forays into the 7th Realm to ride the devil fish and plumb the depths for sunken treasure. According to his father, Joel’s place was here, in the real world of men.
His father had made all that abundantly clear, as his mother, Ella, sat weeping behind her husband’s unyielding figure. He’d made his decision: there were theorems to derive, conventional history to be memorized, unyielding scientific truths to adhere to.
There was so much the man didn’t understand about the Real World.
Ella had convinced her husband that Joel needed the puppy (part Samoyed and part something … untraceable) to ease his transition into the new world. She knew a guy.
Now, as Joel bid his childhood farewell, he reached down to scratch the pup’s forehead, and felt a hard knob growing were it hadn’t before. The dog looked up, smiling, and the knob caught sunlight, glittering in rainbow spirals.
© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2023)
Valley of the Trolls 
Dude(tte)!
Surprise the Reader much? lol
Liked the story, loved the surprise ending.
way ta write the flash, yo
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, Man! 😉😆
LikeLike
Where there’s unicorns, there’s hope!
LikeLike
Yes! 🦄
LikeLiked by 1 person
What a great celebration of differences!
LikeLiked by 1 person
She knew a guy. Perfect, as is the ending.
Wonderful story to close out the year!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Nancy!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Unicorn-dogs? Fair enough.
A delightful story, in the end; too sad that end of summer feeling, literally and figuratively.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Keep that unicorn, warm in your jacket pocket thru 2024!
LikeLiked by 1 person
May it be a good year for you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wonderful, Liz, describing the inner child of many of us.
And a Unicorn pup to make it perfect!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you! May we hold our unicorns close…they’ll keep us hopeful thru 2024 and more.
LikeLike
I always preferred the written world and the reel world myself. :-) The rite stuff is not always the right stuff.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Real world pays the ferryman, but the right stuff gives you the music to thrive and dance…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m sitting here with a silly smile on my face, Liz.
I wasn’t expecting that ending – but why indeed not?
The magic is always there, as your story shows.
We just need to hold on to it, and not be distracted by what grown-ups call ‘the real world’.
Glad you tipped your horn to the Unicorn!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks! Me too. You know unicorn horns heal? As do unicorn challenges! 🦄
LikeLiked by 2 people
The Unicorn Challenge bows before such a lovely comment.
Thank you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh I love this story, specially it’s ending
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bring magic back for the New Year…😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Very right 👏🏼
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s exactly how I felt going back to school – as a teacher. Smacked with reality. Thank goodness for students like Joel who ride the clouds and dance with the dryads and bring sunlight and rainbows into the classroom.
LikeLiked by 3 people
His mom understands him! And that means the world, and an understanding teacher is important, too!
LikeLike