The Last Living Unicorns
I am sadly posting this on the day that the Western Black Rhino was reported extinct . This piece was Commended in the Somerset Short Story Competition 2013 , whose theme was 'Lost'. Copies of the resulting anthology are available for purchase from the organiser Alyson Heap - contact her at alysonheap [at] yahoo [dot] co [dot] uk. The Last Living Unicorns Ammassalik, Greenland, 1861 Their fur-covered backs against the dense packed snow, faces flickering in the flame at the centre of the iglu , four teenage children are listening in rapt attention to their storytelling aunt. In the story she tells them, there is a woman underwater, thrashing and turning in an attempt to disentangle herself from a harpoon rope, which surrounds her waist and whose sharp end has gone into a beluga. It was fired by her son. He used to be blind. When he was blind, she mocked him for it. This is his revenge - her efforts to free herself are in vain. Like a fly on a web, her struggle is