Attempts to Capture and Tame a Unicorn: (22) Sudoku, Part Three

I pulled very lightly to start with, trying to ease the board-come-trolley out of the four dimples it had rested into.  The whole thing lifted slowly out and onto the overgrown grass and the unicorn didn’t notice a thing.  She was too busy moving a ‘4’ into position.  I continued to move and manoeuvre the board out of the clearing, leaving behind a bright green rectangle and I was on my way back to the van and out of the forest while the unicorn happily continued her sudoku puzzle. 

She truly was a slave, just as all those chumps at work were.  I mean, to not know you were being towed along like that was pretty bloody crazy.  At one point, one of the playing pieces slid right off the board  when I hit a bump and she didn’t even spot that.  I picked it up and replaced it.  She snorted at me for interfering before returning to the game, not looking up enough to notice the change of scenery - all she could see was that godforsaken grid.  The plan was therefore working better than I could have possibly imagined.

On I coaxed the board, ever so slowly for fear of upsetting  the fragile state of play by hitting a root or whatever too hard.  On and on under boughs laden with fruit, fortunately not quite ripe enough for some to fall on the unicorn’s head and bring her to her senses, and past watching animals too curious or taken aback to warn their forest colleague.

Soon the light at the edge of the forest came into view and victory beckoned.  I could see the path was, wide and therefore, flat enough for my purpose and I didn’t look back - I put my head down and steadily pulled the unicorn toward that light and my van.  I got so into the moment, so into my cause, that I didn’t even spot the shift in weight.  Instead I only noticed she had finished the puzzle, realised what was happening and run when I had the van doors open and turned around to start the final push up the ramp.

*

I returned the board to its position in the clearing in the vain hope it could work again but the following week it had disappeared and I didn’t see the unicorn again for several weeks.