Attempts to Capture and Tame a Unicorn: (17) Breaking Back In

Following my disastrous attempt at discovery, I forgot those events completely and eased myself back in with a variation/near repetition of a method I had tried before and seen a be-zillion times on screen: the box and the stick.

I dragged a large box missing its bottom (or top or side, I suppose, depending on how you look at it), some parcel string, a sturdy plank and some delicious, delicious oats to the clearing and set it all up in the obvious way, complete with a sprinkled trail of the oats to lead the unicorn under the box where a pile of her favourite treat would greet her. 

I sat back to wait, string in hand, waiting less nervously than I ever had in the past.  There was almost an air of devil may care about it.  Deep down the lust was still there, otherwise I might have been at home, but there were various coats painted over the top that took away a lot of the desperation. 

Mostly this was the feeling that I couldn’t win, of course, but this new attitude felt like there was more to it than that.  Like I felt this was the way it should be.  The idea still doesn’t make total sense to me, even now, and at that time I knew it was just a front.

She appeared in the middle of the afternoon just before the sun began to dip for its descent to beyond the horizon.  It wasn't long before her nose was leading her mouth (and attached body) along the trail of oats and in barely thirty seconds I had her trapped right in the centre of the clearing!

Eagerly I stepped forward with the sixth side of my cuboid jail and knelt down in the grass to slide it under the box, slowly and carefully, so as not to cause injury to my prey.  Nervously, I moved the piece of wood but it met no resistance, and neither did I hear any feet shift onto the new surface.

I stood and put my eye and then my ear to one of the air holes.  I heard no breathing and could see no unicorn shaped shadows within.  I hammered the top with my fist in anger (nothing) before gently tipping the box on its side, again feeling no resistance, and finally slid the removable side out of its runners to confirm what I already knew.

Or thought I knew.  I had to throw myself aside as the unicorn bolted out of the box, neighing triumphantly as she ran for the trees.