The Girl and the Unicorn

The Girl and the Giant

Enceladus, the giant, was once more at work. The ground was quacking for almost a week now, non-stop. The Greek giant had breathed once more time its fumes from deep under the crust.

Enceladus was dying...

"Is it true?"

The girl entered the office without a pause, the quiet knock seldom announcing her.

"Good morning to you, too!" The man sitting behind the desk did not raise his head from the document he was reading with attention. "What do you want, Magda?"

The girl observed her boss with impatience. She sat, not waiting for his authorization to take a seat. She was not in the mood to exchange polite words or to follow social conventions.

"I don't have time for riddles," he added, distracted.

Mike Hollister, the recently appointed director, was having a bad day. Taking after the man who created the special branch and led many agents to become the ultimate protectors of the Church of the Invisible Pink Unicorn was not a sinecure. The position had the regrettable advantage of leaving one open to many blessings. In the case of the Church of the IPU, the blessings often translated in the laundry turning a suspect pink color and many socks ended up orphan...

The girl paused at her boss' tone. She observed him a moment, he eyes roaming the crumpled hair, the missing button on the shirt and the mess of documents on the desk. Under it, the man tapped his feet in a staccato, following a tempo only he could hear.

A visitation, she thought with a smile. The pink hue of the socks he was wearing confirmed the recent coming of Her Exalted Invisibility in the laundry room of the man.

"Look..." Mike raised his head and locked his gaze on the girl, "it's already a long day, and it just started. What got you in a temper?"

"I just saw the Reverend. He was back from the spaceport. He said that the colony on Enceladus wasn't evacuating any more." Magda's ire was back in her tone. "They only evacuated the directors of the colony, no one else has been sent back." She was shaking her head, angry at the idea of the cowards leaving the people under their care to sure death.

The dream of mankind had turned short on the green slopes near the Northern pole of the Saturn moon. Like its mythological namesake, Enceladus was moving and breathing, tremors and volcanic eruptions reducing the future of the small number of inhabitants to a simple equation: running into the wilderness of remaining within the falling walls of the crumbled dome. In other words, a choice between death or death.

"Are we going or no?" Magda inquired, still fuming at the game of men in power focused on their own personal agenda.

"What do you think I'm trying to do since dawn?" Mike barked, exasperated by her attitude. Any thoughts in the girl's mind stopped as she looked at her boss with confusion.

"Sorry, boss! I let my manners slip for a moment," she apologized with a trembling smile. "So, when do we leave for Saturn?"

~~~

"This is revolting!" Magda's anger sparked again. Listening to the opinions of the self-appointed experts revolted her.

As night replaced daylight, the girl tried to relax in front of the tube, exhausted after a long day planning the evacuation of the colony on Enceladus. The worse had been to realize that the high ranking members in the government of her Pink Invisibility—blessed her sacred hooves—just dismissed the people from the small moon as if they were insignificant.