Two dreamworker friends of mine visit--my old co-worker Xanthe and my e-penpal Astra, who is a unicorn. No surprise--she dreams of unicorns as much as I do. Naturally, Xanthe and Astra are discussing unicorn lore. Xanthe's cut up a comic book of mine about unicorns, and cutouts and hand-drawings of unicorns litter the bed. Ooh, sexy. Well, maybe not to you. But to the horny...

Astra asks me more about my unicorn dreams. Trouble is, she already knows most of them; I posted them to the World Dream Bank. What else can I offer? I want to please Mare Astra--she's so cute, and she dreams like me!

Suddenly the nondream hemisphere of my brain kicks in, and I start logically extrapolating more about unicorn mentality from our evolutionary history.

The consequences of herbivorism, of usually having food all around you... it's kind of calming! You see the world as basically friendly. Carnivore touchiness isn't just from having to fight for their food, but from more fundamental food insecurity.

And a happy confidence. Even more than for horses, predation doesn't worry unicorns; just a moderate hazard to watch out for. After all, only one species--Dark Age humans--were crazy enough to hunt a creature that could both kill and heal. The Hunt of the Unicorn was an exciting game the unicorn normally won.

And running is a pure joy.

The lack of hands and their gracile deerlike build mean that unicorns slip through things, not fingering and experimenting as do apes (hairy or naked). And immortality heightens that. Unicorns observe and enjoy life; they generally don't try to change it. At least not by deeds. Words, maybe. Advice in the right ear. (Though in my dream, Astra is a bipedal unicorn with hands--she really wanted to draw and leaf through books tonight I guess!)

All this gets me thinking about early human hunters--you know, in some ways, their Stone Age habit of fighting back against predators unwise enough to attack humans had spillover benefits for other prey of the largest animals. They now have only a few well-defined predators to watch out for--humans themselves used to be a great danger, yes, but even so, wild animals away from human cities may be safer today than they were in the Pleistocene, when dozens of giant, deadly predators roamed--cave bears, hyenas, sabertooths, dire wolves... We may have helped some species inadvertently! Our brandished tools, our deadliest feature, our horn if you like, can also protect and heal. Unicorn behavior! Though only recently have we tried to manage land for other species' benefit, not just our own.

We could do much more. It wouldn't take much--a modest commitment to improve soils and biomass, to increase controlled burning, and most importantly to shape human structures with animals in mind too--to make the world a much friendlier place for the larger species.

Including unicorns. On two feet or four.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Unicorn girl: Astra emailed to say she identified a lot with my dreams in the series Unicorn Tag. I wondered what to reply. Well... now I know.
• Cut-up book: saw a Fry & Laurie skit of librarians who cut out bookpages having "unpatriotic" facts.
• Unicorn fixation: real! I respond to them as people; they turn me on; and I feel I am one. Logical or not.
  But the dream's teasing, too--that winking unicorn doing handstands on the wall, and the uniporn all over the bed! Though... if I drew humans viewing sketches of humans, you might or might not think the art smutty but you'd never remark "what a pathetic fixation on one species!" Since nearly all humans are fixated--specists and narcissists.
  Oh no? Remember all those Humanities classes they made you take? Equal time, equal time! When do we get Unities? Draconities? Or (drumroll) Parroties? (sorry)
  Ah, but turn artist and art equine, and humans suddenly perceive perverse obsession. Oh, now you see? Hah. Look in the mirror, monkeys!
• Human extinction of large predators as a public good? Surely we just replaced them as top predator... hmm, but the dream's talking about now, not the Ice Age. And you know... if I had to be an antelope or a rabbit... better now than in the Ice Age. Maybe there's something to it.
• ACTIONS:
  1. Write Astra and tell her this dream!
  2. Stay herbivorous, and fund wildlife reserves.
  3. Face that I may pass for human at a casual glance, but behind my hornless mask I just can't think like a man. I hide... unicorn mentality.

TEN YEARS LATER

The evidence is now clearer... that as soon as humans invaded continents or islands, mass extinctions resulted. So I'm skeptical we've ever functioned as protectors--until the last couple of generations of course, when a few of us perverts identifying with other species started trying. Mostly, though, we're laughed at. By all you human supremacists.

The evidence is now clearer... that I literally am not human; it turns out I'm a mutant (maybe one in 20,000) with a subtype of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome causing high-functioning autism, rubbery joints, easy bruising, frequent dislocations, and barely-human dietary needs. It doesn't account for all my oddities (giftedness, high empathy, low aggression and second sight run in my family too; my furry orientation's not too surprising since I sense energy fields directly--I can see human souls aren't unique). But learning I'm a mutant too... explains a lot.

Amusingly, EDS patients call themselves "zebras". Close enough.

• ACTIONS:
  4. Fund wildlife protection groups even more. Slow global warming as much as I can--though that means defeating rich and powerful liars. Not easy.
  5. Draw the dream. In 2008 I couldn't finish a piece so complex, but a decade more practice helps. Not perfect, but this does catch a bit of the surreal/smutty/funny/furry feel.

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