Rainbows and Unicorns

A rainbow and a unicorn walked into a bar. Not at the same time, mind you. The rainbow was two drinks in before the unicorn even set foot in the aging watering hole. But that was three other drinks ago, and now both of them were feeling p-r-e-t-t-y chatty.

“Don’t you ever get tired of the crushing weight of expectation?” The rainbow asked, showing a remarkable level of philosophical eloquence given the five empty boilermaker glasses lined up on the bar in front of his chair. “I mean, everyone just expects us to be so damned positive all the time.”

The unicorn, who was two beverages and 0.01 BAC behind his drinking buddy (unicorns have notoriously low tolerance for alcohol, and this one more than most), nodded in agreement.

“It’s not fair,” he agreed. “Horses can be in a bad mood. Pegasuses... Pegassi?... get to have ‘off days.’ Why not us?”

“All I know is that some days, I just want the rain without the sunshine,” the rainbow replied, his cumulonimbus-ness darkening.

“Maybe we could make some changes,” the unicorn said. “Like, what if we just started acting differently? I bet if I started impaling people who annoyed me with my horn, or if you started hurling lightning bolts and the people searching for the pots of gold at either end of you... well, maybe they’d think twice about making assumptions!”

“Wow, unicorns really can’t hold their liquor, can they?”

The unicorn deflated and dropped his head into his hooves.

“You’re right, I’d never impale anyone. I’m just so tired of having to put on a facade and be all cheery and uplifting all the time. It’s so fake.”

“Maybe you just need someone you can be real with. To blow off steam over a couple of boilermakers every now and then.”

The unicorn looked over at the rainbow. “Maybe somebody who gets what it’s like to be a symbol of optimism and positivity all the time?”

“Yeah, somebody like that.”

The rainbow smiled and the unicorn smiled back.


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Word Count: 340
Written For: "The Writer's Cramp"  (April 9, 2022)