Father Donald was obsessed with unicorns. I was never able to
uncover the reasons behind his morbid
preoccupation. Like many obsessions, I imagine that it can be traced back to some traumatic
event that must have occurred during his childhood.
“The unicorn is ruled by lust,” was a mantra that he repeated ritually and with such florid drama that it was to became his personal sacrament. Spittle
would bubble up at the corners of his mouth, as if his admiration and celibate envy
of the unicorn was permeating through his veneer of disapproval, like a
polluted underground spring.
One day I couldn’t take it any more.
“Father Donald!” I exclaimed “There are no fucking unicorns!
The last one died at London Zoo in 1933! It was given a state funeral and is
buried not five miles from where we presently stand, in the Nave at Westminster
Abbey!”
It was this outburst that saw me moved from St Giles, in the
capital, to the quiet rural parish of Marshbottom where (I have unofficially been
informed) I am to see out my days as a priest.
Father Donald was excommunicated two years later, after he
was discovered having sex with an antique bible that dated back to the mid 1500s. I
did not ask which particular book he had chosen to penetrate. Whatever one’s
opinions are of his sexual deviancy, I remember him as a gentlemen, and a gentlemen
never tells.
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