The Ultimate Proof (A 24 Hour Short Story)

She could hear it again. The echoing clip clop ringing round the estate. The slightest hint of magic, reverberating through the drab concrete buildings.

The stale wisps of cigarette smoke drifted under her bedroom door, accompanied by the jingling false laugh she knew so well. Her mum had someone over. Again.

Wriggling out from under the covers, taking care not to creak the lumpy mattress as she climbed over teddy mountain, Holly peeked behind her mildewed curtain. Moisture clung to the cold glass, distorting bubbles of the street below. The flickering glow of cracked streetlights bathed the council estate in yellowed pools of surreal light.

Holly pressed her face to the chilled pane, the heartbeat of her breath catching form over the surface, only to fade moments later. Fleeting happiness given shape.

Clip Clop

Clip Clop

The sound of hooves bounced off the cheap brickwork. It was getting closer. Holly couldn’t help but hold her breath as it approached her block.

The shining white coat took on an ethereal luminescence under the sickly glow of the streetlight. The silken mane shimmered with the rhythm of its gait; a real life unicorn trotting down the street. The youth who held the white, plaited bridle scuffed his feet on the pavement as he took his charge for its nightly walk.

Holly felt the magic reach out, touch her. It filled her heart with a completion, a belief, a hope that could never sparkle out. Unicorns were real. She knew that. No matter what she went through, how little she found in the house to eat, no matter how rarely she got to see her dad, she had something most kids never got. She knew magic was real.

The creature trotted past and she savoured her oasis of hope.

---

It had been three months since she had seen her dad. He was a rancher, he couldn’t get away as often as he’d like, and his new wife had never taken to Holly.

She knew the sound of his car brake; the distinct piggy squeal as he span into the carpark. She flew down the stairs, her socks slipping off her feet as she raced over the thin carpet.

It was better if he didn’t knock.

Holly tumbled out the door, a knotty mass of short blonde hair and mismatched clothes, bowled straight into her approaching dad.

---

He always took her out for food, and under the swell and chatter of a bustling pub, she posed the question that it always came back to.

“Why can’t I live with you Dad?”

“Holly we have been over this, you have your friends here, and there is your school to think about. You can’t just change mid-way through a year. Anyway, you know your mum needs you here, and Marie is so busy with the baby. Honestly Hols, you’re better off here”

Holly wrinkled her forehead in exasperation. It was the same excuses every time, she knew what it meant.

He didn’t want her.

Familiar tears pricked her eyes, the blush of heartache tinged her small cheeks.

“Oh Hols, don’t get upset, you know I can’t do anything about it. How about we get an ice cream after this eh?”

Holly sniffed a little. She wasn’t trying to manipulate her dad, she wanted so much to go and live with him, out on his ranch. Presents and treats were a small consolidation, but the temporary moment of happiness they brought was something at least.

Her tiny bedroom was filled with oversized bears, books, dolls. Trophies of affection, the only proof she had that, in some way, her dad cared about her.

“Still not enough?” Her dad said with a smile, “I tell you what, I know I haven’t made it down so much since we had George, how about we go pick you out something from the shops.”

Holly looked at her dad, her eyes enlarged by the teetering tears.

“Can I have anything?”

“Anything you want”

---

Holly waited until they were back in his car to name the terms that would ease her father’s conscience.

“Do you think I could be allowed to walk the unicorn?”

He dad looked at her, utter confusion unfolding over his face.

“What about a unicorn? Is this some new toy?”

“Nooo,” A tinge of childish incredulity in her voice, “THE unicorn”

The guilt he was seeking to alleviate, only worsened as he listened to his daughter explain the unicorn. The creature she waited up in the hopes of seeing every night. The sprinkling of magic, of belief in possibility it brought to her.

It hurt him, to think his little girl was so low, felt so unlovable, her imaginary unicorn wasn’t even hers.

“Ok Hols, I’ll see what I can do.”

Happiness burst over her face. He had no idea how he would make it happen but, he swore to himself, he would find a way to convince her that her imaginary unicorn belonged to her.

---

Ken felt anxious, sat in his car, out on the street in the middle of the night. Marie would murder him when she realised he wasn’t going to be back until the morning, but he had convinced himself if Holly saw him talking to the youth, she would believe he had bought her the imaginary unicorn.

He laughed as he thought about his position, explaining it to a copper; “nahhh, I know the kid is a dealer, but my daughter is convinced he has a unicorn!”

---

A cold chill crept up his spine as he heard it.

Clip Clop

Clip Clop

A very real sound rung out in the streets. It suddenly dawned on Ken, this unicorn might just be a real horse.

He had assumed it was entirely a figment of his daughters imagination, that she watched some drug dealer doing his rounds and fancied she saw him walking a pet unicorn instead.

There was no way he could get Holly an actual horse, he had space at the ranch, but that would only make Holly want to visit even more. The venom of his wife rang in his head;

“She broke two vases!! And the hand prints! I’ve had it this time Ken, that filthy little trashrat is not setting another foot in this house, not while I’m in it.”

His wife was a different sort of woman to Holly’s mother. The ranch had been hers; the pristine white carpets, the expensive ornaments, compared to the avalanche of washing, the stacked ash trays of his ex’s flat. He couldn’t bring himself to blame Marie for how she felt about the kid, but he couldn’t blame the kid for how she was raised. He always felt rotting guilt seep into his heart, as he nodded away while Marie flew off the handle.

---

Holly watched from her bedroom window. She could hear the hooves resonating off the tarmac, the unicorn was getting close. She could barely contain herself as she kept her gaze fixed on her dad, climbing out of his car.

---

Ken had been preparing himself for many eventualities, from the imaginary unicorn as a horse, to the imaginary unicorn as a bike, a cart; something that rattled as it went.

He was flabbergasted when he sat it. The gleaming white coat, the pearlescent horn, the fluttering mane.

It was an actual unicorn.

Ken, half wondering if he had fallen asleep in his motor, gawped at the young lad leading the unicorn down the street. There was a nonchalance to his swagger that Ken found incomprehensible.

He glanced up at the window, Holly’s face, pressed against the glass, stared back at him with a sense of urgency. Finding his voice in what he felt certain was the swirl of a dream, Ken called out, waving his thick wallet as he spoke.

“Hey! Mate! Hey, sorry mate, how much for the, unicorn thing?”

The young lad, in a baseball cap despite the time of night, looked up at Ken.

“You what?”

“Horse, whatever it is, look, I can pay cash”

Ken was managing to maintain his scepticism, despite the evidence before his eyes.

“Legit unicorn bruv”

Ken eyed the teenager, in the dead of night, the silence of the packed estate, he felt as though he was stumbling through a dream. He often dreamt of how he let Holly down, her pale face watching him leave through the fogged window. Dream or not, he couldn’t let her down again.

“So how much?”

Ken realised as he spoke, he was backing himself into a corner. There was only so much he could pay the youth without having to answer to Marie. As much as he pretended to be his own man, she held the purse strings and cracked them like whips. Yet in that moment, he wanted so much to be able to do this for Holly, he found he didn’t care what Marie had to say.

“Nah man, I don’t want yer money”

Ken paused,

“Look, my little girl up there,” he pointed as he spoke, “She just wants to walk it, how much for that?”

“Yer money ain’t worth shit to me bruv” the teen spat.

“So what do you want? What will it take?”

The young lad looked at him, casting his gaze over the house, to the smeared window; the waiting little girl.

“That her?” he asked, bobbing his head towards her.

Ken nodded in reply, “Holly”

The teenager turned back to him, a cheeky sparkle in his eye.

“We can work sumfin out, come to an arrangement”

Ken began to feel uneasy, like he was getting out of his depth. The kid was thinking, his hand to his face as he decided on his terms.

Ken had spent the past two years trying to keep Marie and Holly happy, and he was always letting one of them down. As much as he tried reasoning it away, he knew deep down that he failed his daughter every day he wasn’t there. It was eating him up, that the happiness of one, coming at the expense of the other.

“How about, one day, fer one night?”

Ken had no idea what he meant, his confusion must have been obvious, as the teenager elaborated.

“Once a week, every Tuesday night like, yer kid can walk Sparkle Shits here. Every time she does, I getta day of yer life.”

Ken smiled.

“Deal mate, everyone wins”

---

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This is my entry to @mctiller 's #twentyfourhourstory contest, check out all the rules under the original post and make sure to give @mctiller a follow as these prompts come out every monday!

_{I was quite torn by the idea of a dad who has made a deal for a unicorn, but it wasn't up to his daughters standards, then following in for a penny, in for a pound logic, ends up going much further than he would have done to with each progressive upgrade. The story just wasn't coming out naturally, and this one was, so voila!}

Although this was inspired by the prompt, the memory of the below short really shaped the idea of an inner city unicorn. The minute and a half long short film, Cool Unicorn Bruv was directed by the amazing Ninian Doff who you may remember for the captivating Genghis Khan music video which made the song a thousand times better.

By the amazing Ninian Doff, you just have to check out his very short but entertaining bio

Thank you very much for stopping by ~ love and sparkle!