I wasn't always a zucchini, and I think that's the important thing to remember.
I was once not just one person, but two people, three unicorns, and a cat. And although they were cremated and spread over this garden, their memories live on in me. You, there, digging through your kitchen drawer to find the knife that will cut me, remember this, for when you eat me, these are the lives whose essence you consume:
Françoise LaManche had established her unicorn stables just off Florida’s Turnpike. Her past was not so much checkered as it was storied. You would have liked her, though you might not have liked to admit it. She’d been a go-go dancer in the panhandle probably a little longer than was graceful, then took her earnings and pursued a bachelor’s in animal husbandry at Pensacola State College followed by an MA in Western Esotericism at the University of Exeter (online.) If you could have looked in on her in the dorm or at home, most nights you’d have seen an aging flower of a woman with frizzy hair dyed a strikingly unnatural shade of orange surrounded by the little porcelain figurines of mythical beasts that so pleased her. Never would she have dreamed she might one day be surrounded by the real thing.
It was while working on her master’s that she’d met the great theoretical geneticist, Gustav Flïnderhǿrn. Gustav was at a bar in the Florida panhandle – a run-down place that looked like an old country store, but had been covered in alligators, antlers, and neon signs advertising beer – when he saw her strutting across the wooden floor towards the bar. Leather ankle boot, a tight black dress with a unicorn emblazoned on the front, blue lipstick, and that frizzy orange hair. The instant he saw that frizzy orange hair, Gustav fell inexplicably in love with this creature before him and knew he would do anything for her. That is why, after she had allowed him to buy her a five rounds of tequila shots and had sloppily confessed to him her obsession with unicorns, Gustav drunkenly vowed to genetically engineer a real, live unicorn.
Gustav, true to his word, chose not to abandon his vow as a foolish promise induced by lust and alcohol, but worked for years in his backwoods lab to create the perfect unicorn – all the while enjoying a tempestuous on-again-off-again relationship with the beautiful, orange-haired Francie LaManche. As he grew nearer to his goal, his attempts began to yield some results: a horde of winged mice, a horned pig that lived only for a few hours, and the most breathtaking success of all, a monkey with tiny wing buds on his back. The closer Gustav got to creating a unicorn, the more notoriety he gained in certain circles, and the wing-budded monkey skyrocketed his fame to the top. Everyone knew about the mad scientist in the Florida panhandle, trying to create a unicorn for his one, true love.
Things seemed to be going well for Gustav. He knew that it was just a matter of time until he created his unicorn, and for once, Francie seemed like she loved him enough to stay with him. She had even moved into his trailer and was assisting him with his work. But, as we know, no human man can reach this level of perfect happiness without singeing his proverbial wings and crashing down to earth. And so it was with Gustav.
Early one morning, Gustav left his trailer and walked across the dirt road to his lab. Francie was already gone for the day – headed into town for supplies – so Gustav was alone. As he neared the lab he saw a large, burly figure outside the door, leaning up against the concrete building that housed Gustav’s lab. Gustav stopped in his tracks, his heart racing, and squinted at the figure. The shape was huge, but the proportions were off. It was taller than a man, and broader, but the legs and arms were so thin and delicate. What….Gustav gasped. It was a unicorn!
The hair on the back of his arms stood on end, and Gustav nervously began to step back towards the street. He saw the figure straighten, alerted to his presence. Sensing danger, Gustav turned and began to run, but the unicorn was too fast, flying through the air to land in Gustav’s path.
“What…do…can I help…what do you want?” Gustav stammered. The unicorn was massive, and muscular. His coat gleamed a light lavender over rippling muscles, and he scowled at Gustav with the most terrifying bloodshot eyes Gustav had ever seen.
“Are youse the guy who’s tryina make a unicorn?” the creature growled. Despite his other-worldly appearance, the unicorn’s speech was straight from the streets of New Jersey. If Gustav hadn’t been so frightened, he might have laughed.
“Weh…uh…” Gustav didn’t want to admit to this, but he knew he was a horrible liar and his picture had been plastered all over the internet for days. “Yeah.”
“Well, stop, ok?” said the unicorn. “We donwan peoples usin’ us to do things for’em an’ stuff, an’ so we wannit to stay like unicorns donexist, ok?”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll stop.”
“But I had a long trip heah, and I needja ta get me some things,” said the unicorn. “Or else I’ll kill ya.”
“Yeah, ok, whatever you want.”
“Ok, good. We’re on the same page. Now go out and get me some liverwurst. I’ll wait here,” said the unicorn.
Gustav scrambled to get into his car. His heart pounded as he drove and wracked his brain to think of where in the area he could find a delicatessen. Ultimately he settled on Publix, deciding that if they didn’t have it, no other grocery store in the state of Florida would. As he walked into the store which promised a wide selection of prices which were on the high end of accessible, he finally recovered enough to contemplate this new and strange turn of events.
How had he gotten himself into such an improbable mess? Why was the unicorn so bent on keeping secret? Why was it so buff? What would Francie do when she found out?
Quickly, Gustav raided the deli counter, ordering large quantities of liverwurst, pastrami, rye, and provolone. He figured he might as well bring a few other things home with him too, just in case an offering to either the unicorn or Francie would be in order. When he went through the checkout line, the cashier eyed the food on the belt then Gustav questioningly. Gustav looked around himself nervously, and then, grasping at inspiration, threw a copy of Pregnancy magazine in with the other items and smiled in what he hoped would be a winning fashion. The cashier looked down at his register and shook his head while scanning the items. French fries, provolone, liverwurst, cheddar, pastrami, gravy, rye, Pregnancy...beep, beep, beep.
As Gustav parked and approached the lab, he realized that the unicorn was no longer there. He looked this way, then that, and saw that Francie appeared to be home. With his arms full of strange groceries, he turned toward the trailer and shuffled toward the sound of what he assumed was the television playing very loudly. He struggled with the door, got through it, and then dropped all the groceries. His new guests stopped their boisterous conversation and turned around to see Gustav.
The lavender unicorn had been joined by two others that appeared to be painted bright orange and had...surely those weren’t....
“Stawp lookin’ at my boobs!” yelled the brighter and curvier of the two, springing up lithely onto her six-inch heels.
At this, all of the unicorns stood up, got right up in Gustav’s face, and started yelling at him while waving their front hooves in his face a lot. Gustav was able to pick out enough here and there to realize that Tony was dating Nikki, who was the daughter of Carmella, who wore tight leather muumuus, and that he’d completely pissed them all off. While Gustav stood there stammering pathetically, Carmella started crying while trying to hold Nikki back so she wouldn’t damage the leopard printed lacquer on her hooves. When Tony ripped off his tiny shirt was about the point when Francie walked in.
Francie froze in the doorway, her eyes wide as she took in the scene. She raised her hands slowly to her mouth, and stood fixed in place for a long while. Then she whipped her head around to face Gustav.
“You…did you…how….?”
“No, it’s not what you think….I didn’t….they’re real….” Gustav tried to explain to Francie, but his words were drowned out by the piercing bickering of the unicorns.
“You got my liverwurst, bitch?” said Tony, shoving Gustav against the wall.
Gustav held the crumpled bag out in front of him, and Tony snatched it between his two hooves and began nudging the items in the bag with his nose. He caught the liverwurst between his teeth and held the package aloft with a whinny.
“That’s disgusting,” said Nikki, turning to Tony. “What is it with you and liverwurst lately?!”
“I told you, I’m tryin this new paleo diet,” he said. “You eat like the cave unicorns. They ate all kinds of things we don’t eat now and it made them stronger. That’s why modern unicorns can’t fly.”
“You can’t fly?!” asked Francie, looking as if she might burst into tears at any moment.
“Well, I think I can probably fly,” said Tony “’cuz of all the liverwurst, but yeah, most unicorns can’t fly.”
“Awr you a moorahn?!” said Nikki. “You can’t fly. None of us can fly.”
“I can too fly. This guy saw me, didncha?” he asked, one hoof pounding into the wall pin Gustav against it by his T-shirt.
“Yes, I mean I think he flew a little,” said Gustav. He looked back and forth between Nikki and Tony, hoping that he had given the right answer.
“I CAN FLY…MORE…THAN A LITTLE” snorted Tony, rearing back and slamming his hooves into the wall so hard that the trailer began to shake.
Scenting an abrupt end to her life’s dream and the man who made it a reality, Francie piped up, “Would anyone else like anything to eat?”
Carmella and Nikki both pronounced themselves “stahving,” and Francie snatched up Gustav’s forgotten grocery bags and scuttled into the trailer’s kitchen. She began digging through them only to find the most confusing assortment of groceries Flïnderhǿrn had brought home to date. What could she possibly do with all this deli meat, French fries, gravy, and cheese?
“Disco fries!!!!” screeched Carmella and Nikki in unison, noting the items Francie was pulling out of the grocery bag.
“You shouldn’tave” said Carmella.
“Yes she should,” said Nikki. “This bitch owes us some disco fries.”
With that, Nikki shoved Carmella and Francie out of the way, and turned on the stove to melt the gravy and cheese for the fries. As Carmella and Nikki fixated on the disco fries, Tony returned to his preoccupation with flight.
“I can fly – you gotta believe me,” he said to Gustav and Francie. “Watch. Look out this window. I’ll show you.”
Tony flung open the door, and charged across the street, leaving the trailer door wide open. Francie and Gustav took advantage of his departure, and Nikki and Carmella’s total absorption with the melting cheese and bubbling gravy to share a moment of brief respite.
“What happened today?” asked Francie in a hushed, urgent tone.
“I don’t even know where to start,” said Gustav, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers.
“They’re not…” started Francie, “…they’re not what I thought they would be.”
“No.”
At that moment, a striped cat, lured by the smell of disco fries, ran into the trailer, hopped onto the counter, and began pawing at the cold fries awaiting their cheese and gravy topping.
“Get away from there,” shouted Carmella. She turned to shoo the cat, and knocked over the gravy and cheese pans, and splattering Nikki. Nikki yelped at the burn and reared back on her hind legs, knocking 10 pounds of flour into the open burner, just as the grease from the melted cheese caught flame and began to burn. As flames shot from the kitchen and the unicorns whinnied in terror, Tony’s voice sounded from outside.
“Watch me, now,” he called at the occupants of the trailer, who were too busy to notice Tony’s approach. Outside, Tony, who had been planning to impress them all by flying over their heads and into the clouds, began to gallop full-speed towards the trailer. He neared the trailer, and jumped into the air, his hooves catching the side of the trailer as his momentum tipped the trailer on its side. The grease fired exploded, causing the whole trailer to be consumed in a fiery combustion that swallowed Tony whole, and sent white, sparkling ash into the air.
Eventually the ash settled, and a pair of investment bankers bought the land on which the trailer had stood, for the purpose of organic farming. The investment bankers, who knew nothing about farming but wanted to escape the fast-paced world of finance grew the largest, most luscious organic zucchini on that very piece of ground.
I am the product of Francie’s dreams of unicorns, Gustav’s ambition to win the woman he loved, Tony’s pride, Nikki and Carmella’s lust for disco fries, and a poor, orange cat’s unfortunate hunger. All of this is in my shiny green skin, my firm seeds, my supple flesh, and tonight when you feast on zucchini, may all these things feed you as well.
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