Pink Unicorn Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
When the pink unicorns showed up nobody left their homes.
Everyone wanted them out of Tombstone, but who could help?
Plinie the Younger, a Roman naturalist, described the unicorn as a ferocious beast, similar in its body to a horse, a deer's head, feet of an elephant, tail of a boar, deep voice, and a single horn, two cubits long, it the middle of the forehead. It was obvious he never saw a unicorn, but he wasn't entirely wrong about 'em either. Nobody in Tombstone had ever heard of Plinie, nor could they read Latin in which he wrote his observations, everyone in the town except Doc Holliday.
Every group has a leader, and the unicorns weren't any different. The beast was a hand higher, had a longer horn, and was pinker than the rest. A true killer in everyone's mind. While a pack of unicorns is called a 'blessing,' there were no blessings happening in Tombstone on that day.
The bible mentions unicorns in the Book of Numbers, 'God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of a unicorn.' There were many bibles in the dusty town, and unicorns were mentioned in them in more than one verse and only Lucifer, demons, and lepers are referenced more times.
Yet Tombstone had crusaders. There was Marshal Virgil Earp, Assistant Marshal Morgan Earp, and temporary deputy marshals, Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. Were they perfect crusaders? No. Were they pure? No, nobody in Tombstone was pure. But would they be enough to overtake the unicorns?
Leonardo da Vinci wrote in one of his journals, 'The unicorn, through its intemperance and not knowing how to control itself...'
There was another book in Tombstone, The Plays of William Shakespeare, and all four of the lawmen knew them, read them, and memorized them. They knew how to deal with unicorns because the bard had told them.
The trick? It's control, the marrow of heroes, and the lawmen had it. Some claim it's even stronger than the unicorn's horn.
The pinkest of the pink led the charge, and the rest of the blessing followed. The lawmen didn't even pull their pistols. All of them carried pistols except Holliday who held a coach gun given to him before the fight. None of them fired. They let the unicorns advance without impeding their furious pace.
Flesh can be torn with the sword, the bullet, or the horn. If the wooden fence of the O.K. Corral had been flesh it would've bled red. Even the pinkest coat can be turned dark with blood. Each unicorn impaled its horn on the corral's wooden fence. As soon as they did, the lawmen emptied their weapons.
Shakespeare wrote in Timon of Athens, 'wert thou the unicorn, pride and wraith would confound thee and make thine own self the conquest of fury.'What does that mean, in English, the kind spoken in Tombstone? The lawmen waited until the last second and moved out of the way. In their rage, the unicorns wanted to pierce flesh with their horns, but they found only the wood of the corral. Helpless, the lawman's bullets found their mark.
One of the townsmen said to Marshal Virgil Earp, "I think we found a maiden in the next town."
Marshal Earp said, "Too late. Has the afternoon stagecoach come in yet? I'm waiting for some more books to arrive."
