The Giraffe (A story)

She looked at herself in the mirror, with all the poise she'd learnt to muster in her eight years of existence. She fell back a step or two to get the complete view right down to her tiny pumps and all and narrowed her eyes in the style of an an art critic examining an age old masterpiece. Decidedly, she was exceedingly pretty - with that enormous strawberry mouth, the small, heart shaped face, wavy hair fashionably disheveled, and eyes skewed ever so slightly to remind the viewer that she was human after all, and therefore with the license to be loved. In form, she was small and delicate-like, like a blade of grass, so that it felt as if she were constantly fighting this battle with her attire to save herself from being devoured alive. Coming closer, by dint of increasing the separation using the thumb and the forefinger, she checked for any unseemliness in and around her eyes, her teeth, and her nose, exactly in that order. Dissatisfied and frowning slightly, she lifted her skirt and fished out a small, sky blue handkerchief with a white lace border, neatly pressed. Keeping it close to her face she blew on it, so hard that a casual observer might have been afraid that she'd eventually blow her brains out. She then proceeded to wipe her nose with it, using the pinky to get a better reach, following which the handkerchief disappeared back beneath the folds of her dress.

"Marvelous darling," the inevitability of that shrill voice from behind her cut across the silence of the room like death itself. "You look so nouveau chic!" She tried to give the last word a French twang, but possibly because of never having heard a Frenchman say it, she ended up making it sound like a hiccup. "Word of advice - wear a paper bag over your head 'cause we need to pass the monkeys to get to the giraffe, and one of them might just fall in love with you." The bearer of this voice might have been the perfect arch-nemesis of the former, had the former attached quite so much importance to her.

"Ah, wouldn't that make you jealous, now? Anyway, the paper bag might come in handy in case I need to barf if mum insists I sit with you at the back on our way." On hearing this, her thirteen-year old sister made a face that reminder her of a she-mandrill in heat that she'd once seen on the discovery channel, and stomped her way out the door. The giraffe she'd referred to was currently the main reason behind this rather elaborate toilette (that, and the fact that it was her birthday, which was by no means a coincidence), not with any intention of forming a romantic liaison with the giraffe, as her sister had once remarked to explain her obsession with it, but because ever since she could remember, she'd had this tiny offshoot of her personality that kept a parole officer's vigilance on every move she made - pushing her constantly towards perfection, making her do the right thing everytime, of which 'looking right' was the uppermost.

For a whole week it had been all over the local papers. The local zoo - a modest establishment, in a bid to attract more visitors had succeeded in procuring a fully grown giraffe straight from the Savannah. Living in a town where even the elopement of the butcher's son with the fishmonger's daughter was 'news', it had caused quite a stir. And from the moment she'd heard it, the excitement of actually seeing a giraffe in flesh had been too much for her and she'd started losing sleep over it. Yes, she had always been one for the animals - not the ugly, drooling puppy dogs that her friends at school used to hug and pet all the time, possibly for the sake of making themselves look pretty in comparison, but 'real' animals in the unadulterated wilds. And, size had always mattered- she, for some reason preferring the big-boned clumsiness of the elephant to the subtlety of a mouse. Going on a hike through the Savannah was her fondest dream, and it seemed that a particularly esteemed inhabitant of the Utopia had come to humble himself before her.

Possibly for the fact they considered her to be a nice enough girl (for she was, too), or maybe because they themselves were not a little curious about what it looked like (although they'd never admit to such childish preferences), it was decided by both the parents unanimously that they would go as soon as possible (which of course, meant a Sunday) and since it coincided with her birthday, the arrangement was all the more desirable.

So there they were, all the four of them on a bright Sunday morning amids cries of "Do hurry up, dear", "What kinda sandwich is that?", and "I wish they'd do something about the price of gas". The antique family car rattled into motion through the by-lanes and soon they'd left the familiar block of flats out of sight. She had been cloistered on the back seat with her sister, exactly as she'd predicted, and from time to time she waved her hand in front of her nose as if she were being smothered by the stench, for which she was constantly being kicked on the shins by the latter, having the advantage of a longer leg and higher heels. She longed for wider roads and better view.

But once they reached the highway, it was like leaping from the frying pan into the fire. The traffic seemed endless. Caught in a driver's limbo with space neither to edge forward nor to back out, the father had nothing to do but toot his horn. "Well, this is really the end," he prophesied. To which the mother replied with asperity, "All this would never have happened had you made the right turn like I had asked you to". Here, the girl stopped listening, knowing that a string of bitter reminiscences would follow of the pains that they could have avoided had her family been more mindful her counsel, instead of treating her like dirt. Her sister, meanwhile complained that the sweat was making her itchy, and not being uncommonly kind to her hair either. Feeling irritated beyond endurance, she said to her sister, "Oh, dont be such an --", a word beginning with an 'a' that she was under the strictest injunction never to bring to her lips. Immediately the world outside disappeared and three pair of eyes had directed their undivided attention upon her. She gazed at her feet, waiting for the storm to pass. Whatever harm it did, atleast it had the effect of restoring silence back inside the car.

Inch by inch, they'd made quite a bit of progress. At last, they seemed to be in for a bit of a breather with the traffic easing a bit on the turn ahead. But just as the dad shouted, "full speed to starboard" something went 'phut' and with not a garage in sight, he knew it had to be the tire. So out the antique hood the antique jack was hauled and with sleeves rolled up to the elbow amid bitter remonstrations by her mother and her sister for careless driving, he set out to change the tire all by himself. It took him over the span of an hour and a half, being a person who had never tightened a screw in his life prior to matrimony. The girl, meanwhile passed her time drawing cartoons on a wad of paper she always carried in her pockets and counting the number of cars of a particular colour that passed by. Finally, the tire was fixed and they hopped back into the car, nobody daring to see anyone else's face, each of them thinking the same thing - whether all this was actually worth all the trouble, but not daring to say so in front of the girl.

At last, they reached the zoo. It was hardly ten miles from where they lived, but looking at their faces, you'd think they'd crossed the Atlantic to get there. From experience, the dad knew it was his job to get the tickets, not out of chivalry, but simply because the others wouldn't move a muscle. So wearily, he stepped out and made his way towards the counter.

When he reached the counter, there was hardly a person. He'd expected a great, long queue, but instead there was only the clerk at the counter munching on a donut and getting his fingers all sticky. Nevertheless, he asked for four tickets.

"Oh, I'm sorry sir, but there's been a small fire last night. Not much of a fire, mind you, but we have decided to keep the zoo closed to visitors for the day for maintenance reasons. I hope you'll understand, sir", he said in the droning monologue of one whose job it was to act as a human phonograph. He stared at the clerk for a full minute, trying as if to rouse himself from a nightmare, trying to find a way out of it. Then, of a sudden impulse he turned round, breathed a sigh of anguish and dragged his feet back to the car, thinking not of himself but his poor six-year old pink and white daughter who had had such fun watching the discovery channel with him, and who had been made fun of by her sister saying she wished to marry a giraffe.

"Sorry, its closed", he said flatly. But he need not have said it for they already knew. In return, his wife merely said in a hushed voice, "Sshh! She's sleeping. Let's get the hell out of here." Looking through the window on the backseat, he could see his two daughters curled up in an indistinct pile of arms and legs. His younger daughter had a very peculiar smile to her lips as she slept. She seemed happy, as though she didn't have a reason to complain.

She was dreaming. The sky was yellowish from the dust that was blown up by the hooves of the wildebeest. Out in the distance, the elephant herds mingled with the mountains. And just towards the left, in a towering forest of acacia were the most graceful necks in the whole of the universe.

Yours sincerely

Jude