"The Making of a J.e.raffe"

A wise friend suggested that I make a giraffe. I'm not artistic, so I made one the only way I know how.

"The Making of a J.e.raffe"

Poppy was looking for something and Chip thought he knew what it was. Five years later they were married and waited out a January blizzard in an apartment that smelled like old fish. The offspring was born two years later in August. It had black hair and yellow flesh and was allergic to milk. It roared as a lion and had the neck of a giraffe.

The giraffe grew quickly from all those sliced hot dogs smothered with ketchup. After its repast it would laze beneath an orange zoo quilt, tracing other jungle beasts with its curious, stained fingers. No one could make the jeraffe go to sleep without its consent. The tiny beast was given spots.

The creature came of age and was sent to a hated school. It tried to hide its long neck and ugly brown spots but was often misunderstood by the social, short-necked beasts who had stacks of printed green paper cut into rectangles. Once the jeraffe won a pink Jesus pencil free of charge. Now it's lost. The jeraffe is lost. The world is lost.

When the jeraffe became an adult, a wolf found it. The jeraffe played along until the wolf saw the spots and long neck. Now the wolf is gone. Where is the choral exaltation?

J.e.raffe gave up hot dogs, masks, and scarves and found a blue typewriter. Now it writes every day about things that don't matter, hoping that other wandering beasts will pick up the forage and find a part of themselves that has been mislaid. 

J.e.raffe sits alone in the jungle and occasionally stumbles upon other nomadic animals. Sometimes they hold hands as they comb the undergrowth, searching for an escape. 

Despite the futility, the key is understanding that no one eludes the snare beneath the tree. Just don't stick your neck in it. That's what hooves are for.

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In the meantime, keep writing, reading, and smiling.
It's contagious.