So here. Another one of those free stories that don’t fit in any where because it’s too weird.
I wrote this for a class assignment and can clearly remember it being done at least seven or so years ago. We had to write a fable sort of story then. Thus, I give you this…
How the Giraffe Got Its Neck
by SarahC“`
It would be a lie if the giraffe said that it had its beautiful long neck naturally when it was born.
No, giraffes are vain creatures and if you knew their secret, they would just stare at you as if to proclaim that the sentence ‘It’s not real!’ was just an absurd idea made up by humans.
It started long ago in a distant land that no one had heard of where giraffes ran wild and free (not in Africa, Africa was just a substitute holiday resort for it).
And in this far away land, all giraffes had short necks and could not reach very far for leaves in the trees so they ate salads instead (however, leaves of the trees in this far away land tasted way better that salads).
These leaves tasted as sweet as honey, were as green as emeralds and were crispy as thin wafers (humans later made a substitute called ‘candy bars’, only less green and less hard to get).
The only way to get these leaves were by using ladders to reach to the top and as we all know, giraffes were not good at ladder climbing.
Hence, the leaves were considered a delicacy as not many giraffes were willing to risk their necks just for a taste of it.
Then came along daring Gus, a giraffe who did not know how to take no for an answer. He was an adventurous young giraffe who loved to do dangerous things.
Whenever he went off in an escapade, everyone would shout “No Gus! Don’t do it! You’ll break your neck” and on he would continue what he was doing and suffer no permanent damages except for a scratch or two.
Now young Gus had often wondered why no one wanted to try to get to the leaves of the Candee tree (someone named it ‘Candee’ since ‘leaves of the trees in a far away land not in Africa’ sounded too long) and asked his mother.
“Ma, why doesn’t anyone eat the leaves? I mean, it’s just up there!” he proclaimed.
“Now, now Gus, it’s too high up and we don’t want to kill ourselves just to eat it, do we?” his mother answered.
After pondering about it for some time, (2.1 seconds, actually) Gus took a ladder, leaned it against the tree and started climbing up.
His neighbours were already watching him and they shouted, “No Gus! Don’t do it! You’ll break your neck!”.
However, being determined as he is, Gus climbed up and got a mouthful of these leaves. Now, it had to be said, if the parrot had not disturbed him, nothing would have gone wrong.
“Helloooo!” squawked the parrot loudly.
“Aaagh!” screamed Gus as he fell backwards, causing the mouthful of leaves he was chewing to fall out.
It was a good thing Gus’ mother had gotten some insurance for him so it was no problem getting him fixed up in hospital. So out Gus went wearing a neck brace and stared at the Candee tree.
He had a taste for the leaves and he was going to get it if it was the last thing he did.
This went on and on for various reasons (for example, it rained and he slipped) until his neck brace got longer and longer.
One day when he was properly healed, they took off his neck brace and found that he could overlook everyone since his neck was so long! Better yet, he could reach the leaves of the Candee tree without the use of a ladder.
News about this revelation spread around this far away place and breaking necks became a fad.
Soon all giraffes sported the look and made it as a status symbol all thanks to daring Gus and his determination to risk his neck for the Candee leaves (and yes people stopped shouting “No Gus! Don’t do it! You’ll break your neck”, instead they said “No Gus! Stop peeping over on our side!” since his neck was really long, you see).
And that was how the giraffe got its neck.
