It has been months since I've posted anything on here and seeing as it's nigh 2 in the AM, I will make this quick and give you the rough draft of the first portion of my story. Let me warn you that although this may be a story about a giraffe, and stories about animals are generally categorized as children's books, this, however, is probably not a good book for kids, at least sweet innocent ones anyways. This is probably the kind of story that I would have loved when I was younger. It reminds me of the twists in Roald Dahl books ("Esio Trot" was one of my faves).
Without further ado, I give you the first tid bit of the story of Kuumbo, The Spotless Giraffe:
One day, on the grassy flat lands of Africa, a giraffe was born. As you may very well know, this is not an uncommon event in nature. Babies are born every day. What makes this newborn giraffe so special that I would deign write about him? Nothing. That's right, absolutely nothing. Nothing as in the little fella had no spots. Never before had anything like this happened in the whole history of all giraffe-dom. Not even in the time when the trend among them was to get themselves so caked in mud, none of them could tell their mother from their cousin (they did this because they thought it was an entertaining thing to do, much like going to a masquerade ball. Giraffes love playing games with each other. This, however, caused some serious problems whenever their herd leader tried to give orders to the rest of the group. They all thought it was someone else pretending to be the leader so nothing ever got done. Needless to say, this fad only lasted a few years). The fact of the matter was this: a giraffe without spots is no giraffe at all.
There's two things that giraffes pride themselves on most in the world. First is their long necks, then their spots. This little baby's parents both had beautiful long necks and wonderful spots shaped like stars. When his parents realized that Kuumbo, which means "blank canvas", had not spots, his mother went into hysterics while is father hung his head in shame.
"What do we do?!?! What do we do?!" Jiihare screamed. "I don't know, I just don't know." Blaa muttered while shaking his head.
A few minutes passed in the same shameful manner, neither coming up with anything more intelligible to say. Finally, Blaa turned to Jiihare and he said, "The herd will be expecting a very beautiful calf. We CANNOT show them this....Kuumbo." He said with disgust. "We will just leave him, return to the herd and tell them it didn't work out."
Jiihare's breathing started to become more regular and her heart slowed down to a calmer beat. She regained a little bit more composure as this suggestion of Blaa's echoed in her mind. Finally she said, "Alright, excellent idea."
I will tell you something now which may come as a shock (or possibly not after what you just read); giraffes are not the most loving parents in the animal kingdom. Like koala bears, they look cute, but their not as nice as they appear.
Ok, there's the tragic beginning to this sad tale. Please please please please, constructive criticisms are greatly welcomed and desired. I still haven't figured out where I want the story to go at this juncture. I hope that you liked it just the tiniest bit though. Um, so yeah. And here is also the first picture of Kuumbo I made for this story.
Oh and to give an update on myself (this is for you Big10) I graduated! Yay! That's right folks, you're eyes aren't deceiving you. I finished my last every (or so my bank account hopes) class at ASU last week and now I'm official. I guess it's on to growing up eh? Meh, maybe a few months down the road.
