The Mating Rituals of the Burning Giraffe

By Morgan Benson

Set in a world where clocks melt and gentlemen rain from the sky, The Mating Rituals Of The Burning Giraffe is a grown-ups fable, inspired by the surrealist paintings, sculptures, and sketches of Magritte, Dal, and Monty Python. Its a brightly colored delirium, dedicated to the indomitable child.

The story follows Billy Dada, a young man about to enter a state of higher learning where he will be taught the principles of categorizing biological diversity, from smelly wolves to cats with heads like mushrooms, from hares with fangs to enormous clams, but who, midst the books and lectures, nurtures a fascination with the giraffa infernalis, a pyring obsession thats about to turn into a scathefire.

So begins a black-and-blue excursion into the brushstrokes on lifes canvas. Its a slab of confusion and desperation, a swirl of hardships and sorrowsinside a frame of meaning. The Mating Rituals of the Burning Giraffe is an adult fairytale about how fate tears us apart unless we move with it.

Its a way to move with it.

Move with it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 8, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450042925

Morgan Benson

My name is Morgan Benson. I was born, kicking and screaming, on the crumbling fringes of a Utopia. My father was a menial worker, my mother’s jobs were twice as menial, and me, I would blossom into a thistle in civilization’s best kept garden. Duly processed, I was assigned to the IKEA deconstruction department, where the assembled furniture is dismantled and crammed into boxes. Set for a life of taking apart fully functional coffee tables that somebody else would put back together at home, the futility of life dawned on me, whereupon I was rushed to the nearest Citizen Readjustment Facility. Upon my release, I set out to write something that’d keep sanity at bay. The Mating Rituals Of The Burning Giraffe is in online retailers now.

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Copyright © 2010 by Morgan Benson.

ISBN:                  Softcover                          978-1-4500-4291-8

                            Ebook                              978-1-4500-4292-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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"Heaven is neither up there, nor down there,

neither to the left,

nor to the right.

Heaven is right in the middle of the chest

of those who have faith."

Salvador Dalí

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1

Billy Dada sat in the backseat of his parents’ car and watched the giant nose at the side of the road get closer and closer, and then move farther and farther away, until he could no longer see it.

What kind of tree is that? he asked his dad.

It’s not a tree, it’s a mammal.

His mom turned her head back. An animal that gives birth, she clarified.

Baffled, begetting a skeptic’s eye, Billy turned around and tried to catch a last glimpse of the mammal, before remembering the mammal was already long gone.

Eager to scrutinize this oddity’s creatural status, Billy gazed ahead, but there was nothing on the horizon but greensleeves and braunwood. So, he waited, and he waited, and he waited, for so long it began to look like the entire population had gotten up and left for a greener region, and when another giant nose then finally did come along, they were about to pass it right by.

Could we slow down? he pleaded.

I thought you were in a hurry to get to the burning giraffes? his dad replied.

I just want to see the nose.

His dad obliged and the swaying red fields began to pass by slower and slower. Glued to the glass, blurring the window with short-lived, warm exhales as the giant nose came closer, Billy braced himself, determined to get a perfect look at every single part of this nasal monstrosity’s unorthodox anatomy, but as they passed it, all he really saw was the huge pool of snot coming out of its nostrils.

Looked like it had a cold, his dad commented, and with that they left the runny beast behind.

Billy, look, his mom called out, tapping the windshield with her finger, a burning giraffe, and, with a spring’s physique, Billy thrust himself forward to see it.

He looked and looked, but there wasn’t one to see.

Right there, Billy heard, and followed his dad’s finger, but there was nothing of the kind under the greensleeves’ broadarmed guard.

There, his mom gestured.

You missed it, his dad scolded him, but then glanced in the rear view mirror and changed his mind. Turn around.

Billy turned, just in time to spot the flameless black silhouette figure on a yellow backdrop, on the back of a traffic sign.

Feeling cheated, he sat back for a while, tugging at a run in his knitted pants, but it wasn’t long before his sense of detail sent him forward to hold his mom accountable.

Why did it look like that on the sign?

That’s how giraffes look, she assured him.

Why didn’t it have any flames?

Maybe the flames were yellow.

Billy scoffed and was just about to argue back when his dad started calling his name repeatedly until he had his full attention.

In front, under a bright purple sky, mounted on a tall metal fence hidden in part by braunwood leaves, airbrushed onto a massive billboard welcoming them to the manmade reservoir, the sight was that of a genuine, bonafide burning giraffe, with polychrome flames dancing from its tail to its mouth, towering majestically over awing humans and mechanical transportations below.

Imagine, Billy’s mom mused as they pulled up to the window to pay the admission fee, they’re just behind those gates, now, and as Billy leaned forward and gazed through the shelter of brown leaves, under that stratum in the sky where the red and blue cracked in two, he was sure he could see smoke.

Along with their change back, the Dada family were handed a big, bright red fire-extinguisher, which Billy’s dad entrusted to his cadet. Then, slowly, the gates opened and they drove inside.

Visitors the only thing smoking on the premise, no more had the Dadas than gotten inside before they were waved in by a ranger wearing a silver spoon over his white-rimmed khaki shirt, and Billy moaned as his dad turned the engine off and rolled his window down to receive new instructions. Ahead, cloaked by a bridgeable distance, suggestive, faraway shapes were stirring a muddle of wonderful colors, embodied expectations, moving slowly. Right outside, however, the garrulous man was going on and on and on, spawning in Billy an aesthetic panic that began to flutter inside him like a whitebird in a bucket until, finally, he lost control of his extremities and slowly and painstakingly, using both hands, wheeled down the window closest to him and stuck his head out to have a better look. In the distance, the mustard changed into a navy doodle with woolly, yellow fringes. White strokes dove, glided and hovered above it, and below, stalking along around the edges, torch-like orange and brown figures were leaving red splashes on the greenery.

At last the sweaty ranger retreated, moseying over to a ‘no strawdogs’ sign, and Billy, with a heart now aching for less abstract impressions, by fits and starts worked his window back up. Up front, his dad left his open, turned the key, gave himself away with a suspicious hawking, put the car in gear and drove onto the rough turf.

Billy leaned forward. What did the man say? he asked his dad, but it just made his old man focus harder on the dawnrocks ahead. Dad? What did he say?

Ignoring him still, his dad did a search of the glove compartment, banged it shut and then asked his wife in a lowered voice, Did we bring the binoculars?

Billy watched his mom go through her purse. Don’t worry. We’ll still be able to see them, she promised, his frustration noted.

Why do we need binoculars, then? Billy immediately steered her in the direction of his own more optically logical thesis.

There’s a line of cones where we have to stop, Billy’s dad told him while keeping an eye on the metallic maintenance shed coming up on his right, the giraffes get scared if you get too close.

How far away are the cones?

I don’t know.

Billy sat back, but then leaned forward again, in a hurry to beat the vibrato undermining his voice. Are the cones so far away that we’re not going to be able to see the burning giraffes at all?

But right there and then his mom met his glossy eyes and offered providence. You can see them already, she said in her soothing voice, nodding gently in the direction they were heading, look.

Billy leaned forward. At the end of the glittering, omnivorous desert, inside a blur of palette vegetation and pastel lakeside fauna, miniature burning giraffes were growing decreasingly minuscule.

Soon, he could see them by the lake, in front of yellow, sagging savannah droopers, strikingly artful peacock bushes and thick red grass, and then, as the Dadas reached the automobile- and tour bus-dotted curve, and fell in line between two orange cones, Billy saw, a hundred feet away, halfway between a bottlebearer and two rangers measuring the trunk of a stemswollen corduroyal, the closest of the burning giraffes, drinking from the lake, the smoke rising from his flaming lips drawing the attention of more adults nearby, who, while watching each other’s backs and herding two unruly young males and a restive baby burning giraffe among them, made their way down to join him.

Can you see them alright? Billy’s mom asked to make sure, and Billy answered with an affirmative consonant. Although, after a while, the wild geometry grazing the windshield smudge began to require so much squinting he started to feel almost as myopic as the one-eyed whale on his National Oceanarium shirt.

Suddenly, an engine roared to life.

On Billy’s right, it seemed, a red and orange car was about to roll a little closer to the action, and as he looked to his left, he saw a mostly blue and white, and then a black, green and yellow car, both parked closer than the line of cones permitted.

How come they’re allowed to go past the cone line? he challenged his torpid parents, bringing the motorist culprits to their attention. Poking around with their moral yardsticks, they began to discuss the phenomenon between them.

That blue and white one’s way over there.

Mm.

I don’t know.

This went on for a while, with Billy’s eyes going back and forth from dad to mom, his head swaying with every argument, and from every gust of refute, until, undetectable to him, the verdict was in. Suddenly, his dad’s hand was back on the keys, turning the ignition, protruding their automobile an extra ten feet, then another ten feet, bit by bit until they were as close as the closest of the renegade cars, and then he stepped on the gas pedal one last time and made their vehicle the worst offender.

We’ll probably end up with a giraffe inside the car, he joked, and for the first time since they left home, Billy ventured a smile.

To their left, under long, blue dapples, a giraffe whose nerves were still simmering down after the trespass was coming back out from behind the emerald sprouts, creating noisy clinks as his legs brushed against the low-set branches of a bottlebearer, but just as Billy was about to merge with these magnifications, his mom’s troubled voice yanked him back by the spine. Are those park men looking at us?

To their right, the rangers doctoring gumfiated tartan had stopped working, their measuring tapes still pressing against the unfashionable tree’s plaid stem. Brushing pestering misks from their sweaty brows, they were giving the Dadas a long, hard look.

Maybe we should back up, back to the line? Billy’s mom worried.

Do we have to? Billy pleaded.

The rangers had thrown their equipment to the ground and were standing with arms crossed, taking turns spitting into the tall grass. Then the two of them took a long, hard look at the burning giraffes drinking from the lake, then a long, hard look at the line of cars, vans and tour buses yonder, and then, scorching as it was, they brushed off some sand from their khaki uniforms, picked up their syringes and measuring tapes, and got back to work.

The tension gone, the Dada family relaxed and Billy was free to follow the burning giraffes as they left the water hole and went past a wobbly old jellyoak by which they stopped to gnaw at the arbrewire, their last stop before disappearing in behind his mom’s head.

Wow, Billy’s mom admired, they’re beautiful animals, unaware of the eclipse caused by her generous bluebell perm. Leaning forward, Billy got a glimpse of a spotted neck when his mom went into the picnic basket for mugs and a thermos, then nothing but windshield bugs as she took off her toilet paper scarf and poured herself the first of the hot, green beanbrew. Stretching his neck like a hungry neckbug, he fell forward, making contact with the chunky beverage.

Come sit here with us, his mom suggested, cleaning up the mess, and Billy wisely accepted the invitation to climb over the stick.

Make sure you don’t miss this, his dad advised him, pruning his Barlomor a little bit smoother before lighting it. Right over there. Everything seemed quiet within the blazing herd. Across the lake, some checkered horses were hiding from the park’s only draped hog, who was about to climb anew the rock that filled his day with work. Right there, his dad pointed out with his fuming piece of wood.

Scaring a slaughter of deathblacks away from its two roots and arch, a giraffe was whiffing the woolly foliage of a white-bearded dualstem. She backed away from the tree.

To an ominous, resonant, tubular swoosh, a massive flame shot out from the burning giraffe’s mouth and set part of the furring on fire. The white hairs sizzled from the brenning heat, but went out fast, and soon, when only a few of the blackened patches still kept pyres, she stepped up to her doing and began to lick the darkened trunk.

Why do they do that? Billy asked his dad.

They can’t eat raw leaves, his mom answered, handing Billy a few slices of sweetfruit to go with his graspberry soda, they have to burn them first, otherwise they can’t digest them.

Do you know what digest means? his dad quizzed him.

Billy searched his budding science vocabulary. It’s what happens in your stomach when you eat something, he settled for, and though it gave accolades, he only half-heartedly awarded himself blue fruit, stunted by the cover of the book on utilisaurs he’d brought with him where a 150 ft vacuum oxen cleaned up a prehistorical landscape.

That settled, they returned to the scene, where a baby giraffe had just joined his firedrake mother and was about to pick the decorated leaves of an impolitely eyeballing peacock bush roughly his height when, without warning, she struck him with the side of her body so hard it knocked him right to the ground. Panicking, the little one crawled and staggered his way back up on his feet and then ran away a safe distance from his mother.

Why did she do that? Billy cried out, but nobody answered.

His dad, lost in the pages of his Daily Summary, rid the spot behind his ear from brillo, put the knewspaper down and looked over at the commotion, What did the baby giraffe do?

He didn’t do anything, Billy had him know, she just ran over to him and shoved him to the ground.

Remember what we talked about a few minutes ago? his mom broke in, How they can’t eat raw leaves? Now he did. His mother is just making sure he doesn’t get stomach cramps. Look.

This time, it was the mother who was sniffing the peacock’s tufts. Like the time before, she took a few steps back, filled up her lungs, retracted her neck, shook her backside three times and then in one loud, violent exhale blasted silly the wide-eyed flamboyant lavender. It burned, it faded, and before long her mouth was above it, her tongue snatching the tiny, charred leaves and after a few exploratory steps in her direction the baby burning giraffe was back at her side, feeding on the thing alongside with her.

We’re missing something over there, Billy’s dad told the others and they turned in time to witness the conclusion.

Afar was a brown and orange blur of galloping legs and hooves that whipped the sand below into a dusty swirl. A trail of smoke traced the beast fleeing as the wind worked on his calid body and neck. Behind him, the aggressor trotted to a full stop, stomped the ground beneath him, raised his head high and, to the bleak postlude of his adversary’s guttural cries, exhaled his fire at the zenith.

Looked like they’d been fighting, Billy’s dad summed it up.

Meanwhile, the infantile giraffe had taken an interest in a small, orange tree with a mushroom-shaped top called a sundwarf and was moving its muzzle over the dark orange leaves.

I hope he’s a quick learner, Billy’s dad cried hole in the ground, before relighting his faded twig, and after that they all fell silent.

The little one began to nibble at a leaf.

Nope, Billy’s dad gave up.

No, Billy himself still hoped.

The giraffe’s mother slowly began to shuffle her feet, approaching, but as it were, rather than knapple the goods of the forbidden tree, the baby took a few steps back, filled up on air like his mother had, pulled his neck back, shook his backside the right amount of times and then pushed out the full distribution of his lungs with all the raw ambition and elemental drive he could muster.

With mimicry perfectly imprinted, his body plunged forward so far it left him standing with his blueish tongue fallen over his lower lip, yet the sound and fury that left his throat wasn’t so much the roaring torch of his mother, but rather a cough and a tiny puff of smoke.

The grown-ups aboard, they laughed, but not Billy. When do they learn to do that? he asked his mother, but before she could answer, the baby made another attempt and this time a tiny flame did come out of his mouth and it was enough to set a few leaves on fire.

Soon, the sun got smeared and started to lose its rotund shape and the line of painted vehicles and traffic cones became sparingly dotted, Billy’s dad wiping ink stains from his hands with a papal tower while Billy’s mom collected sweetfruit cores and two graspberry empties, and, while the baby burning giraffe practiced his newfound ability down by the lake under Billy’s watchful eye, through the wiring in Billy’s brain, a question was making its way into the world.

Are they on fire when they’re born? Billy suddenly asked.

His dad put the paper towel away. That’s a good question.

There was a long silence.

Are they on fire?

I have no idea, he said, that’s why it’s a good question.

Billy sighed. Mom-

I don’t know, sweetie, his mom interrupted him, you can look it up when we get home, and noticing his confusion added, you can look it up in the encyclopedia.

Billy put his seatbell on, in a hurry to return home to receive the warranted facts, but as they drove away, he felt a strange chill. Underneath the savannah droopers, the baby stood on its hind legs, its teeth clutching at a black and splendidly crisp leaf dangling from a branch way, way, way, way up, its projected palate chewing the air over and over, its massive tongue stretched to the absolute fullest, wailing, wanting.

Later that someday, Billy climbed the living room bookcase, his right knee disarranging sea sculptures and a picture of his toddler self underneath a toenail fir, pulled out the first volume of the family encyclopedia, laid the heavy book down on the floor and turned page after page, by habit slowing down at the bird section’s hawk with flippers and turtleback owl, until he stumbled upon burning giraffes in a black and white photograph so small it shamed its own frame. Running his finger through the meager text that had accompanied it, he suddenly found himself at the last line, none the wiser.

It doesn’t say, he said, having stood up and, upsetting the whitebird and deathblack drawings on the fridge, marched into the kitchen where he’d found his dad at the kitchen table reading a racing form and his mom by the stove cooking a rubber chicken. It doesn’t say what they’re like when they’re born. His dad’s eyes stayed with the numbers and his mom was in a world of her own. It doesn’t even say how they can have flames without getting burnt.

Finally, his dad looked up. Maybe they’re working on finding out, he suggested, the scientists, and at the same time took a glance to see how the bean draining was coming along.

How can they not’ve found out something like that? Billy spurned his dad’s notion, but his dad just got up and poured himself what green was in the pot so far, and that was all he had on the subject.

A reason’s last resort, Billy’s mom closed the oven door, took off her oven mittens and gave it her best shot. Maybe they’ll know by the time you’re grown up, she offered, and Billy, willing to hear her out, put his hands in his pockets and waited for a continuation.

There wasn’t one. After a while, he went back to the living room, put the weighty volume back on the shelf, and waited a decade.

   2   

2

"Nature, in its florae and faunae alike, allows for considerable variety in its methods of reproduction. Among the select noteworhty rituals included in this brief exposé, our premier entry, that of the white longhorn unicorn, more than makes the grade. Having spent the grassland summer fleeing such predators as the large simpleton and the greenspotted yardshifter, surviving longhorns retire to rock shelters and grottos. Here, the male blunts his horn against the walls of the cave, then soaks the keratin in warm springs, until, after roughly two and a half weeks of combined treatment, the proteins become flaccid enough to have penetration run smoothly. It’s a process that is not without risk. When the male’s climax occurs, usually a few seconds into the act, the horn is drained of seminal fluid and regains its sharp point. This brusque closing of the insemination window puts the male in the tight position of making his deposit without impaling the female. While no injuries have been recorded, if nature has perfected this balancing act, the same cannot reasonably be said of the male longhorn’s post-coital behavior. When the female again turns invisible and pink, the male of the species is known to become outright aggressive; shredding plants, stabbing or kicking the smaller animals, even searching out populated areas with the intent of wreaking havoc on humans and their property. Recent studies, which allow surprisingly little room for contributing psychological or sociobiological factors, have shown that the unicorn’s notorious and highly pernicious temper is likely the shortterm consequence of an acute vitamin deficiency caused by a periodical lack of sunlight.

Another dweller in the same temperate zone uses a range of species it normally feeds on as involuntary parts of its asexual reproduction. Measuring up to fifteen feet, the antennae and G-sting not included, the sandmonster at times variates its interactions with its usual prey, leaving it with just a few scratches. The superficiality of these marks, however, conceals a dark fate for their bearer.

Twenty-four hours into the survival of the attack, the abrasions on the victim’s skin become dark green and necrotic, a discoloration and desensitivisation that signal a zygote has been successfully inserted into the survivor’s blood system and is making its way to the brain. During the next forty-eight hours, while the intruding fetus evolves inside its egg, feeding on the hypothalamus, the exploited creature, usually a checkered horse, funnel-mouthed trumpetmumper, draped hog or other large mammal, suffers a number of crippling symptoms. Among these are