Each night, I put on my costume—a long cloth neck, two stubby horns, a patchwork quilt, and stilts—and went out to forage for leaves. I needed a long neck to reach the topmost morsels. But my neck wasn’t going to get any longer from stretching it. No, I understood Darwinian theory. Creatures with long necks didn’t get those appendages by reaching higher. They got them through natural selection. If I was going to survive, I’d have to wait ages for a naturally long neck. But I didn’t have the time, so I pulled on my extensions and my patchwork quilt, and I went out at night. I roamed my neighborhood. It was no Serengeti, but it had some trees.
I drew some attention, but I didn’t care. I was eating the greenest leaves, and my character began to change. I began to ruminate as I chewed. I begin to think about savannahs, tall grasses, and acacias full of shoots. I could see over treetops, spot predators a mile away. I could wrap my tongue around twigs and strip them of edible parts. I was no longer in a suburb, straining to see over shrubbery, trying not to trip over trashcans, and keeping one step ahead of the authorities. No, I was on a plain, and I was taller than any living creature.
At one point, I saw a dog. But was it really a dog, or was it a person dressed as a dog—a person altering his or her persona the same as I was doing? The creature came to me without fear, as if I were encroaching on its territory. It strained to reach my knees. I could have booted it with my hoof—with great force because I was so much taller—but I didn’t. I just kept tonguing the leaves off branches, keeping an eye out for serious predators.
***
“Altered Persona” first appeared in Matter Press, Journal of Compressed Creative Arts. 2011.
And in print, Violent Outbursts (Spuyten Duyvil, 2015)
IMAGE: Mino Maccari “Giraffe Man”, 1970 – Watercolor, 9 4/5 × 7 2/5 in. Rome.
