Dedication Page for Dedication

I believe I have proved my dedication with what has now become a nine-issue travesty (actually the perfect word, I can't believe it!). However, for the starving reader I say this: Eat man, eat. It is the only way to live.

For the breast feeding reader I say this: Grow while you still can. Infinite food makes for complacency in the future.

For the food-throwing reader I say this: You are wise to discern between the foods. Of course, why you have read this far is baffling and might even prove a theory of mine.

For the trendy reader I say this: You must eat more before you can judge what is shocking or new. Recycling pays off for the savvy and manipulative writer. As in: not me.

For the polite reader I say this: Your manners are charming, but do not delude yourself. There is always candy where there is rot and slop where there is wine.

For the unrefined reader I say this: You are most wise, avoiding all convention. How is dessert to be enjoyed if the main course has been left to sheep?

And finally, a real dedication: For the homo sapien who giggles when a grim look is expected and shrieks like a girlie when an apathetic reluctance is assumed. Selfish, ain't it.

Final update: Billy is on his way to the circus to become a tyrant. Sylvia is carrying Andy back to his home. The three Jirafa Mafia members are leaving Billy and Andy's home, hoping to find Billy at the circus.

Billy hums to himself in the car as he is about five minutes away from the circus. He thinks to himself, "What if this is the last tune I ever know", when from nowhere jumps an ostrich into his lap. "Oh, the wonderful energy of the beast and fowl", shouts Billy. The ostrich hears his cry and begins to foam at the mouth. Billy can feel heat emanating from the ostrich. Poor ostrich shrieks in horror at the premonition of his own spontaneous combustion. Billy remains calm as the ostrich becomes a dense ball of fire without any physical body left. Billy is left with charred pants and a little diamond, the only remnant of the ostrich. Billy pockets the diamond and returns to old habits by licking his forehead. Before I knew it he was at the circus and he shut me up.

Sylvia was sweating Kool-Aid as she carried Andy, the tattered man without even a hat which is what, of course, should have been tattered. Children ran along side the beast, with beautiful jeweled buckets - some made of ivory with emeralds embedded in the side, others composed of purple aluminum with pearls - to catch the Kool-Aid which poured out of Sylvia's pores. Sylvia was generous, occasionally lifting an arm so that the children could get to the Kool-Aid more easily. Sylvia was running as fast as she could and Andy's hair was falling out. The children recognized this and cut hair from Sylvia's great mustache to replace the old man's. Soon, Sylvia and Andy were on the porch of Andy and Billy's home. Sylvia bucked Andy off of her back and grew hungry. Andy looked quite afraid. He was weary and despite Sylvia's having carried him home, he did not trust her truly macho man appetite. Sylvia began to growl, baring her canines and flossing at a ludicrous speed that would make any normal human lose blood rapidly. But no, Sylvia was stronger than that, a connoisseur of fine meats, a product of the hood, and a general brute. Andy cowered in front of the door, fearing the worst.

However, that is exactly what saved him. While he was crying in front of the door, the children who formerly had no importance in my story had run home to retrieve some liverwurst. Their ingenuity saved Andy as Sylvia turned around instantly at the smell of the liver. The children threw the meat at Sylvia, who was now salivating. Andy thanked the children, and as he grew older he would stretch the truth a little, telling people that the children had slain Sylvia with a finely sharpened toothpick right before she rushed toward him.

Nonetheless, Sylvia's beastly hunger was quelled. The excitement was far from over though, when Andy walked inside to find the house damaged by the Jirafa Mafia. Andy's reaction was one of lunacy. He took peanut butter and painting his face. Then he quoted Oedipus by gouging out his eyes. However, Andy had better taste and replaced his eyes with strawberries so that the children would be only mildly frightened. Next, he began stapling crackers to the ceiling. Sylvia did not know what to do so she began to help Andy out. She placed bananas around the television and hammered the wall with bananas. It was horrific to see them in all their rage. You should be glad you don't have to experience it first hand. As both Andy and Sylvia became tired, Andy told Sylvia of the Jirafa Mafia's tyranny.

"You don't understand, Sylvia", cried Andy. "My family has been under the knife of this Mafia's operations since the beginning. And all because of my boy Billy. He used to be a good boy who minded his own business, but once we started spoiling him - dressing him, changing his diapers, giving him spoons to play with - he has been getting involved with terrible human beings. When he turned 25, he met some of the founding members of the Jirafa Mafia. He was entranced by their obvious superiority to other humans. I myself find their intellect staggering. In fact, the whole Mafia is made up of amazing human beings! Anyway, Billy was playing with his Mafia friends one day, jump rope I think it was, when he found my elephant gun in my hiding tree. He started playing with it, curious as to what size mammals it could destroy. I was not outside to tell him the gun's great power. He continued playing and then when city folk like ourselves would least expect it, a large giraffe pranced across the street. It startled my pathetically stupid son and he shot it in the face."

"Oh, that poor bloody giraffe. Even I, upon my glance, could see that the head would have no use in any meat product. I could also see that the young Mafia members were incensed. Their faces grew terribly red and they began to throw spittle around the yard, defacing public signs and deforming the faces of spittle-sensitive women and their children. They felt that the giraffe was their property, being the target of their meat market aspirations. They handed my son Billy a fine for 25 cents. If Billy were an ordinary boy he could have stolen that easily, but Billy was and is a stupid, stupid man. He would ask his mother and I for the money once a week. We would never give in.

However, Billy is still in debt, as I speak. He tried to steal his sister's engagement ring, but now it looks like he has decided to work at the circus. The Mafia will surely not forget the compensation owed for the giraffe mutilation. Oh, stupid, stupid Billy."

"Sylvia, I must ride on your back once more. We must find Billy before the Mafia puts him to sleep."

"I'm ready Andy. Hop on, the liverwurst has given me new energy!" And they were off.

Billy got out of the car, hoping he could follow in his sister's footsteps as a respectable member of the circus. As he walked toward the line for applications he saw his sister dismembered. Billy, no common imbecile, knew that any decent circus would have disposed of her properly. He was awares. He was on the lookout for shady deals, suspect characters, and corruption. Unfortunately Billy was a dreamer though, and as he walked he gradually fell to dreaming, once again of his school days.

Meanwhile, the circus was producing delicious meat. The three Mafia members who were looking for Billy, were limping toward the circus about this time. Oddly enough, it was completely bright outside, not a hint of darkness, despite the obvious dangerous, nail biting scene about to ensue. On top of that, there was no howling wind, no mucky rain, no eerie silence. It was obvious that the weather once again had no idea what was going on.

Sylvia and Andy were storming toward the circus, too. Andy winked at the sun, knowing how the sun enjoys a day like this, where it can watch everything that is going on. Sylvia remained larger than life (in fact she never recovered from her terrible growth), "ready to rumble" as a Midwest wrestling fan might shout. Andy was back in his donkey suit. He had even found his llama lips and glued them on with delight.

Billy was dreaming still. Images of Turkish peasants floated through his head. Little Chinamen proffered large bowls of ice cream. Sprites flitted through cracks of space. Turtles modeled lingerie for naughty turtles. Mongolians questioned the labeling of the Down Syndrome afflicted as "mongoloids". Russians wished for more porridge. Americans wished for humility. Large obese white men chewed on the fat of the land. Petite little puny women choked on the fat of the sand. Large women asked questions like: "How come?" or "What for did that little grasshopper hop in the grass for?". Emaciated puny males asked questions like: "What fer?" and "What's an apple got to do withan orange, that's all I'm sayin'?". Volcanoes erupted with V8 spewing out of their mouths. Mountains split open, only to be filled with rice pudding and children's eyelashes. The oceans emptied out all the life in them and all that was left was water and the ocean grew lonely and drank itself. The clouds broke in two and in a little jam and jelly fell out of the sky. Deserts unearthed their sand and found gold, pure pirate's gold, ye matey. Tropical forests became bare and little monkeys walked about, real cool like they was all that and a bag o' corpses. The stars fell to Earth and revealed themselves as smelly Oompa Loompa societies.

And then, Billy was outside of his dream, although it continued inside of him. The three Mafia members were running toward him, their arms flailing, their arteries clogged from giraffe fat, and their minds as sharp as the ends of cornucopias. Andy jumped off the saddle he had made for Sylvia and ran toward the Mafia. Sylvia was quicker and was able to pounce on one of them. Billy was still dreaming and it made his reactions slow. The two able Mafia members attempted assaults on Andy and Billy. However, Andy combated with his specialty llama lips (scientists have found that human response to llama lips is one of indignation bordering on hallucination), gumming the Mafia member's arm and proclaiming his mastery of the ancient martial arts.

Billy, meanwhile was able to use the diamond from the ostrich to simply pay back the Jirafa Mafia. Sylvia and Andy threw the bones of their victims into - a hissyfit. So, everything appeared OK until a large cage/Deus ex machina captured Sylvia, Andy, and Billy and threw them into a vat of giraffe gravy.

So, the moral of the story is: The end will always be the end, but there is no guarantee that it will be the best.

More Jirafa Links