{"id":7900,"date":"2018-04-27T12:41:19","date_gmt":"2018-04-27T18:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=7900"},"modified":"2018-04-27T12:41:19","modified_gmt":"2018-04-27T18:41:19","slug":"the-giraffe-whispers-human-words","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=7900","title":{"rendered":"The Giraffe Whispers Human Words"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>John Gabriel Adkins<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The zoo animals &#8212; tigers, koalas, others (and loudbird) &#8212; had been retrieved and recaged after busting loose the day before, all but the yellow giraffe. The catch-men had cornered the giraffe in a dark corner but it had lowered its head low, muttering and mouthing human words, mesmerizing the whole gang. They returned with sad hands completely empty. The zoo folks phoned in a favor: the baddest, roughest ex-detective in all Montana: Ex-Detective Hughes. <em>If anyone can crack that giraffe<\/em> &#8212; and so on and so forth.<\/p>\n<p>Ex-Detective Hughes cottoned-up his ears and approached the cornered shadowy giraffe, still headlow, still muttering human. <em>I&#8217;m here to bargain. Nod if you understand.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The giraffe nodded.<\/p>\n<p>Back to Ex-Detective Hughes. <em>I get what this is. Okay? I&#8217;ve crossed the line before, I&#8217;ve done time before. I&#8217;ve been in a cage. I don&#8217;t want that for you. Do you understand?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The giraffe nodded.<\/p>\n<p>Ex-Detective Hughes held out his hand. <em>Then come with me. We&#8217;ll hit the road. We&#8217;ll lose the cages. Just you and me on the freeway. What do you say?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The giraffe nodded, raised its head, trotted out, got into Ex-Detective Hughes&#8217; 1976 Cadillac Eldorado convertible with 14,000 miles and the top down, and Ex-Detective Hughes took the wheel, and they just went.<\/p>\n<p>To this day, the giraffe exhibit languishes completely empty.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>JOHN GABRIEL ADKINS<\/strong> is a Pushcart-nominated writer of anti-stories, microfiction and other oddities, and is a member of the Still Eating Oranges arts collective. His work has appeared in <em>Squawk Back, Literary Orphans, Sick Lit Magazine, Three Drops from a Cauldron, The Sleep Aquarium<\/em> and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John Gabriel Adkins &nbsp; &nbsp; The zoo animals &#8212; tigers, koalas, others (and loudbird) &#8212; had been retrieved and recaged after busting loose the day before, all but the yellow giraffe. The catch-men had cornered the giraffe in a dark &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=7900\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":7896,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7900","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P15duy-23q","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7900"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7908,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7900\/revisions\/7908"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}