"And without a safety net!" said the gazelle

1.

"Ohhh," said Geronimo, as he commenced the long road to recovery from an all-night draughts session. "Never again."

The game followed six straight hours of surfing, on a board converted from the wreckage of a World War Two bomber. Which would be one thing if he was human, but have you ever seen a giraffe attempting to balance on a bit of Polystyrene on an ocean swell?

2.

The gazelle, who was called Horace, reclined on a deck chair, following the all-night draughts session. "This is the life!" he said.

Horace had also been surfing (on a board converted from a Vespa 150 TAP French military scooter), but since he was smaller and more lithe than Geronimo, the draughts game that followed was merely a relaxing interlude compared to Geronimo's experience.

3.

"And now," said the gazelle; "without a safety net!"

"Oh please," said Geronimo; "no more."

"Come on!" said Horace. "You'll like this one!"

"Really?"

"Maybe not. But you gotta do it!"

"Why?"

"You know why!"

Geronimo did. But he had temporarily forgotten.

4.

They didn't know where 'here' or 'now' was, but they had been here for three days now - according to their subjective perception of time.

Horace the miniature gazelle had insisted, in that time, that they complete a series of competitive challenges, in order to keep their "focus". Yes that was it, Geronimo remembered now.

5.

"Abseiling!" said Horace.

"Ye gods," said Geronimo.

"Skydiving?"

"Oh please no."

"Bunjee."

"Ridiculous."

"Trapeze!"

"Whatever."

And that settled it.

6.

Geronimo clung on by his neck, flung himself off towards Horace, missed and... flew.

He passed through a cloud of Roman tiles, a forecourt of Vespas and the spray of a sneezing brontosaurus, to end up face-to-sort-of-face with a depressed blue spiny serpent.

7.

"Sigh," said Horace. "Never get stranded in a pan-dimensional repository of cultural and historical icons of the twentieth century with a giraffe."

8.

The depressed blue spiny serpent looked annoyed.

"What do you want?" it said.

"Erm... to get outta here?" said Geronimo.

"I hate it when people answer questions with questions," said the depressed blue spiny serpent.

9.

The brontosaurus pixelated and then winked out of existence at the realisation of its own unlikelihood.

10.

By way of a response to the question Geronimo hadn't asked yet, the depressed blue spiny serpent said, "I am the embodiment of temptation and irrepressible curiosity."

"Like the serpent of the Garden of Eden?"

"That serpent is a metaphor. I am the physical manifestation of that metaphor."

"So you are a metaphor?"

"Aren't you listening? I am the physical manifestation of a metaphor."

"You say potato..."

"Are you serious?"

"You tell me."

"What I will tell you, Mr Giraffe, is that you will never get out of here unless you do exactly what the gazelle says."

"But how does th-"

"Off you go."

"Wait-!"

11.

"Here he comes," said Horace, deck chair reclining, glass of iced tea on a small wrought iron table beside him, vaguely distracted from his contemplation of the Pernod sea and Anglepoise lamp sun by the appearance of the giraffe.

12.

"No safety nets," said Geronimo.

"That's what I s-"

"No surfing... no draughts... no trapeze..."

"So what do y-"

"Shot put."

"Right."

13.

Of course Geronimo won - because if anyone can throw things better than a miniature gazelle, it's a giraffe.

As Geronimo totted up the scores, Horace transformed into the depressed blue spiny serpent.

"Congratulations," said the Serpent, as He held out before Him a large Thornton's chocolate egg with the word 'WINNER' inscribed thereupon.

"No thanks," said Geronimo. "My freedom will suffice."

The depressed blue spiny serpent smiled

***

Somewhat inspired by "And without a safety net" by Dan Ashton-Booth...