A giraffe named Abano

Abano was tall enough to see tomorrow before anyone else. The travellers loved that about her. They stacked their books, instruments and hopes on a blue machine and asked her, at every crossroads, which way the future was hiding. Abano always answered, even when the weight made her knees shake.

One day they reached a bridge built too low for her neck. ‘Bend a little more,’ everyone called. She did, then stopped halfway. For the first time she chose a road no map had marked, one wide enough for her to walk upright.

The travellers complained until they noticed what she could see from there: a horizon none of them had imagined. Abano had not abandoned the journey. She had finally joined it.