I thought that in order to safeguard family honour (from eternal Zebra humiliation should I be unmasked) that I would Google ‘Local Artists in Nottingham’ and take a false name. Upon commencing with my deceit I also had to think of a human name to call myself. I wasn’t sure if this job was really for someone so ancient but what do I know…all humans look exactly alike. I chose wisely to continue to be a member of the male genus …aged about 40-45 and about 11 stone…going on something more. You may well have guessed by now that I had decided to disguise myself as a human-being and to secure some meaningful employment…a Zebra masquerading as a human to masquerade as a Zebra. I also took on a role of a playing card in the same production…as to which card I took the part of I alas have absolutely no idea. I wrote also that I had performed the part of the Cheshire Cat in a school production of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I had written in my application (Zebras can write) that in my informative years I had played the roll of one of the three wise men, known as Balthasar in the Biblical nativity story, for two consecutive years. The lobby gave me the impression that it was some sort of holding pen…there were a number of youngish children waiting to go somewhere…May be they had done something really shoddy…were they to be sent down? …Of little concern to me I thought, I had my own worry…I still had to pass myself off as a authentic human…to get this job…I needed the cash…life for a Zebra in Twenty First Century Britain is a little tough at the moment…two legs good and four legs…well four legs means you could be either a pampered pet or a hunk of meat…to be strung up and tenderized for cooking…the hanging union beckons…Henry! …Still the disguise is holding up well…and the CV with all the gobbledygook about arty performances and exhibitions had secured me an interview. Firmly I put to one side my wretched thoughts of poor decapitated Uncle Henry…I turned my attention to the lobby…noting my escape route just in case there was a need to take heel (on to all fours if necessary). My Great-Great uncle Henry had become a head trophy sometime in the late 1800’s…upon the wild grasslands of the Serengeti. You never know with these humans, they collect anything…stamps, beer mats, points on nectar cards and even the heads of Zebras. I was asked to wait for a moment, someone would be down to collect me - not as a trophy I hopped. “There’s a gentleman here for interview,” she said. I guess humans do not communicate like us Zebras…we just holler out loud. I think whoever she was talking to down the other end of the curly wire must have been in another part of the building and beyond calling range. The receptionist then asked me my name (I gave it) and she then proceeded to phone someone. The beam upon the girls face suggested that she seldom had such words spoken to her. “Hello, I’m here for an interview for the position of Inspirational Zebra” I said to the receptionist (in my best English). I turned my attention to the task in hand. Either way I glanced across at his presence and smiled at him. The figure, a mere historic imitation, had been positioned in the vicinity of the entrance door to either welcome me (and others) into the museum or to bid us a fond farewell. To one side of me I caught sight of a gentleman in old clothes who was full of rigor – a cadaver I presumed? My eyes (restricted and maladjusted to the human face mask that I wore) deceived me. Ascending them (on two legs) I walked through the open door and into the lobby. They have in the past hung people on the steps of the Shire Hall, no place for a zebra I thought. Tuesday 11th August 2009 12pm (Galleries of Justice)
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