Gregory the Great

Gregory The Great

The sun was beginning to rise, and rise, and in no time at all, it was shining ever so brightly and telling everyone for miles around that it was time to get up and enjoy whatever this day had to offer in this remote and small town, hidden away in the Northern part of South Africa. Which was exactly what Johannes, had every intention of doing as school was over for another week and all he had on his mind was to have fun. Not to stay around the house to do boring chores as his mother was now calling out for him to do. He had other plans for today, namely, football.

So, as he was now dressed in his favorite dark blue shorts and his favorite pale blue T-Shirt as he then wasted no time in reaching under his bed to take out his most treasured possession, his football. As he was the birthday boy of ten years old last week, black and white hexagon patches and still completely intact as it had yet to be kicked properly yet. But it will be today.

As quietly as he could, he opens his window and leans out firstly he looks to the left, then he looks to the right, and seeing how there was nobody around, keeping a tight hold of his football, he extends his arms as far as they will go and gently and carefully, drops his football to the ground hoping that it will not bounce away from him. He`s relived to see it nestle softly in the sand only a foot or so away and three very short bounces.

“Johannes! Come to the kitchen now! You have work to do!” His mother called out to him, but the very moment that he heard this, he wasted no time at all in climbing out of the window, picking up his football, and head down the back-alley, as fast as he could go.

1

He was soon to pass one house and on looking in he can see one of his friends, Petrus, through the kitchen window, at the sink doing dishes with his mother close by. He stops, looks in, holds up his football and nods to him with a smile. But all his friend could do was look sad and shake his head in return. Johannes felt a little sad for him as he waved him goodbye for now and carried on running along until he got to another house, where he sees another friend, Willem, digging in the garden whilst his father stood nearby cutting down a hedge. Again, Johannes stops, holds up his football and nods with a smile. But yet again, all his friend could do was look sad and shake his head in return. Just like his other friend, all Johannes could do was feel a little sadness as he waved him goodbye and carried on his way down the back-alley.

Even though he had no friends to play with, it didn`t stop Johannes soon leaving his town and running out into the wide open plain where he drops his present and with his right foot, kicks it as high as he possibly could and his arms now outstretched, he struggled to watch it come down through the sun and hoped to catch before it hit the ground. It landed just out of his reach, but it did not matter, as it bounces once and goes high above his head, bounces again only this time not so high, he keeps his eyes firmly on the ball and he watches and waits for it land exactly in the center of his forehead. One, two, three, four, five six, controlled headers before he let it drop to his right foot. One, two, three, four, five six keeps up before switching to his left foot and doing exactly the same before flipping the ball up to his left thigh where again it was six keep ups before switching and doing the exact same with his right thigh as he then lets the ball drop to the ground and bringing it to a complete halt placing his right foot directly on top of it.

2

He takes a breath to compose himself, before taking a simple touch of the ball with his right foot, and he was off. First dribbling to the right, then to the left, one stepover was quickly followed by another as all the time his imagination had the voices of thousands of fans chanting “Johannes! Johannes! Johannes!” He drops his right shoulder, swerves past easily one imaginary defender, then drops his left, and does the exact same. “Johannes! Johannes! Johannes!

All he sees now his himself and the goalkeeper standing in front of him trying to predict which way he will shoot as Johannes just kept his eye on the ball as he had already decided which way he was going to shoot as he brings his right foot back and strikes the ball and like a thunderbolt fly into the top left-hand corner of the net. “GOOOAAAALLLLLL!!!!!” The commentator shouts as that`s the goal that`s led his country to glory at the World Cup.

“Johannes! Johannes! Johannes!” A now very excitable ten-year-old chants as he jumps up and down with his arms in the air until soon, he becomes slightly out of breath and looks at the reality of what is now two trees and bushes which formed part of a small woods instead of a goal and a beaten goalkeeper. He still had his dream, and not at home doing boring chores, so he was happy with that as he smiled to himself and began making his way into the small woods to search for his football.

He was still very much smiling to himself as he began searching through the dried grass, confident that his ball wouldn`t be too difficult to find. He was soon to be proved correct in this thinking as, much to his surprise, his ball suddenly re-appeared and went through his legs and stopped, just a few feet behind him.

3

With his head now looking down between his legs, Johannes couldn`t hide his surprise to see his sat in the dried grass and wonder how on earth it had got there. He stands back upright and looks around, but there is nothing or no one to be seen. “How strange” he says as he walks over to collect his football still looking around as he makes his way out of the woods when suddenly he heard, what he thought, sounded the voice of royalty from just behind a large tree.

“I am the tallest of the tall, which make me the grandest of them all.”

Johannes just couldn`t help but turned back around to see who it was he had these words out loud.

He most certainly very surprised to then see emerge from behind the tree a giraffe appears. Now, he had seen giraffes in the wild before but nothing quite like this one who`s neck just seemed to go on and on stretching high into the sky, so much so that Johannes began to think that it could even kiss the sun if it so wanted. The giraffe certainly had a look of superiority about it with its nose deliberately pointing upwards as it walked perfectly in step until it stopped, looked right, then looked left and then began slowly lower, and lower, and lower its head until finally, he was eyeball to eyeball with Johannes.

They just stared at each other in wonder and silence at each other as the giraffe tilts his head one way, which Johannes follows before the giraffe tilts his head back the other way, again Johannes follows before they`re looking straight at each other again. Johannes certainly was not frightened at all; he had seen many giraffes around the town where he lived but it was most definitely strange to see this come up this close to him. “Hello” the giraffe, completely out of the blue and sound not just polite, but also like he was indeed, royalty.

4

Johannes gasped in amazement whilst taking a step back as he had never heard a giraffe speak before, just like he had never heard any wild animal speak before. Especially one that has given him such a polite greeting. “It` s usually customary when someone says hello, you should respond with at least a hello in return” the giraffe says.

“Oh…. Hello” Johannes eventually says.

“Oh, so that black and white object belongs to you, does it? What exactly it is? If you don`t mind me asking” the giraffe says looking with great curiosity at Johannes`s football.

“It`s called a football” Johannes tells him.

“Oh, very well, so what exactly do you do with it?” asks the giraffe still very curious as he looks at this from this way and from that.

“Do?” Johannes begins by saying looking at him strangely. “Why, you play football with it.”

“Football?” the giraffe asks clearly not understanding.

“Yes, football, the greatest game in the world or, as some people call it, soccer, but I prefer to stick to its real name, football” explains Johannes before he goes on to ask. “Was it you then kicked it a minute or so ago?”

“Yes, it just appeared in front of me out of nowhere, so I just kicked it out of my way. I don`t care much for games, I have far more important things to think about" the giraffe says before he asks. "So, what is your name?"

5

Johannes still didn`t quite know what to make of all this which was why he took his time in answering. “I am Johannes…Do you have a name?”

“Why yes, of course I do. My name is Gregory” he replied.

“Gregory?” asks Johannes continuing to look at him very strangely.

“Yes, Gregory. I heard of it when some people were around here taking photographs myself, my herd, and other animals and someone called I believe one of the males by that name and I just instantly liked the sound of it and sounds so much better than the name that my parents had given me. Joseph. Yes, Gregory, sounds so much better, rolls of the tongue nicely, don`t you think?

“Rolls of the tongue’ says Johannes.

“Why yes, Greg-o-ry. Greg-o-ry. Really does sound good, doesn`t it?” asks Gregory to which Johannes, thinking of nothing else to say on this subject, just nodded before asking something else. “Where is the rest of your herd?” Gregory looked away the very moment he heard this question, looking a little sad as he did so, which Johannes couldn`t help but notice. “Why are you sad? Was it something that I did or said?”

6

“No, no, no, not at all” Gregory began. “Me and my herd, let`s just say, had a disagreement of sorts” Gregory said as he looked at a very confused Johannes, he felt that he should explain further. “You see, when it was discovered that I could actually speak just like a human can, they didn`t like, they didn`t like it at all, especially when at the same time, my neck just kept growing and growing far larger than any of the others. They just couldn`t figure out why this was indeed happening. Neither could I, but I must confess, I did rather enjoy being taller than all the others and my ability to speak like a human, and it began to appear that I had far greater intelligence as well which did give me a feeling of such superiority. But it didn`t take long for my herd to dislike me for what I had become and my parents really did not like me much when I decided to change my name. So, they all decided that I should leave the herd, which is what I did. I truly don`t know how this has happened to me but now it has, I began to think to myself that maybe it has happened for a certain purpose.”

“What sort of purpose do you mean?” Johannes asks.

“Why, isn`t that obvious” asks Gregory.

“No” Johannes says.

“Why, think it about it. My size, my intelligence, and my ability to speak like a human, then surely, I am destined to be King. Not just here in the north you understand, but King of the whole animal kingdom throughout the whole of South Africa and soon when every animal sees just how superior I am, they will name me Gregory the Great. Now, that really does sound good, doesn`t it?”

“King?” a surprised Johannes asks.

7

“Why yes” say Gregory.

“Gregory the Great” says Johannes.

“Yes, Gregory the Great” Gregory then declares at the top of his voice with his neck as far up as it would go which made it difficult for Johannes to see his face, until he lowered his head back down again, smiling as he did so.

“I do not wish to be rude Gregory, but how are you going to become King? Everyone knows that the King is The Mighty Mandla. The largest, the strongest and the most fiercest lion that has ever lived” says Johannes.

“Yes, I do believe that all those things that you just mentioned are indeed true” says Gregory very casually and without any fear.

“Yes, they are true, everyone knows that. And everyone knows that Mandla is to be feared by all living creatures. Even all the adult men in my town would not dare to go near him, unless they have a gun or rifle to protect themselves” Johannes tells him.

“Yes, I have heard that as well but as I`ve already said, I am the tallest of the tall, which makes me the grandest of them all. I was born to be King. Surely this is why these things have happened to me. Mandla will understand when I tell him.” Gregory says as Johannes eyes open as wide as they possibly can.

“You`re not going to see him, are you?” he asks in disbelief.

“Why of course, how else can I tell him about this?” says Gregory, once again, without any fear.

8

“But what if he attacks you?” asks Johannes becoming concerned for Gregory.

He will not attack me. Once he sees how tall I am, how grand I am, when he realizes how intelligent am I and mostly, when he sees that I can speak like a human can, then he will bow down before me. Because all those who live in the animal kingdom, are very fearful of any animal who can speak like the humans can, as it`s not a natural thing to happen. Like when members of my herd first heard me speak like the human. And other animals such as birds and snakes, they all became instantly fearful of me when I spoke to them like a human speaks. So, please, trust me on this dear Johannes. I will be perfectly safe.”

He smiles a reassuring smile at Johannes who begins to feel at ease. “When you have become Gregory the Great, will you come back and see me?” Johannes asks in hope.

“Yes. Yes, I pretty sure that I will come back and see you, Johannes. I could tell you what happened between me and The Mighty Mandla, and how he bowed down to me when he sees that I should be the rightful King of the animal kingdom. In the way that human speaks of course. Goodbye for now Johannes.” Gregory smiles once more as Johannes smiles back before he turns and begins to walk away and after only walking a few paces as his fully extended neck once again, looks like he could kiss the actual sun if he so wished to do, he hears the words being called out from behind him.

“I am the tallest of the tall, which makes me the grandest of them all!”

Gregory keeps walking but lowers his head and turns it back towards Johannes, who is now waving him off, and gives him a nod and a wink, before heading off into the wide open plain, to claim his throne, looking every inch after inch, a King in the making.