This is my response to NopeNotPam’s Letter a Week prompt, where this week her featured letter is ‘G’, and NNP uses the words garden, gloat, goofy, grasp and galah.

However I’m going to do something a little different this week, as the UK has no such thing as a Galah Bird. We would know it as a cockatoo, but even so, only in captivity and still, very unusual. So, for my animal, I chose a ‘gorilla’.

And personal taste, the word ‘goofy seemed a bit… ‘goofy’ to include in a piece of flash, so I changed that, too. To the far more boring adjective, ‘gigantic’. In any case, look again at my image. Do you want to try telling this guy he’s goofy?

I’ve enjoyed the constraint, in previous weeks, of condensing down to a hundred, so did that again today.

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Though my surroundings were inhospitable, this was the gorilla’s back garden, and as the conservation project entailed close observation, this required a good deal of stealth.

My most heart-stopping experience happened when I inadvertently attracted the unwanted attention of the gigantic alpha male, who, seemingly enraged, hurtled toward me. Terrified, I thought this was it. Desperate for any protection, I grasped my flimsy notebook, my only accessory, to my chest, deferentially cowering to present the smallest target.

I could smell his breath as, just a foot away, this majestic creature froze. Gloating over me, he decreed, “Me Tarzan. You Jane.”

[100 words]