(A Short Story: 2nd of 8 Installments)

Dear Fellow Earthlings,

This is the second installment of an 8-installment story of how things will end up if we do not STOP killing elephants NOW!

The Last African Elephant page 2 of 8 pages

Oh, Mother, how I tried to help you! You were so majestic! Even by male standards, your tusks were impressive, extremely long -- and pointed so exquisitely! Your milk had been so warm, too, as I nursed from you in my first few weeks of life on the plains of Africa!

Your blood, too, was warm, my most precious Mother!

I recall seeing the blood flow freely from the hideous wounds left by the automatic guns that had riddled your body with bullets! Your blood had flowed from you in torrents. In my rage I crashed from the bushes and killed two of the apes who had who killed YOU. I wanted to help you, Mother, but knew your injuries were fatal. Common sense prevailed: Rather than trying to care for you – and using my small size (for I was only four years old at the time) – I elected to enter an area of tall grasses so that I could hide. –

I hid for several hours as the murderers used chainsaws to cut the tusks off of the 12 elephants they had murdered. Adding to the agony of the moment was the fact that seven other fatally injured elephants were lying about, mixed in with the dead. And these seven elephants didn’t even have tusks. They were still too young, too small... Their whimpers of agony did not move the murderers at all. Each of the seven died a slow, agonizing death. No bullets were “wasted” on them!

I wandered aimlessly for days after that before finding some other elephants. I was still too young to be alone. So I sought the succor of a new group of elephnats. Luckily, I was young enough – and socially skilled enough – to win the pity and friendship of this new group of adult females and juveniles (both male and female) of various ages.

Mother had taught me how to be a good, morally upright elephant. I knew that when I turned 8 or 9 years old, I would experience musth – and would then prove to be anathema to the herd. The dominant females would drive me off so that I could move to the world of the male elephant, a world marked by a struggle for power with other males and another struggle in which I would have to convince female elephants that I should be chosen over other males to father their children.

(continued in tomorrow’s installment)

Steve Walker

Earthsaver and Jingles Creator

© 2013 Steve Walker, The Jingles-The Japan Foundation for English Pronunciation, Summit Enterprises.