Elephant Therapy

I learned through a friend, (which is really a miraculous statement in itself.  Imagine the utter importance of a human if they can be both trusted and teaching simultaneously) that elephants have the same complex emotional structure of human beings.   Apparently, when bounty hunters fly over a herd, they’ll shoot down all of the Proud, Leathery, Gray, Stalwarts for their bones. The ivory.  The calves, that is, the babies…  Their children grow up to have post-traumatic stress syndrome.  A mentally debilitating  And socially devastating experience. Won’t somebody please think of the children before we take all of their teeth and sport some fine and fancy Piano keys?  Some imprisoned elephants randomly mutiny, trampling all of the workers under the big top.  And I think that is as a good a reason as any-

To stay away from the circus.

So here’s what I figure’s next.  These traumatized babies, they aren’t very smart.  So we’ll take them all to the zoo.  Each one will have a small pen in which it can run around and shit.  Literally.  And then this guy will come along and he’ll be named Zookeeper Max for this experiment.  Zookeeper Max comes up to projectbabyelephantone and remarks “Hello there, child.  I have brought you your food for the day.  And this animal dwells in its only existence, a corral, with not a single recognizable object besides a small black and white

Panda Bear.

The elephant wouldn’t know it’s a panda bear, obviously.  I mean, how is an elephant supposed to recognize a bear, when would they ever even see each other?  So this calf will mostly see it as a symbol of comfort.  Every morning it would wake up and Zookeeper Max would hurl tons of food and water into his pen.  It would be mostly grass, but probably random other vegetables and maybe a burger or something if he eats meat.  This baby would grow and be happy, and every day he’d recognize this panda bear who would be chilling on the other side of the gates.  The elephant would think, “friend.”

And then in the middle of the night the panda bear would get very sick because he accidentally drank mineral water and he was supposed to only have fresh distilled water.  And the panda would puff up and moan and roll around and panic.  Zookeeper Max would run down the hall, needles in hand.  He’d run into the room and hit that panda with its Epipen “so fuckin hard it’ll be ‘comin back to life’ to Yazoo.”  And Zookeeper Max would try and try and there would be no helping it tonight.  Ming, or Chan or Chou, or whatever Zookeeper Max named the damn thing would die a brief, painful death.

Zookeeper Max would cry.  As he’d drag this poor carcass across its cage, projectbabyelephantone would wake up.  Mortified, he’d watch as his only friend is dragged away lifelessly in the arms of the great feeder, Zookeeper Max.  What is a baby elephant to do?

He snaps.  Tusk first into the gate.  The gates crumple under his awesome adolescence.  Zookeeper Max is shocked; he flails his arms over his head, a futile block.   A tusk slams Zookeeper Max into a wall.   Baby elephant will not follow his guiding hand any longer.

But--

Now what?

Now the escapee is a little dot in a big zoo.

And if it’s good enough for him, its good enough for me, too.