The Elephant Tree - part 6

our story...The narrator is trying to ignore a talking elephant and a talking donkey....
but they are determined that he should find a hiding place for them....
Who are they hiding from?....

the story continues


I started to walk away from the elephant and the donkey that I hoped were not there..

“Don’t leave Mr. Politician,” the donkey repeated.  “We need a place to stay”.

“Yes.” The elephant echoed.  “We really, really, really need a place to stay.

“What’s wrong with where you are?  It doesn't seem unreasonable to me for a donkey and an elephant to sleep under an Elm tree.”

“Maybe,” said the elephant. “Maybe not.”

“Why not?  A lot of animals sleep under trees and I have never heard them complain.”

“They cannot talk so how could they complain and you've never heard an elephant and a donkey talk before either but here we are talking and here we are complaining.  Besides it’s not about sleeping under a tree; it’s about hiding.”

“Hiding?”…Hiding from who?”

“Oh, there you are.” A short fat man with reading glasses on the end of his nose was waddling towards us.  “I have been looking all over for you.”

He had on a baseball cap that he wore sideways and looked like a shorter, dumpier, Michael Moore, if that is even possible?

He was waving a small notebook.  He took a pencil out of his pocket, licked the end of it and started asking question.

“Let’s see now, oh yes…who do you belong to?  How did you escape?  Are they on their way to pick you up?  Why did you escape?  Were they mistreating you?  That’s the angle.  Do you have any marks to show where you were beaten?  I know a good lawyer.  We can sue those lousy animal abusers for everything they are worth.”

He took a deep breath, looked around.

“Where’s that idiot photographer?  I need pictures, thousands of pictures, maybe millions…you cannot get to many pictures.  He better get here or I’ll have his rear end sent to Iraq or better yet, Iran…They’ll throw his butt in jail for 30 years. 

He stopped asking questions and looked over the top of his glasses, licked his pencil again and waited for someone to answer his questions.

“That’s who.”  The elephant groaned

“We don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” he replied to the inquisitor.

The short fat man pushed the glasses back on his face with his middle finger.  I wondered if he knew what it was like to have an elephant mad at him.

“Trunk him,” the donkey said.

Trunk who?” the elephant said.

“That squatty ‘Michael Moore’ looking jerk standing in front of us that just gave you the finger,” donkey snorted.  “I don’t like him.”

The reporter ignored the donkey and turned to me and asked if I owned the two animals.

“No, I don’t think anyone owns them.”

“That can’t be.  Someone had to bring the elephant here from Africa.”

“I’m an Asian elephant, and I do not belong to anyone.”

“I am a donkey and no man or woman can tell me what to do”

“What if I were to call animal control?”

“Won’t work.” The elephant said.  “We used to be part of a circus but it went broke and the owner closed it.  When we asked him about us, he said ‘as far as he was concerned we were free to do whatever we pleased.’  So you see…we were emancipated.  We are free to go and do as we please.”

“No one can emancipate an animal.”

“The circus owner did.”

“That’s not legal.  It takes an act of congress to emancipate someone.”

“I’m not someone; I’m an elephant.”

“And I’m a donkey and there’s nothing in the constitution that says an animal cannot be free.”

“Animals cannot roam about the country free to do as they please.  There are laws to stop that sort of thing.”

“Oh yeah,” donkey said.  “What about the Moose's in Alaska.  They are allowed to walk around the city anytime they desire to.”

 “That’s right,” the elephant said…”and the polar bears up north roam around in the cities and humans don’t lock them up.  They take pictures.

The reporter took his glasses off the end of his nose and pointed at the two emancipated animals.  “OK, if you’re so free, what are your names and where do you live?”

“Wight and Wong,” they both said in unison…”and we use to live in ‘Overthere’, but now we’re migrating to Overyonder.”

“Wight and Wong?” The reported replied.  “Who’s Wight and who’s Wong and where is over there?”

I groaned and waited for the ‘Overthere’ dialogue to be repeated.  However, I was tortured with a different dialogue from my newly acquired friends.

The donkey pointed at the elephant and the elephant pointed at the donkey and again they spoke in unison.

“He’s Wong.”

Then each one pointed at himself or herself (since I wasn't sure if either of both were male or female) and said in Unison, “I’m Wight.”

My back bone was vibrating like a tuning fork.

“No, you numskull,” the elephant said to the donkey.  I’m Wight and you’re Wong.

“Not so, dung for brains.” the donkey snorted.  I've always been Wight and you have always been Wong.”


“Your both idiots,” said the reporter.

“Who’s an idiot,” said a tall gawky man that just seem to pop up from nowhere.

He looked like a cross between Ichabod Crane and Nancy Pelosi.  Or rather, he looked like an Ichabod and talked like a Pelosi.  His Adam’s apple stuck out almost as far as his long pointy nose and it seemed to announce that he was going to speak.  His mouth opened and then his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down three or four times and then a high pitched groaning noise came out of his cavernous mouth and hit you in the face like a blast of stale air from an animal farm.

“Sorry, I got lost,” he told the writer.

“They’re idiots,” the report said, pointing towards the two emancipated animals…“And so is the politician.”

“There ya go,” the donkey mumble.  “Politicians and reporters are always right.  If you don’t agree with them, you’re an idiot.”

“Get some pictures. I’m going to get a Pulitzer for this one.  It can’t get better.  An ugly, wacky donkey, an elephant that thinks elephants and donkeys have been emancipated and a politician using the poor stupid animals to gain the governor’s office.”

“I’m not ugly and wacky.”

“I am emancipated.”

“I’m not a politician and I am not running for Governor.”

The photographer ran around snapping pictures at every angle he could get into, under, over, around, behind, above…his camera hummed like a hive of angry bees.  He drooled every time the camera whirred.  His Adam’s apple worked overtime because he was constantly talking to himself.

The reporter began humming ‘Proud Mary’ in a tone that was worse than the chanting of the elephant and the donkey.  From a satchel that he carried over his shoulder he pulled out a cell phone, a portable desk and a lap top computer.  He said “office” in to the phone and someone on the other end said, “Got something good?”

“A Pulitzer, that’s what I've got, a real Pulitzer.  I’ll start transmitting in a sec.”

He turned to the photographer, “Are those pictures going direct?”

“They’re on their way, boss.  They can be on the tube right now if the shot’s want to release them.”

The elephant sidled over to me.  “You gotta get us out of here.  Please, sneak us out of here and hide us.”

“Sure, sneak an elephant and a donkey away from an elm tree in an open meadow… yep, I can do that.”

“Good, let’s get going.”

“Still don’t have a handle on sarcasm, do you?”

“Look,” the donkey whispered.  They’re arguing over something on that computer.”

The donkey was right.  The writer and the photographer were in a deep discussion about something or maybe they were arguing.  It didn't matter.  They were distracted.

The three of us just strolled away and they didn't notice us leaving or even miss us until we were way out of their site.

“Where are we going?”  The donkey said

“Yes, where?” The elephant echoed.

I groaned.  “I guess my house.  I’ll hide you in the garage for tonight but you’re outta there first thing in the morning and for heaven’s sake, keep quiet.  If my wife hears you, we’re all going to be in tomorrow’s hash.

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to be continued ...again