A very, very long time ago,
I was a small child.
You can imagine how young children see the world from a different perspective and with innocence and no preconception of how new things should be. When I was three years old, as my mother reminded me much later, I was unusually shy, typically naive, and completely innocent of worldly things. I don't remember having many toys, and probably did not have more than four or five because my family was barely getting by during WWII and life was not easy for my parents. The toys I do remember were a few small animals and two that were much larger than the others: a fuzzy green bird and a brown elephant.
I think the bird may have been a parrot. Maybe. The elephant was the most realistic of them all and I loved the long trunk and used it as a handle to pull "Ellie" along.
My uncle Clyde - Mother's half-brother - gave it to me for my third birthday and I loved it! I slept with Ellie and he was my comfort toy. Through Ellie, I began to love animals of any kind.
It was embarrassing to me even at that age, but I could not pronounce the word "elephant" and my father's family of uncountable people I saw every day but was not sure who they were, all thought it was very funny how I mispronounced "elephant" in a way I won't even try to reproduce here.
"Will, say 'elephant'," someone would say, and I would give my rendition and everyone would laugh as if it were the first time they had heard it. I did not know what I was doing wrong, or even that I didn't pronounce it as a recognizable word. I don't remember anyone trying to correct whatever it was I was saying, either. That was family,
That was long ago, but I remember. I remember Ellie, too.
The Traveling Circus:
Back in those days, upon occasion, small, traveling circuses would come through our small town, and the assorted trucks and caravans would assemble on the highway outside the town limits. In no time, workers would set up their big circus tent and related smaller tents around it. They would arrive on Thursday, set up for opening Friday afternoon and have performances until Saturday late. With practiced magic, it all would be gone by the time people left for church Sunday morning.
Back in the days before television, that was a really exciting time. It did not matter to the adults that it was not the best circus in the world, or even if it was a bad one, because it was entertainment in a time when there was little else to help forget about the hard times and the war. Suddenly there were announcements on the local AM radio station, word spread and people found the money to "go see the show."
I only became aware of it when Mom told me there was an elephant with the circus and I was beside myself with excitement! I was going to get to see an actual, real, living elephant! I had never been so excited and I thought I would burst with anticipation.
I was going to see a real elephant!
butI did not know that it was going to be one of the main formative events of my life.
I remember nothing at all about the circus itself. Nothing whatever except the elephant. I have tried to forget even that, but the experience may as well have been this morning in my life.
Completely without fear and in awe, I was standing facing the immense animal, just feet away from the elephant's left front foot, staring at massive foot as if it were the only thing to be seen anywhere.
Around the large ankle was a chain connected to a metal stake embedded in the ground so close that the animal could not move.
The chain was embedded in the flesh of the elephant's ankle, and the ankle was swollen and bleeding enough for me to notice. I just stood and stared at it. I remember thinking that I would never do anything to hurt Ellie and wondered why the circus people hurt the elephant.
I began to cry without making a sound. I felt so sorry for the small, undernourished animal and did not understand why it could not walk around like elephants are supposed to do. I was confused and getting disoriented because this just was not right.
I looked at the elephant's face for the first time and I thought of Ellie. Just then, the elephant raised its trunk slowly towards my face and I could smell its warm, moist breath. I was mesmerized and excited and sad.
The trunk moved closer and the end touched me just above my left ear. It blew very softly on my ear just before a man on the other side hit the trunk really hard with a long stick and the elephant jerked away from me.
Iturned around and held onto Mother's leg and all I could think and say was, "The elephant hurts, the elephant hurts...the elephant hurts, Mommy, the elephant hurts..."
That went on and on and I could not stop crying. My parents took me home and I had cried myself into exhaustion by the time we got there. I remember not being able to catch my breath for the sobbing and imagining I could feel how badly the elephant's foot hurt and then the man hit it on its trunk and the elephant was scared and so sad. Every breath, every sob, and every thought made me cry even harder. All I could see and all I could think of was the elephant's foot.
I cried a lot. I cried for days. I did not sleep because the image of the foot and chain were burned into my brain.
I could not eat and I cried more when I regained enough energy to do more than sob.
That went on for days, but I finally stopped crying. I could not make the image of the foot and embedded chain stop so easily.
Much later:
The mental image persisted for years and years. It persisted throughout grammar school, middle school and, slightly less often, through high school. The large animal. staked to the ground, a chain of slavery embedded by neglectful and uncaring owners. A poor, malnourished, poorly treated, nomadic eater of grass herd animal had been staked to the ground to deprive it of freedom of movement; its life spent mostly in a cage on a moving truck.
Years passed. I was in the Air Force, in Alaska, and the dreams came back and were with me nightly.. Then, it was my twenty one year-old self standing and looking at the elephant's bloody, confining ankle chain.
The image has haunted me all of my life. It never goes away and has become a background image of everything I see. That one moment has changed my life. I still see the foot. I know the mistreated animal was in pain. It was lonely for others of its kind. It wanted to be able to walk and graze in deep grass.
It had breathed on my ear and that had changed who I became. I know that time and wisdom have given me reflection and time to synthesize that seminal moment in my life. The elephant spoke to the mind of a small child.
I still cannot look at an elephant without getting tears in my eyes. I cannot look at them without guilt, for a myriad of reasons. I cannot watch TV programs or movies with elephants in them. Reading statistics of their demise is upsetting to me. I grieve for them all and pray for the survival of their species.
and....
Long ago, when I was an innocent child, I had a random encounter with an elephant in a traveling circus and when it whispered its breath into my ear, it made me a different person. As I grew older, I began to understand why elephants are special. Everyone needs to know.
Mostly to avoid ridicule, I have never told that story to anyone in my entire life. It has been my most profoundly precious and secret moment and it is one of the three major impact moments on my life. I need to pass it on so it will not be lost when I cease to be and can no longer keep alive the image of The Foot.
"I am..."
the instant before the evil human hit the sensitive trunk with his long stick.
This is not intended to be fiction; at least I don't believe it is and that is all that counts.
Will