by Anita Goveas
I’ve always wanted a trunk. Hands are useful, but wonky lungs mean more time bumside-down means itches in hard-to-reach places. I saw Asian elephants at Chester zoo, Aunty Devika drove us from Stockport in her Mini Cooper. They liked to roll around in the mud, I could see that. But it turned into a two-inhaler day, so it’s lucky there’s lots of books about them.
Elephants form deep family bonds and live in groups of related females called a herd. They’re led by the oldest and often largest female in the herd, but my mum’s not really that big. Although that time Uncle Bhuvan told me if I kept reading, I’d turn into an elephant and she waved her wooden spoon at him until he ran away, she did seem twice his size. Our herd is mostly me and her, and sometimes Aunty Devika who knew us in Sheffield before we started our New Life, and who Mum doesn’t ever say no to.
I dream sometimes I’m remembering things from before, when I did have a trunk. I’m lying on my back, there’s a halo blurring my eyes, something is tickling my ear, and a greyish face bends over me. I told Mum about it once, she told me not to be silly, and burnt the daal.
Now I learn at home, there’s more time to look stuff up. There was an elephant that held a paintbrush like it had proper hands, and did whirly scribbles people said were ‘abstract art’ like Bridget Riley. I used to draw a bit before dust made me sneeze my guts up. Mum keeps me away from pencils, air conditioning, flowers and pepper, just in case. Aunty Devika gave me a paintbrush, it had ‘Krishna’ carved on the side but Mum locked it in her jewellery-box.
Elephants are very smart and remember stuff for ages. Matriarchs can find watering-holes miles away that they’ve been to before. Sometimes I wrinkle my nose or pull my ears, and my mum’s eyes go all wibbly like she’s remembering how to get to somewhere miles away.
On my birthday, Aunty Devika asked to take me to Doncaster art gallery. We waited until Mum planned out the route, found my thermal vest and extra inhaler, and rubbed me in Vix. My feet went straight to the sandstone elephant, as if remembering the way to a watering-hole. Aunty told me how she used to bring me here with her son, who loved art and elephants, and who had an asthma attack in our garden when my mum was baby-sitting.
When we got home, I asked for the paintbrush. Me, Mum and Aunty Devika cried a bit, then we went out in the garden and ate boondi laddoos under the cherry tree and I drew the face from my dream.
Anita Goveas is British-Asian, and based in London. She was first published in the 2016 London Short story prize, was a Word Factory flash of the month winner in 2017, a 2018 Creative Futures Literary Award winner (Bronze), and is one of the London Library’s 2018 Emerging Writers. She was nominated for Best of the Net, Best Microfictions and a Pushcart prize in 2018, and has two stories in Best Microfictions 2019.
She’s on the editorial team at Flashback Fiction, an editor at Mythic Picnic’s twitter zine, and a reader for Bare Fiction.
Visit her website coffeeandpaneer.wordpress.com or follow her on Twitter @coffeeandpaneer.
(For a further celebration of the matriarchs in our herd, see our Happy Mother’s Day post. – Elephants Never)