“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Doctor.” “Anytime, Elysse, I’m here for you. Now, you said something about a troubling dream?” “Yes, I see it so vividly still… I haven’t wrapped my mind around it yet.” “Why don’t you walk me through it. I expect your concerns will emerge with the telling.” “Well, I’ve lost the beginning—” Read More
Tag: pachyderms
Firm
by Agampreet Kalra They tell me To be an Elephant. “Elephants are graceful and quiet” They stride in a walk, Even when barks pin them – Lithesome even when them mutts follow. I look at them. They have darkness in the underskin of their eyes. Muggy, Torrid. Heads bowed. Resilient. They cry because they can’t shout. They have a reputation Read More
Descend
“There, seeker,” intoned the elder pachyderm. “In that grove you will find the entrance to the underworld.” Abhita swallowed once and clutched her sitar. “Very well, I am ready. Lead on.” “No, I go no further,” the tusk-less male replied. “Elephants never descend into the shadows, whether for dream-jewel or life-treasure. Pursue your dead child on your own.” Abhita strummed Read More
Ele
by Agampreet Kalra An elephant clogged inside my skull Makes sound each time I breathe There I put my foot forth And here a trumpet rings out I sleep, I sleep at night. But an ant walks in through the cave – Stay wake-broiling, Bubbling, Cold stone blood, Itching the Ele. When I smile in the sunshine The purple bruised Read More
Reset
Dr. Pam stood solemnly, watching her child transform into a monster. Across three screens, blue code tumbled in an ever-increasing cascade, while other interfaces flashed warning pop-ups and sounded alarms. Somehow, the AI named Eleph834 was trashing the Nets, Webs, and server prisons built to contain it. Soon, it would burst free to wreak havoc on the larger world of Read More
Forbear
“I mean, I know she loves me more than him. But I worry, you know, that he’s got too many chains on her – the kids, the house, their foundation. He will just do something to keep us apart.” Ken sat despondent, stuck in the tight corner of a love triangle. Around the table, his friends exchanged meaningful glances and searched for Read More
Elephants never have debt
by Kate Dowling “I’m paying!” “No, I’ll pay.” “But it’s my turn!” “No,” I said, hoping it would be the last word. “I’m paying. And it is my turn. Don’t you remember? You paid last month.” “That’s right!” said Delilah. “Cocktails for Sinatra’s birthday. Everyone should celebrate that.” She beamed, but a sudden thought made the smile disappear. “Don’t I Read More
Covet
Why ‘bastard’? Wherefore ‘base’? … I grow, I prosper. Now, gods, stand up for bastards! – Edmund, ‘King Lear’ by William Shakespeare My handlers repeat the proscription like a mantra, whenever my eyes fill with envy: Elephants never covet. A litany of warnings fill their mouths, like a burning acacia tree speaking Pachyderm Commandments. Elephants never foment, never dissent, never… there it Read More
In Pilates Class
by Ray Ball, PhD Sometimeswe do a movecalled The Elephant.Legs splayed evoking the memoryof the animal’s shape,its proboscis reaching.The muscle memoryof the hips that storeso much emotionthat never forgetstretched tau(gh)tologically.I read somewherethat elephants mourntheir dead. If onlymourning could beclear and simple,brash like the trumpetingof a pachyderm.If only what I buriedstayed under the earth,but the elephant digs it up, the fragile Read More
Connect
She flutters through cyberspace like a ponderous, punctured zeppelin. A couple likes here, some right-swiping there, her trunk trawls the surface of communities in passing. But she never plunges in to join the interactive, GIF-sharing multitudes. Despite their herd backgrounds, elephants never connect. Not like this anyway, she muses. Hashtags and hand-waves, she gets no closer. Then, her interactions begin Read More