When you meet an elleyfaant...

Yesterday, Maria my secretary remarked in an off-handish way that I had been working at my firm for a month, and asked me how I was settling into the work-a-day-grind-n'-shtick.

Then it hit me hard like that Nomura bible that crashed on my head from the third shelf of the bookcase in my room on Monday, that "Old Time was still a-flying..." and had pretty much flown winter into spring. I wondered then if I had gathered my rosebuds, and if so where were they??

Then, last night I looked back at all my blog entries so far, and it hit me hard like that glass door I ran smack into on Tuesday, that somewhere along the way I had forgotten to take my little riverman out of my bag. He had been in there a good month and a half, wedged between The Lord of the Rings and my travel iron. It is a blessing that his little clay feelings are so malleable! A lesser friend would not be so forgiving.

When I first took him out, I discovered that he had contorted into a very rude and phallic admonishment. You could hardly blame the poor thing! Alas, because this is a respectable blog, I am not at liberty to publish his little demonstration visually. Suffice to say it was straight to the point!

Anyhow, five minutes later he began to look a little more like himself, and started to examine his surroundings, which were I suppose, quite intriguing from his perspective! Curiosity would not be constrained, and so I relented and let him do a little “Lawrence of Arabia” on my bed.

As I watched him tramp around the folds of cloth and stumble over the crumple, crimp and crease, it hit me hard like the ... (okay, you get the idea!) that this was a remarkable opportunity - a wicked prospect - a cracking shot at gathering my rosebuds while I may.

My little purple friend would be just the instrument I could use to do something remarkable - something worthy of the eternity in words... He would be my avatar on an odyssey of Rasselas-ian depth and magnitude and BLAH BLAH BLAH...Now... you know I am pretty full of bullsh*t aren't I??!

Far be it for me to imagine that my scribbling would ever approach Johnsonian realms! Nah-way! This would be just a selfish opportunity to fasten my imagination on a kite, and to let go of the string, and simply be a child again! If I intend to get anything out of this little adventure, it would be pure and plain FUN... and if you, Reader, don't understand what this is all about, I never asked anyone to - so there!
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... and so begins the journey of the riverman…
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A steaming scorching sweltering day and the riverman filled his canteen before setting off into the thick brown billowing hills.

The absence of a camel did not deter his stout little heart (bless him!) and he game-fully spurred his spirits and his clumsy little feet over the vast expanse of my bed-dom.
As he weaved his way among the dunes of my duvet coughing up cotton balls, he fell upon a pretty perplexing creature almost fantastical in essence.


For a while he simply stood still and stared, and probably would have stayed still and staring for a few minutes until the creature’s mouth opened and he heard it speak:


creature: And what in the world might you be???

riverman: (dumbfounded) You can speak!

creature: (irritably) Well of course I can speak!... and you can speak too…just in case you didn’t know!

riverman: (miffed) Well there’s no need to get riled up! I never met something like you before.

creature: (huffily) And is that my problem? I have never seen something like you before, but I don’t make silly remarks!


riverman: (apologetically) Well, I am sorry. I am new in these parts, and have been travelling quite a while, and it was a shock to run into something like you.

creature: (grandly) Well if you want to start being friendly you may as well know what I am. I am an elephant.

riverman: (unsure) An ell-ey-fa-ant?

elleyfaant: (thoughtfully) Well I don’t know if that’s the way you spell it, but it sounds right, so I don’t mind.

So the riverman and the elleyfaant sat down under the shade of that big brown dune, and the elleyfaant started to talk.


The elleyfaant told the riverman of the hot desert plains; and how good it felt to wallow in the cool river waters of Chobe during the summer seasons in Botswana; and how sweet the taste of sugarcane was.


The riverman listened in wonder to all these tales, and with a little trepidation raised his hand to ask a question.


riverman: You sure have had an interesting life, so what made you come to this place?

elleyfaant: What do you mean?

riverman: Well, it's all brown and frankly, a bit boring over here. How long have you been in this place? If I were you, I would go back to the Chobe and the sugar cane... it sounds wonderful!

elleyfaant: Well, I have always been in this place. I was born here, and I will die here.

riverman: (eagerly) So where are the cool river waters and the sweet sugar cane? I don’t see any for miles!

elleyfaant: (stuffily) Well, just because you don’t see it, does not mean it’s not there.

riverman: (more eagerly) So where is it?

elleyfaant: (shrugging) Where is what?

riverman: (confused now) The river and the sugar cane? You said that sugar cane was sweet, and that the waters of the Chobe were cool like a spring breeze.

elleyfaant: (thoughtfully) That's right!

riverman: So... so... you must have seen and felt and tasted these things!

elleyfaant: (proudly) Sure I have… I am an elleyfaant!

riverman: (persistent) Yes… so show me the river and sugar cane.

elleyfaant: (calmly) I can't.

riverman: (getting exasperated) Why not?!

The elleyfaant stared at the river man for a lo-o-o-ng time... and then replied...

elleyfaant: Because … YOU are not an elleyfaant.

With that curt retort, the elleyfaant turned his back very firmly on the riverman, and ambled away, his little curly tail not in the slightest bit frazzled… and in a little while he disappeared behind the swath of the dune.

The riverman watched the elleyfaant disappear, and turned to walk on over the next dune.

As he struggled up the sandy slopes he thought about what the elleyfaant had said. Why had the elleyfaant refused to show him the Chobe and the sugar cane? Sugar cane sounded delicious and the cool waters of a river were exactly what his little feet were aching for.

Perhaps these were secrets only known to elleyfaants and they guarded them jealously. They wouldn't want every Tom, Dick or riverman to plunder their treasure trove, now would they?!

Or maybe the elleyfaant was lying about it all. Could elleyfaants lie? How could he know? This was the first elleyfaant he had met.

The riverman hoped that the elleyfaant was telling the truth. After all the talk of sweet sugar cane and a cool river, he wanted these things to be true...

Well, there was much to explore still, and he was very much at the beginning of his travels. The spreading landscape of brown rimpled and rolled around him, and he knew there was a lot of walking to do before he could go home.

And who could tell?! Sooner or later he may find that spectacular river, and that wonderful sugar cane. After all, in just one day he had met an elleyfaant!

It would be just around the next hill… and maybe not very far away…
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...so ends the first chapter of the riverman’s journey... To be continued some other time.
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