White Elephant

Background: This comes from the book DLC13.

Once upon a time in a land far far away (geographically) where all the people seem to have strangely familiar traits, & yet no racially identifiable ones (for legal reasons - & to keep the politically correct off my back), there was a tribe of rather short & shy people who lived in a village on the edge of the savanna, near the deep dark jungle that spread across most of that hot, wet, yet still unidentifiable continent. I think it was in Queens.

There was a boy (you could call him Paddy, Manuel, Running Bear, Achmed, Fritz, Sandy, or John if you really wanted to, but I won’t) quickly approaching manhood in that village, &, as is the custom in that part of the world (wherever that may be), shortly before his thirteenth birthday he was trying to think of something spectacular to prove his manhood & gain a good social position within the tribe. After months of preparing himself physically & mentally, he finally found his appointed task while browsing in an old National Geographic Magazine he happened to have lying around (which he reads for the articles on far away & exotic places, & the pictures are not important).

It seems that his savanna was covered in herds & herds of pink elephants, but it had been a long time since anyone had seen a white elephant. So long had it been, in fact, that few people now believed that they existed (isn’t this starting to sound closer to home now?), & they had been relegated to myth-hood by those pragmatists who claimed that if you don’t have photos, then white elephants couldn’t possibly be real (somewhat like news reporting - if you don’t have pictures, it didn’t happen). But those blurry shots of Greenwich Village in the National Geographic were enough to convince the lad that there were once white elephants somewhere in the district, so he decided to try & catch one & get famous & prove his manhood all at once. Not owning a camera, or knowing anyone who made documentaries, getting a live one seemed to be his only option.

Reading up more about the legendary white elephants, he discovered that they are rather partial to cream buns, &, feeling a bit peckish himself, the lad went strolling down to the village shop (a drug store just off Times Square) to see if he could buy a nice big juicy one. While he was there, he saw the second half of a very good plan for catching a white elephant, & bought a large sleeping pill, thinking that the combination of sleeping pill & cream bun would be irresistible to a white elephant, & it was beginning to sound like an easy task after all.

So, the lad, duly armed, trekked off across the savanna, through herds & herds of pink elephants - but he didn’t want a pink elephant, he wanted a white elephant - making his way towards some thick undergrowth near the jungle, going around pink elephants, under them, over them. Pink elephants don’t mind this sort of thing because they’re used to having the villagers wandering about, treading in their manure, & generally making a mess of things, so, for the most part, he was ignored.

When the lad got to a deepish, darkish portion of the jungle (Wall St), he found a small clearing that looked about as conducive to white elephants as he could imagine, & placed the sleeping pill on the ground with the cream bun on top of it, in the hope that a large white elephant would pick up both.

Did I mention that white elephants are basically nocturnal? The lad had promised his mother that he would be home by dark, so he couldn’t stay around & watch his trap get sprung by some hapless, defenceless, & possibly slow white elephant as it grazed under the clear sky starlight & moon. He also didn't like the prospect of going through the Park after the muggers changed shifts.

Joyfully, he then went home through all the herds & herds of pink elephants (but he didn’t want a pink elephant, he wanted a white elephant) skipping his way back to the village (in Queens - he might have taken the subway), to tell all of his family & friends that he would be bringing home a white elephant in the morning, & that would prove that he was a man. He was also in a hurry because his mother had promised that she would make hippopotamus dumplings (fresh from the Hudson) for dinner, & that was his favourite.

On the next morning, he got up bright & early & skipped out across the savanna, through herds & herds of pink elephants (but he didn’t want a pink elephant, he wanted a white elephant) to the little clearing that he had chosen, expecting to find the prize of a lifetime slumbering peacefully. No such luck. The cream bun was gone, but the sleeping pill was still there. This at least confirmed his suspicion that white elephants were alive & well & living in the jungle nearby, but it meant that they were either less clumsy than he had thought, or else cleverer. He could out-wit them in either respect!

Being the persevering type, he went back to the village, across the savanna, past all the herds & herds of pink elephants (but he didn’t want a pink elephant, he wanted a white elephant) to the shop, & bought another cream bun, then he trekked back to the jungle clearing, through herds & herds of pink elephants (but he didn’t want a pink elephant, he wanted a white elephant). You can see a pattern forming here, right? It's a good thing his school bus pass was good for long trips.

This time, he placed the sleeping pill on top of the cream bun, thinking that it would be quite difficult for the white elephant to get the cream bun out from underneath. Pleased with his work, he went home again, through all the herds & herds of pink elephants (but he didn’t want a pink elephant, he wanted a white elephant), to tell all of his family & friends that he would be bringing home a white elephant in the morning, & that would prove that he was a man. If anyone had believed him yesterday, they were beginning to have their doubts by now, but were too polite to mention their reservations, sitting around the TV watching a prime-time comedy.

On the following morning, he got up bright eyed & bushy tailed & skipped out across the savanna, through herds & herds of pink elephants (but he didn’t want a pink elephant, he wanted a white elephant) to the little clearing that he had chosen, hoping desperately to find the white elephant sleeping. But again, the cream bun was gone (not even a crumb!), & the sleeping pill was still there, not even touched. Not even a slurp mark. Smart-arse white elephants.

So he went back to the village, across the savanna, past all the herds & herds of pink elephants (but he didn’t want a pink elephant, he wanted a white elephant) to the shop, & bought another cream bun, then he wandered back to the jungle clearing, through herds & herds of pink elephants (but he didn’t want a pink elephant, he wanted a white elephant), all the way thinking of a new trick to catch this extremely clever (& therefore worthwhile prize) white elephant.

This time, he dug a hole in the side of the cream bun & secreted the sleeping pill within. Very tricky. Let’s see that smart-arse elephant get around that! He carefully filled in the hole that he had made, making it look like a virgin cream bun. With confidence, he skipped back to the village, across the savanna, past all the herds & herds of pink elephants (but he didn’t want a pink elephant, he wanted a white elephant), & tried to convince the few friends still talking to him that he wasn’t going around the twist.

Early the next morning, he hopped confidently out of bed & ran out across the savanna, through herds & herds of pink elephants (but he didn’t want a pink elephant, he wanted a white elephant) to the little clearing that he knew so well, hoping desperately to find the white elephant sleeping. But again, the cream bun was gone (how was that possible!), but the sleeping pill was still there. This was one very clever white elephant - & one very annoyed native - er, lad (or New Yorker).

The walk home, past all the herds & herds of pink elephants (but he didn’t want a pink elephant, he wanted a white elephant), was a slow one as he re-evaluated his life, cursed white elephant-kind, questioned the existence of God, & generally had a bad time of it all. He decided to console himself with a chocolate bar at the village shop (& possibly a double-malt shake). When he arrived there, he couldn’t believe his eyes - just in from the city (Tokyo) was the brand new All-in-one-Sleeping-Pill-Cream-Bun. He was flabbergasted. This was the answer to all his prayers (if there actually was a God even if he recently denied it).

Bugger the chocolate, he spent all his money on the All-in-one-Sleeping-Pill-Cream-Bun (with the Japanese instructions attached) & went back to the jungle clearing, through herds & herds of pink elephants (but he didn’t want a pink elephant, he wanted a white elephant) as quickly as he could. He placed the All-in-one-Sleeping-Pill-Cream-Bun in exactly the same spot as every other cream bun, & trundled off home, whistling to himself, through the herds & herds of pink elephants (but he didn’t want a pink elephant, he wanted a white elephant).

He didn’t bother trying to tell anyone of his plan - for one thing, it was too good to be true, & for another, his mother might ring the little men in white coats with big butterfly nets to take him for a very restful time in the local sanatorium hut complex (County General) if he wasn’t careful.

Early the next morning, he sprang from his bed & scampered out across the savanna, through herds & herds of pink elephants (but he didn’t want a pink elephant, he wanted a white elephant) to the little clearing that he had chosen, hoping with more renewed hope than ever a hopeful person had hoped before to find the white elephant sleeping.

There it was, snoring as only white elephants can snore - think in terms of a tornado at the other end of a rail tunnel - in the exact spot at which the other half of the All-in-one-Sleeping-Pill-Cream-Bun had been. It was beautiful. It was big. It was very white. It was his.

After prodding it with a stick, & then kicking it a few times to make sure that it wasn’t trying to fool him (or else for revenge), he took the trunk of the white elephant & dragged it back carefully through the herds & herds of pink elephants - but he didn’t want a pink elephant, he had a white elephant! This time through, they tended to notice & stare at the lad with the white elephant snoring along behind. They hadn’t seen a white elephant for some time either, you see.

He made it back to the village with the white elephant still blissfully unaware that it had been caught, & he tried to call together his family & friends, but nobody listened, & he could hear his mother beginning to dial that dreaded number. A little old man wandered by, having just relieved himself in a nearby bush (public convenience), & asked what the big white thing was. When the lad told him, the old man started running around crazily & calling everyone out to look at the amazing white elephant beginning to block traffic.

Everyone paid attention to the old man, because he was wise & only half as crazy as people said he was, & soon there was a large crowd of people gathered around the lad & the sleeping form of the white elephant, all going "ooh" & "aah" in a chorus which would wake the dead & drown out the snoring of the white elephant.

With all of this noise, the white elephant had to wake up eventually, & when it did, it slowly opened its eyes as the crowd took a step back from it. The white elephant looked around at all of those people - strange two-legged misshapen beasts making funny noises in weird accents - & got rather embarrassed at the whole situation, blushed, & turned pink.

Thank you & good night!