Memoirs of an elephant

It has been more than half a century that I dandle myself all day long carrying my weight from side to side. Summer or winter time, one comes to wake me up in the morning to push me out of my shelter into that small enclosure bordered of concrete on three sides and a large ditch on the board where runs sometimes an unclear water that is supposed to protect me from the intrusion of some rowdy freaks who do not weary gesticulate on my direction shouting meaningless insanities and throwing various projectiles to me.

They can't understand that if I had large ears like those, it is to perceive the least whisper from hundred miles and therefore it is useless to bawl toward me. And as I do not have anything to say, I never answer them..
But I do know what is going on around. I have no TV or internet connexion but I am aware of every single affair that is going around. I know that the city is not anymore the same one I had crossed in my youth, quite a long time ago.

I wasn't born here, you know.. When I was little, gangsters had kidnapped me from my native forest and had required a very big ransom to release me. My mother, who was not rich and who loved me, had dark on them to shred them, but they had weapons and did not hesitate to murder her. Her remains were used as food for other captures and her big canines were carved in various objects to decorate the racks of some fortunate housewives.

I was told that the city counts henceforth few new fun spots : bars all along the coast, "salon de thé"s on the bottom of coupled high buildings that are covering hills, as formerly these were covered of verdure, all those hills where one could pick nick on Sundays when the weather was nice.

The city is changing but I can tell you that still the same lovers come here to sit behind the ditch. They come to stare at each others, in the dust. They meditate on their fate when watching wild pigs. They look for a fugacious inspiration while having the smell of a locked nature on their nose or they simply want to kill time..

Lucky we elephants are not as complicated as humans!
We do not focus all the time like they do on the "thing" and when the heats come we copulate straight away without worrying about the future. When a new born comes, it is already on foot almost immediately. Very quickly, it becomes adult and takes its life in hand.

Don't you dare think we do not have any feelings!

I had several partners, but my favourite is still the first one which had never been pregnant despite all the tries we have been doing in front of a shameless crowd. They ended up separating us to protect our health. They didn't get it! It was not useless eagerness. That was love we had to each others.

You must be bored listening to an old elephant talking about his memoirs. Anyway, no one stays in front of me too long besides some regular visitors who do not even have a look on my side.
The daylight is weaker now and the sun is setting down. The visitors are checking their watch, running back to the exit door to get back to their boring monotonous daily life. Here is the zoo employee, holding up a small rod to show me the way. He's yelling odd sounds which he must think are similar to my mother tongue that I myself forgot.

I will be back tomorrow, to tell you other stories or maybe the end of the story.

Be patient and come to see me again.