so there is this monkey.
no, there are these elephants.
this room full of elephants.
they are troubled elephants and they're in the hospital to be treated for their... aggravation.
don't worry.
they've all been sedated, tranquilized, so they're feeling much better than they did this morning.
what is it you say?
pcp?
yes, these elephants are totally on pcp.
very much so.
but its an elephant tranquilizer, and these are elephants, so it doesn't make them all loopy or drugged- it just makes them normal.
you know what a normal elephant does, don't you?
yes, you do.
you do too know what normal elephants are like.
they are like the elephant in this picture i am showing you.
they are relaxed and they play games and they love to drink ginger lemonade.
mostly they play ping-pong.
they prefer it to croquet or hopscotch.
why, you say?
well, because when they play croquet they get too easily distracted by the birds who laugh
at them from the trees.
the birds are nasty little creatures.
these birds are anyway.
and when they play hopscotch... well, you can imagine.
elephants playing hopscotch?
you can't?
WELL.
elephants weigh a ton.
an actual ton. maybe more.
and when they play hopscotch and they hop.... well..
BOOM. THUD. THUD.
the ground trembles and the china falls off the banquet.
all the lovely rose colored dishes rattle and shake until they fall to the floor in a broken, pinkish, dusty heap.
and then the poor dears (the elephants),
well they feel so badly about this.
it really quite devastates them.
after all, what elephant doesn't love a beautiful piece of china?
so they feel so guilty that they pick up their ping pong paddles and reluctantly ping-ping-pong the afternoon away, hoping someone will come someday soon with a new set of china.
perhaps this time with paintings of little blue flowers on the plates instead of roses, or of grassy plains that remind the elephants of home, of where they could play hopscotch to their elephant heart's content.
"one day i'll go home" they think. and they begin to daydream of simpler times...
but then the orderly comes in to announce that Babar is on, and they all march hazily in to gather around the television.
BOOM. THUD. THUD.
they sit in a circle around the glowing screen, and forget for a moment that they are not home.
