by Michael Manerowski

If this sort of thing is to go on any longer, let me say, first, they must find larger rooms. One can barely fit these days. Years ago, we didn’t have this problem. And, dear me, I should say, it is not that I have increased in size. Heavy though I am. Oversized though I may be. My shapely figure has not changed in all my adult years. No. Long ago, you see, I worked mighty hard as a young elephant, eating an extra fifty pounds of bark and tree leaves at every meal, even munching on shrubs and sage grass between meals, to become as rotund, indeed, as colossal as I could become. And, I should say, I excelled remarkably, growing to my maximum capacity, elevating myself into the upper ranks of the largest of the large among all the elephant species the world over. And that, if you do not know, is saying quite a lot.

Years ago, after our previous leader, Old Mighty Gray, passed, I assumed the honorable position of herd leader as the very largest of the large. And, in all these years – mind you, I am no longer young, no longer middle-aged even – none of the young up-and-comers have grown enough yet to challenge my leadership.

My point is, once an elephant has grown to maximum capacity, he shall grow no more. Indeed, that is what is meant by “maximum capacity.” And, therefore, since I reached maximum capacity years ago, and since rooms once provided ample space, it must be the rooms that have changed in size and not I.

So, I declare, in reiteration of the previously iterated, if this arrangement is to go on any longer, you humans must – let me emphasize, must – get larger rooms.

You see, a male, such as myself, hefty and round and paunchy as I am, can barely swish about his tail, for lack of space to the rear. And my sides, dear me, are chaffing against the walls. My trunk, scrunched up against the door. Even my wiry few hair strands up top my head tickle the ceiling. I fear they may be singed by the overhead lighting, if I am not careful.

And yet the humans sit there, just sit there, going on about this and that, arguments of extreme leftism and rightism, any old point to squabble over, as though to offer some distraction, I dare say. While the obvious thing, the crucial point, the glaring problem remains unpronounced, unspoken of, as it sits there before all of them, like a living and breathing creature in their midst. And yet they dare not mention it.

As a matter fact, I will have you know, I can feel their rigid, squirmy bodies pressed up against my bounding, booming, blubbery, leathery-skinned belly. I even can sense their stiffened, cowardly thoughts. Their paralyzed logic. Their fear of mentioning that which remains unaddressed. All the while, I, the elephant, must, I dare say, remain stuffed up inside this sweltering, cramped, stifling closet they pretend is an adequate space for such an affair.

If you humans are going to act in such a way as to call up an elephant into the room, you have got to at least make proper accommodations for the living, breathing guest.

Second, it must be understood, I should say, the immense strain these arrangements place upon the largest of the large among the elephant species the world over. I will have you know, due to the diminishments in our populations, caused by you humans, generally through excessive land use, thereby leaving us elephants less room to roam and graze, and, I cringe to mention, by the hunters after our own tusks and bones – heavens me, the chilling thought of such things.

You know, while I have the opportunity before you all to speak my mind, I dare say, how cruel and destructive you humans can be. And so often unacknowledged, unspoken of by your own kind. Most of the time, you humans barely utter a word about how your destructive actions affect us animals. Sure, I understand, you need to live. Fine. Don’t we all. But, I stress, we, as all other animals, are more than willing to share. We take what we need, while others take what they need. Of course the lion hunts the gazelle, but the lion does not eat the entire herd of gazelle. No. The lion takes what is needed to sustain the pride. When was the last time you saw a lion grown obese due to gorging on gazelle flesh?

Look, you need to live and prosper. I get it. But it is the way you go about it that is most troubling. You take more than you need. You move and travel and transport wherever and whenever you want. By automobile, by truck, by ship, by plane. Heavens, you have even breached the skies and have now begun to clutter up the planets and the stars with satellites. And you know as well as I do, although it may go unmentioned, that is only the start to your space exploration. Soon you will likely have hundreds of shuttle launches per year, gassing up the skies as they defy gravity. While down on earth, you keep building here and there, higher and farther, stamping out more and more land with your cities, roads, parking lots, airports. And, what’s more, you consume and consume and consume. While your waste piles up. Mountains high. And what do you do? Send it around the planet on ocean barges? You don’t even know what to do with your own waste. Never has there been, in the history of all animals, such a wasteful and resource consuming species. I mean … Ugh. It is depressing, indeed. But, I digress. For the time being, I have spoken my peace on the matter.

More to the circumstance at hand, our kind, the largest of the large elephants, you must understand, are under significant strain. You see, as a result of the diminishment to our general populations the world over, there are less and less of even the large elephants, not to mention that of the largest of the large. And, according to human defined expectations, a threshold must be met, you see, in order to fulfill your own requirement of having one in the room.

You wouldn’t want to have a wee little elephant standing off in the corner, now would you? No. What good would that do? You might as well have a coffee table statue of an elephant or perhaps a minuscule fireplace mantel figurine in the room. Providing a mere spark of the sheer, stark, stunning reality of having one of the largest of the large of all the earth’s mighty beasts present in the room.

Look, it was not us elephants who wrote up the rules for this sort of engagement. Of the animal kingdom, we are under the dominion of man. That we cannot deny. We cannot go against God’s ordering of things. But let me remind you, the scenario was born entirely of your own devise when once it was introduced, apropos of some massively impactful thing that remained unaddressed by the parties of some disagreement or other.

What I am saying is, if you have yet to gather my point, there are only so many of us left. And all the more these days do you seem to be calling upon our presence among you in your unconscionably tiny rooms in which you speak of every point other than that most prominent concern, which, if raised, might offend one or some or even all present in the room, disregarding the elephant himself.

For all I care, go ahead, utter the unspoken thing. By all means. For if you do, at once I am freed to leave and return to my herd. And my herd and I as their leader would appreciate nothing more.

Listen, to get down to it, among my kind, there are left only Frank, Jimbo, Brown Scar Anthony, and myself. Only four of us. Do you realize, that is approximately seventy percent down from the previous generation? And heaven only knows what things will be like for the up-and-coming generation. We merely have but one or two promising adolescents who are even nearing the growth rate that suggest they might mature large enough to even squeak by as a large one.

The point is, if diminishment trends continue, there may not be any large ones left, much less any largest of the large. Then what?

I dare ask, what will you do someday when, in the middle of some disagreement or debate and that utterly crucial matter is allowed to go unaddressed and no elephants remain to show up? Heavens, what a dilemma you will be in then, let me warn you. For not only will you have your matter allowed to go unaddressed, but you will not even have the elephant for someone on the outside to point inward and say, “Look how they ignore the elephant in the room!”

Yes. It is true. No one is talking about the elephant in this room at present. Indeed. That I can attest to, as I listen to them bicker on and on about trivial issues that never will resolve the matter at hand. Even I can see that.

But, let me tell you – no, let me warn you – what is worse, my dear humans, is that no one is listening to the elephant who is talking in your midst within the cramped and confining walls of this very room.

Dare I say, even if I were to squeal from my trunk, to blow my horn, to sound the alarm, I do not think – no, I am convinced that no humans inside this room or in any room anywhere will ever listen to my warning.

Michael Manerowski’s writing has seen publication most recently in Laurel Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, The Briar Cliff Review, The Alembic, San Diego College City Works Journal, 2River, I-70 Review, and forthcoming in Contrapuntos X: West. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Hamline University. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.