Short Story Collection

Grief: Ritual of the Elephants

In the heart of the Congo, in the rainforests covered by mahogany trees, surrounded by streams and rivers where the hippos bathe, covered in dense foliage where the okapis graze and the leopards stalk, gorillas lick the termites off the twigs on the dirt and the chimps hunt the colobus monkeys on the branches of the trees.

In one of the marshes, a herd of forest elephants resides, where they pull fruit out of the trees or roots from the dirt with their trunks or splash themselves with the water to cool off. This particular day was a silent one; the herd's matriarch, their leader, laid on the ground, eyes closed and body still, not drawing a single breath. The rest of the herd stood beside her, touching her with their trunks, growling in a low pitch. A calf, her offspring, wept, giving off a blood curdling scream. They grabbed whatever plants they could find, spraying leaves around her and branches that they broke off from the trees. As the days passed, they continued to stand beside their buried leader, sometimes leaving to grab food or water, but always returning back to her.