The Last Elephant
"When the last elephant is gone, we will be no more."
Kamua watched the shadow of an owl shift from tree to stone without its dark form casting a silhouette through air or upon soil. Emerald eyes—centers flaring yellow—blinked open within solid rock before vanishing in a puff of shiny dust. Wind gusted in bursts, devoid of sound, while the crystalline shape of a massive spirit elephant stood impassively on a stationary cushion of translucent mist. Equating the real to the imagined and the imagined to the real, Kamua struggled to determine whether he had heard an actual woman speak, or if she was part of his delusion.
"You say we are losing the battle."
The despair conveyed in the woman's voice shook Kamua to the marrow of his bones. As though a squall of black thunderheads had formed over his head and unleashed a torrent of wind and hail upon him, he hugged his shoulders into his chest and gripped his arms in an attempt to weather the icy chill shooting through his veins. Stricken by a feeling of crushing grief, he tilted his face toward the sky and wailed with the clamor of a thousand tortured souls screaming inside his head and the sorrow of a broken heart aching in his chest.
"There is more we must do."
There is more we must do; the phrase gnawed at his psyche. There is more we must do!
"What more must I do?" he cried.
His words came back to him in waves, echoing off the peaks and ridge walls around him. The hollow reverberations seemed a mockery of his voice as they faded into insignificance. An arm's length above his head, a glint of vibrant color appeared—a speck of metallic green that flitted in the air as though dangling from the strings of a puppeteer. Weary of visions and hallucinations, Kamua covered his face with his hands and hung his head. But the hum of an insect whirring close to his ear prompted him to lean away and swat at the air above him.
"Get away from me," he hissed.
Two, six, twelve, twenty; he watched in resignation as the glimmer of green zoomed to a spot several paces in front of the vehicle in which he was sitting and multiplied to a number he could not fathom. Like a body of shimmering water flowing over the edge of a cliff, the metallic forms cascaded to the ground and pooled across the soil. There, in a soundless explosion of heatless flame, the green mass ignited and burned to a pile of ash.
Flakes of residue—gray, black, and white—fluttered and settled as though stroked by a fickle breeze. Then the grimy mass gathered, swirled, and congealed to form a mounded shape lying prone upon the soil. The air shook and rumbled with a thundering cry loosed by the gargantuan spirit elephant. As silence returned, the charred mound atop the dirt blossomed upward into the shape of a person.
Adolescent, adult, child, elder—the entity standing before Kamua seemed all of those and more. Each of these feminine aspects imbued the features of the others, a fusion of innocence, wisdom, strength, and compassion that Kamua struggled to comprehend. The creature was at once beautiful and terrifying, provocative and demure, with flowing hair the color of moonlight and fire, skin the tones of sand, earth, mud, and tar, the colors twining about her torso like the coils of a snake. Her eyes held the hues of every form of water Kamua had ever known: sun-kissed raindrops, blue oceans and emerald streams, slate-grey rivers, and moon-bathed pools shrouded within the veil of a midnight downpour. All manner of fauna and flora did Kamua see within the woman's pupils: beasts of land and sky; creatures of ocean and stream; insects of desert and leaf. Wind and rain and sky and sun were the essence of the lady's being—a collage of images, light, and sound that flowed within her torso like the turning pages of a never-ending book.
Overwhelmed by her radiant aura of sheer power and majesty, Kamua slid from the driver's seat and knelt on the ground. But as he lowered his head to pay homage to the godlike creature standing before him, she extended a hand with her palm turned toward the sky.
Images of spirit elephants, their forms encased within a luminous sphere of sea mist framed by a rising sun, appeared on the tips of her fingers. Crystalline in appearance, the ethereal beasts amassed near the base of a snow-capped mountain towering above a field of golden grass. As sunlight shone down upon the animals, the sparkling rays refracted, filling the sapphire sky with fragmented rainbows. Joy and wonder, beauty and awe—such a paradise of feelings swept through Kamua that tears welled in his eyes.
But then black clouds appeared, somber in design, heralding winged, manlike creatures descending from the heavens. Dark angels these beings resembled, hollow-eyed and grim, mouths twisted with malevolence, taloned fingers disfigured from the work of sin. One by one, each spirit elephant was assailed, its body shattered under an onslaught of silver-stained-steel. From the mouths of the dark angels this foul barrage was shot, and with each death of a spirit elephant, the landscape grew paler. And when the last of the crystalline beasts was destroyed, the snow-capped peak trembled and the ground buckled and cracked. The mountain erupted into flame and ash, releasing molten lava that set fire to the grass.
Black and grey, grey and black—Kamua could tell little difference between earth and sky. But as ash settled and some semblance of land reappeared, Kamua began to tremble, for there was nothing left to see—no grass or mountain or beast, or any remnant of what used to be. Without color or life, the landscape that had filled Kamua with such joy was now barren and stark, a dismaying depiction of gloom and desolation that magnified the ache in his heart. And then came the voice of child—one that he had heard before. The boy whispered what the woman had told him: "When the last elephant is gone, we will be no more."
The above is an excerpt from the forthcoming novel, Palm of the Mother.
© 2017 Lindsey D. Linden
Kamua watched the shadow of an owl shift from tree to stone without its dark form casting a silhouette through air or upon soil. Emerald eyes—centers flaring yellow—blinked open within solid rock before vanishing in a puff of shiny dust. Wind gusted in bursts, devoid of sound, while the crystalline shape of a massive spirit elephant stood impassively on a stationary cushion of translucent mist. Equating the real to the imagined and the imagined to the real, Kamua struggled to determine whether he had heard an actual woman speak, or if she was part of his delusion.
"You say we are losing the battle."
The despair conveyed in the woman's voice shook Kamua to the marrow of his bones. As though a squall of black thunderheads had formed over his head and unleashed a torrent of wind and hail upon him, he hugged his shoulders into his chest and gripped his arms in an attempt to weather the icy chill shooting through his veins. Stricken by a feeling of crushing grief, he tilted his face toward the sky and wailed with the clamor of a thousand tortured souls screaming inside his head and the sorrow of a broken heart aching in his chest.
"There is more we must do."
There is more we must do; the phrase gnawed at his psyche. There is more we must do!
"What more must I do?" he cried.
His words came back to him in waves, echoing off the peaks and ridge walls around him. The hollow reverberations seemed a mockery of his voice as they faded into insignificance. An arm's length above his head, a glint of vibrant color appeared—a speck of metallic green that flitted in the air as though dangling from the strings of a puppeteer. Weary of visions and hallucinations, Kamua covered his face with his hands and hung his head. But the hum of an insect whirring close to his ear prompted him to lean away and swat at the air above him.
"Get away from me," he hissed.
Two, six, twelve, twenty; he watched in resignation as the glimmer of green zoomed to a spot several paces in front of the vehicle in which he was sitting and multiplied to a number he could not fathom. Like a body of shimmering water flowing over the edge of a cliff, the metallic forms cascaded to the ground and pooled across the soil. There, in a soundless explosion of heatless flame, the green mass ignited and burned to a pile of ash.
Flakes of residue—gray, black, and white—fluttered and settled as though stroked by a fickle breeze. Then the grimy mass gathered, swirled, and congealed to form a mounded shape lying prone upon the soil. The air shook and rumbled with a thundering cry loosed by the gargantuan spirit elephant. As silence returned, the charred mound atop the dirt blossomed upward into the shape of a person.
Adolescent, adult, child, elder—the entity standing before Kamua seemed all of those and more. Each of these feminine aspects imbued the features of the others, a fusion of innocence, wisdom, strength, and compassion that Kamua struggled to comprehend. The creature was at once beautiful and terrifying, provocative and demure, with flowing hair the color of moonlight and fire, skin the tones of sand, earth, mud, and tar, the colors twining about her torso like the coils of a snake. Her eyes held the hues of every form of water Kamua had ever known: sun-kissed raindrops, blue oceans and emerald streams, slate-grey rivers, and moon-bathed pools shrouded within the veil of a midnight downpour. All manner of fauna and flora did Kamua see within the woman's pupils: beasts of land and sky; creatures of ocean and stream; insects of desert and leaf. Wind and rain and sky and sun were the essence of the lady's being—a collage of images, light, and sound that flowed within her torso like the turning pages of a never-ending book.
Overwhelmed by her radiant aura of sheer power and majesty, Kamua slid from the driver's seat and knelt on the ground. But as he lowered his head to pay homage to the godlike creature standing before him, she extended a hand with her palm turned toward the sky.
Images of spirit elephants, their forms encased within a luminous sphere of sea mist framed by a rising sun, appeared on the tips of her fingers. Crystalline in appearance, the ethereal beasts amassed near the base of a snow-capped mountain towering above a field of golden grass. As sunlight shone down upon the animals, the sparkling rays refracted, filling the sapphire sky with fragmented rainbows. Joy and wonder, beauty and awe—such a paradise of feelings swept through Kamua that tears welled in his eyes.
But then black clouds appeared, somber in design, heralding winged, manlike creatures descending from the heavens. Dark angels these beings resembled, hollow-eyed and grim, mouths twisted with malevolence, taloned fingers disfigured from the work of sin. One by one, each spirit elephant was assailed, its body shattered under an onslaught of silver-stained-steel. From the mouths of the dark angels this foul barrage was shot, and with each death of a spirit elephant, the landscape grew paler. And when the last of the crystalline beasts was destroyed, the snow-capped peak trembled and the ground buckled and cracked. The mountain erupted into flame and ash, releasing molten lava that set fire to the grass.
Black and grey, grey and black—Kamua could tell little difference between earth and sky. But as ash settled and some semblance of land reappeared, Kamua began to tremble, for there was nothing left to see—no grass or mountain or beast, or any remnant of what used to be. Without color or life, the landscape that had filled Kamua with such joy was now barren and stark, a dismaying depiction of gloom and desolation that magnified the ache in his heart. And then came the voice of child—one that he had heard before. The boy whispered what the woman had told him: "When the last elephant is gone, we will be no more."
The above is an excerpt from the forthcoming novel, Palm of the Mother.
© 2017 Lindsey D. Linden
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