An Elephant's Tale

[Crimsonthread]

(Moderation note: This thread is only open to Crimsonthread to post, please discuss chapters of the story here.)


Many of you know of my pet elephant that I adopted during the move from Chit Chat 3 to Chit Chat 4. This is the story of his life, both on earth and with my friends on Gamershood Planet. A special thanks goes out to Lilliputt, who suggested that I write his story.

An Elephant's Tale

Chapter 1: An Elephant is Born

Once upon a time, in the depths of the African savanna, an elephant was born. Hiya, guys! That’s me! And this is my story.

Well, after being born, I lived with my mother for a while. She taught me many elephanty-things, such as how to find food (mostly grass and twigs… I thought these were quite boring, but what else is there to eat in the savanna?), what my trunk was for (SO much better than a regular nose! Can you drink with your nose? Spray your friends with it? Make sounds that can be heard miles away with it? I thought not!), and that living with other elephants is the best life an elephant can have. Looking back on the last lesson, I can’t blame her for teaching me such a fallacy, or me for believing it, since neither of us knew any different at the time.

My early life was very predictable, as far as elephants go. I ate when everyone else ate, slept when everyone else slept, and moved when everyone else moved. When we needed to migrate to find more food, I always stayed in the middle of the herd, as my mamma taught me, so I’d be protected from… well, whatever might threaten an elephant. I hadn’t experienced any threats so far. But one day, when it was especially hot, and dryer than usual, I wandered upstream from my herd to find a better drinking spot, I felt something sharp and… funny… pierce my hide. Suddenly, I couldn’t control myself. I was down on the ground, rolling from left to right and back again, and odd sounds were coming from my trunk… I could barely breath, but it wasn’t necessarily an unpleasant feeling. Then I realized, I was laughing! “But… elephants can’t laugh!” I thought, before drifting into unconsciousness.

To be continued...

[Crimsonthread]

Chapter 2: Mistery Revealed

When I awoke, I found myself in a strange metalish room. I looked around, and saw a tall, thin, green creature approaching me.

“Hey, hey, hey, what’s going on here?” I had a few questions for this green figure. “Where am I? What happened? Where’s my mother? Why can I talk?”

“Calm down, elephant. I am Mistery. I will explain everything in due time. In the meantime, welcome to my spaceship. Here, have a bit of carrot rum—it will calm your nerves.” I sipped a trunkful of the weird orange beverage. It stung a bit as I drank, but it did help me relax.

“Alright, now I’m calmer. Please, tell me what’s going on here?”

“I have many friends on a distant planet called Gamershood. We needed your assistance, so I shot you with a ROFL tranquilizer dart. There are no lasting side effects, but it caused you to laugh so hard you lost consciousness for a bit. Then I was able to beam you up here—to my spaceship.”

“Now, that brings up another question. How can an elephant laugh? Or talk?”

“You’ll find that, where we’re going, many animals who are usually limited to mews and woofs are able to speak just as humans.”

I really didn’t understand much more than I had when I first woke up, but hey! This carrot rum stuff was pretty amazing. I was feeling more and more relaxed the more I drank. I took in another trunkful. “Okayz, sho I can talk. Nows whaz gonna happen?”

“Elephant, you need to slow down on that rum! I need you to listen.” She took the bowl of wonderful liquid away, and I pouted a bit as she went on. “On Gamershood Planet, our room we use for chatting is becoming too full of conversation. There’s hardly room for anyone to come in. So we’re packing up and moving to another threa… er, room. We’ve got to relocate to Chit Chat 4.” Wow, I thought, 3 whole rooms so full of words that no one can sit down? I didn’t know that words were so complicated! These Gamershood people must be some talkers! Mistery continued. “We have many inhabitants on Gamershood Planet, so our Chit Chat 3 is also full of their belongings. Here’s where you are required. I’ve enlisted a total of 50 elephants to help us move. You’re the last one, and we are almost ready to begin the moving process.”

“Ok, you’ve answered most of my questions, but what about my mother?” In trying to comprehend everything that was going on, I’d almost forgotten where I was from. “What about my life back on Earth? What if I don’t want to help you?”

“I anticipated this query, so I researched your species in my database. On Earth, male elephants are solitary as adults. You are almost fully-grown. Your mother will assume that you’ve taken leave of the herd to begin your life alone. This is natural. After you help us move, I’ll be happy to send you back to your home planet, if you choose to return. As far as your desire to assist us, look at it this way: What choice have you got?” I had no answer for that. I shrugged as only an elephant can shrug and agreed to help. “Perfect,” smiled Mistery. “I really think you will like our bunch, once you get to know them. Now, the most important question: Do you conga?”

[Crimsonthread]

Chapter 3: The Conga Caravan

After a short conga lesson aboard the space ship (during which I destroyed only a few sensitive-looking instruments), Mistery and I suddenly appeared in front of a large room labeled “Chit Chat 3.” Man, this place WAS full of writing! I saw several creatures pulling items—such as tomatoes, strange bombs labeled “ROFL,” and dingy brownish-blue couch out from the word-worn room. A hunter was tossing a box marked “Water Pistols” onto another elephant’s back. A farmer’s wife was whining about her golf shoes while practicing her dance moves. There were boxes and suitcases and creatures EVERYWHERE! No wonder Mistery had seen the need for a caravan of elephants to take us along.

Apparently, the Chit Chat 3 room was very cold, for the floor was covered in ice and a few conga-dancers were frozen in place. An elderly lady was complaining about the cold, and a whispy, cloud-like creature began distributing sweaters and woolen socks to help everyone keep warm, but Mistery saved the day by melting it with an alien-ish ray gun. “Done, Lilliputt. Are you ready?” she asked the slow-moving granny with pink hair.

“Pfft, I have my stuff in your space ship, dear da alien,” Lilliputt replied. “Somehow they turned out ta be mostly carrots.”

“That’s no surprise,” laughed Mistery. Then, from out the pile of writing, a small, reddish pup with a cushion strapped to its hind end ran up to her.

“Hey, Mistery! I've been quietly lookin for stuff to pack, but I suddenly realized... I don't have any stuff here! And I'm really no good at dancing... So can I ride an elephant when we move?”

“Sure, Crimson! Climb on this one—he seems to be pretty empty.” And just like that, I had a puppy on my back, bouncing with excitement. Music started. The caravan started to move with Mistery in the lead. She called out to those behind her, “Follow me! Watch your step! Goodbye, Chit Chat 3!” And with that, the doors to the room slammed shut. Everyone began to conga, and I tried to remember what I’d learned without tossing the pup from my back. One, two, three, KICK! One, two, three, KICK!

The little granny piped up behind me, “Uhm, dear alien, just HOW MUCH are we supposed to watch our steps?”

The pup on my back laughed. “Enough not to step in what my elephant just did!” I blushed. Hey, I can’t help it when nature calls…

It was getting pretty dark out, and I was afraid that they wouldn’t be able to watch their steps closely enough. Just then, a brightly shining star appeared and lit the way. “Watch out for elephant presents!” she called. Presents?!? I thought. They must like them if they’re called presents! My conga kicks grew a bit more joyful at the thought that I could so easily give these nice Gamershoodians presents.




After some time of dancing and balancing a very energetic puppy, I started to get tired. I fell to the end of the conga line. Once, on a particularly clumsy kick, the pup flew off to my right. “WOOHOOOOOOO!” cried the pup as she sailed through the air and landed on her bum cushion. “That was fun! Thank goodness Lilli lent me an ASSet! Can we do it again?”

“Uhhhh… Sure! Hop on!” So I kicked and tossed, and she flew and bounced, until we both collapsed in a gale of laughter.

“I haven’t ROFLed like that in quite a while! That was better than chasing a ball!” laughed the pup. “Say, we haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Crimsonthread, but most folks call me Crimson. What’s your name?”

“Well, I don’t suppose I actually have one. I never thought of it before now, as elephants generally don’t give each other names.”

“Now, that won’t do! In my childhood, I knew a very nice elephant by the name of Horton. How would that work?”

“Hey, I like it! Horton… has a nice ring to it.” As I was pondering my new identity, pups who speak, and aliens that conga, I realized that the rest of the caravan had disappeared without us. “Uh, Crimson… we have a little problem… Do you know how to get to Chit Chat 4?”

“What do you mean?” She looked around and saw our predicament. “No, I’ve never been there, but I bet I can get us there! Just follow me!” And with that, she put her nose to the ground. “Yup, here’s one! Yechh! And another over here…” By following scent from all the presents left by the other elephants, Crimson led us straight to the new room.

As we entered, everyone cheered and pulled her into a group hug. “Yes, I’m here! My elephant had to stop to take a… you know!”

Lilliputt looked perplexed. “Take a what? A carrot?” I was confused, too… I hadn’t taken anything, except the Crimson pup. And I’d given her back.

As everyone got accustomed to the new room, I kinda hid in the corner. You see, I knew Crimson very well by now, and Mistery seemed like an old friend, but I felt a bit shy around so many new people. Someone I hadn’t seen before, a flighty butterfly, had arrived while we were trying to find the new chat. I watched as they chatted and unpacked, amazed by how quickly their words flew up to the ceiling and started to cover this brand new room.

The Hunter stood up, stretched his legs and announced, “Well everybunny... I'm gonna take off, grab something to eat, an take some rest.” Everyone wished him a good night and, much to my surprise, he didn’t leave through the door as I expected. He simply… disappeared. But since no one else seemed startled by this method of exit, I figured in must be normal on Gamershood Planet. Things sure were different here!

Suddenly, Crimson yelped, “OMB, I should have been in bed half an hour ago! Shame on GHP and its inhabitants for keeping me away from my self-appointed bedtime!” She hopped up and started running around the room to say goodnight to everyone, ending with me. “Goodnight, Horton! Thanks for bringing me here!” I nuzzled her with my trunk and waited for her to disappear, but instead, I felt myself being pulled away from the Chat. The last thing I remembered was seeing everyone's jaw drop in shock before everything went black….