A Brief Story
I got an e-mail the other day.
In 1986, Mkele Mbembe was on holiday in Kenya
after graduating from Northwestern University .
on a hike through the bush, he came across
a young bull elephant standing with one leg
raised in the air. The elephant seemed
distressed, so Mbembe approached it very carefully.
He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's
foot and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it.
As carefully and as gently as he could, Mbembe
worked the wood out with his hunting knife, after
which the elephant gingerly put down its foot.
The elephant turned to face the man, and with a
rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several
tense moments.
Mbembe stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but
being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted
loudly, turned, and walked away.
Mbembe never forgot that elephant or the events of
that day.
Twenty years later, Mbembe was walking through
the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son. As they
approached the elephant enclosure, one of the
creatures turned and walked over to near where
Mbembe and his son Tapu were standing.
The large bull elephant stared at Mbembe, lifted
its front foot off the ground, then put it down.
The elephant did that several times then trumpeted
loudly, all the while staring at the man.
Remembering the encounter in 1986, Mbembe
couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant.
Mbembe summoned up his courage, climbed over
the railing and made his way into the enclosure.
He walked right up to the elephant and stared
back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again,
wrapped its trunk around one of Mbembe' s
legs and slammed him against the railing, killing
him instantly.
Probably wasn't the same elephant.
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I recieved this from the first person I had read "Like Death" for me. I'm pretty sure this is her version of payback.