Grey's Journal

``I'm going elephant hunting.  You want to come?''

``What are you doing?''

``Elephant hunting,''

``Err... no, but you have fun.''

I said `elephant hunting' as though it was self-evident, but I had only the dimmest idea myself of what it was.  A few websites about London had reported that a spaceship landed in Waterloo Place and that this was the start of something called `The Sultan's Elephant'.  Details were vague, but given the large number of road closures for the next three days, it was huge.

The official website for the Sultan's Elephant was deliberately unhelpful, saying only that `the elephant is coming, will you find it?' and listing a sparse itinerary with items like:

Unable to convince any of my school colleagues to join me, I went off on my own.  The itinerary indicated that the elephant -- whatever it was -- should be somewhere between Horse Guards Parade and Green Park.  Cutting through the back streets I arrived in Horse Guards.  It's normally an empty public square surrounded by castle-like buildings where boring public events are held.  But this time cranes, public barricades, a spool of needle and thread as large as me, a chair as large as a bus, and other odd things littered the area.  There were no other people around.  Whatever it was had just passed.

Then I heard the music, a mixture of Indian and techno.  Sitars and synthesizers.  I followed the sound up the little hill to the Mall, the wide broad street that leads to Buckingham Palace.  I stepped out from behind the streets and saw it.

* * *

Stomp.

Stomp.

Stomp.


``My God.''

I turned the corner and saw a forty-foot tall mechanical elephant stomping down the Mall toward Buckingham Palace.  For a moment, were it not for the knowledge that no land animal in this age could be so large, I would have assumed it to be real.

``Oh.  My.  God.''

I fumbled my camera out of its bag and ran after the elephant.

The well-ordered adult life is marked by a lack of running.  True adults leave running as an activity for animals, children (a kind of animal) and those who can't organize their time.  But, that weekend in May, I ran like a child who cares not for the concerns of the adult he will become.

I caught up with the elephant and was awed.  Standing beside it, I could see the gears and pistons and metal under the wooden exterior.  Suspended along the side of the elephant were men in stylized 18th century red uniforms.  These men sat in metal suspension chairs, controlling the various parts of the elephant, the legs, tail, head and trunk.  More ran alongside the beast yelling into headsets or using remote controls.

An ex-girlfriend once described me as having `a mind of metal and wheels' a line from J. R. R. Tolkien about Saruman -- the wizard with a love of industry.  She intended this as a derisive comment to prod me into a greater love for, and respect of, nature but I took it as a compliment and an ideal to achieve.  One should have a mind that looks upon everything and sees the gears behind it.  And here, before me, stood the biggest piece of steampunk technology I'd ever seen -- and it transformed me into more of a child than I was as a child.

However, it was over the clockwork nature of the elephant that I got into an argument with a member of the crowd.

``That's a lovely puppet,'' she said.

Puppet?  Puppet?  This I could not let stand.

``It's a robot elephant,'' I corrected.

``No,'' she said.  ``It's a marionette.  A complicated marionette, but a marionette nonetheless.''

``It's.  A.  Robot.''

Now, strictly speaking I knew she was correct.  Robot implies some degree of autonomy, which this clearly did not have.  But I wasn't going to let her call it a puppet.  By using such a word she stole the elephant away from the engineers for the drama majors.  Never mind that the group organizing the event was a theater company, I would see what I wanted to.

The elephant was magical.  I hate that word -- it usually means family-oriented and bland but the word's true meaning applied here.  It made the city into a fantasy that I didn't want to leave.  An old man turned to me as the elephant stormed past us just feet away and he said, ``Oh, God.  That is awesome.'' clearly meaning the now archaic definition: a thing which inspires awe.

I pushed my way to the front of the elephant, where a bunch of police kept yelling at people to make way.  I walked backward, mindlessly taking photos as a cop occasionally shoved me when I did not move fast enough.  I was transfixed.

Here, I had a less than noble moment.  The elephant's trunk sprayed water over the crowd occasionally.  Not in a fine mist.  In a fire hose-like ejection.  I was walking behind some fat kid when the trunk turned toward us.  When the blast of water inevitably came I ducked behind him, letting his bulk protect me.  In moments like that, I uncomfortably remember that I now work as a teacher, and it is supposedly part of my job to set a good example of adult behavior for children, not to use them as a shield.

Given the magnificence of the elephant, there were very few people around, perhaps two hundred or so.  This must have been the result of the lack of advertising for the event.  But everyone who was there did one of three things: take photographs, call friends and say ``you will not believe what I just found'' or just stare with open mouths.

I did all three.

I sent text messages to everyone in my address book telling them to get down to the center of town as fast as they could.  But, alas, there are times when 128 alphanumeric characters fail to convey the intensity of a moment in life.  My friends and colleges were unconvinced by my incoherent messages of a giant elephant.  I decided I must prove to them what they were missing with my photos.

I pulled myself up a stone wall on the outside of what was surely some Duke's private house as the elephant passed.  I crawled along the edge to a balcony for a better shot, not thinking that such houses would have anti-climbing devices to stop people just like myself.  Sure enough, as I swung onto the balcony, something cold and mean ripped against my leg.  But I didn't care.  I was high on endorphins and wouldn't discover the bruise until I got home that night.

* * *

The next morning on my way to re-find the elephant, I passed a Spanish couple who, as everyone does, stopped me to ask for directions.

``Which way to the--?''

``The giant robot elephant!'' I interrupted.  ``It's just around the corner!''

The couple, not confident in their English, paused before saying.  ``Robot elephant?  No... the changing of the guards.''

I dismissed this as no option for their holiday.  ``You really have to see the robot elephant.  It's huge and robotic and this sultan guy lounges round on the top of it while his concubines attend to him and it's hiding around here somewhere!''

``Robot elephant?''

``Yes!''

``And the changing of the guard is that way?''

``Yes, but--''

``OK, thank you.''

And away they went from the crazy man and towards London's dullest tourist attraction.

* * *

Later that day, the elephant made its way toward Trafalgar Square for an official reception.  Surprisingly, Ken Livingston, the mayor of London, was not there for his usual photo opportunities and the deputy mayor, Nicky Gavron, was his replacement.  The elephant hunkered down to sleep as the sultan and his entourage climbed off of it.  An overly excited and child-like crowed waited to see what would happen.

The deputy mayor took the microphone and, in the may only a skilled politician can, killed the mood.

She started by thanking the sultan and his Time-Traveling Elephant for visiting the city.  The way she said Time-Traveling Elephant was wooden and rehearsed; it caused physical discomfort -- like when your parents casually drop teenager slang into a conversation, but you can tell they planned it ahead of time.

Her speech was long, pompous, self-congratulatory and made me understand why people used to throw rotten tomatoes at actors.  I wanted to hit her with something that wouldn't hurt her, but would splatter everywhere, smell bad and humiliate her out of public life.

She said that London is the greatest city in the world and that's why the sultan and his Time-Traveling Elephant came to us.  Now, London is the greatest city on Earth, but truly great cities should not brag -- it's embarrassing.  That's what loser cities like Buffalo do because they need to trick people into visiting them. 

The mood in the crowd shifted from impatience and annoyance to anger when the deputy mayor said ``And we are such a great city that even the Olympic committee chose us for the 2012 summer games!''  The crowd booed her because to compare something as pedestrian as the Olympics to the elephant was insulting to the men putting on the show.

Shortly after her speech, the sultan came to the microphone, said three sentences in a made-up language and got thunderous applause from the crowd.

 

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Copyright © 2006 Wellington Grey


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