The Parable of the Elephant

         Once upon a time there lived an Elephant and a Donkey. They had been living in a forest together, and remained age-old rivals as well. Every so often, they would see who was to be made king of the forest, with elections held by the Squirrels. And this year the Elephant had won.
         Just as he was getting  started in his term, one of the most sacred and highly-valued trees was torched. The people, of course, looked to their leader, the Elephant for answers. The Elephant soon found the person responsible for the tree’s fire, and came up with a simple plan to track him down and find him, and bring justice to him. This plan was going quite well.
         However, the Elephant wanted more fame. So, he accused a rock of having plans to do something nasty with the poem, e=mc2, and, to gain more hype, he invaded the rock. Now, keep in mind that this forest in recent years has gone into a number of wars that had not gone well for the forest, so war was a touchy subject for  them. Nevertheless, the invasion of a rock seemed to be going well, for starters. The prospect of forgetting to find the one responsible for torching the sacred tree and invading a rock seemed simple.
         At least, at the beginning.
         Now, the Elephant and the Donkey held another election. And, they both had their own ways of handling the war in a rock. You see, as the forest would slowly learn, the Donkey would have spared the troops, and found the one who had caused the tree to burn down. The Elephant, on the other hand, simply stuck his trunk further into the problem. Unfortunately, this sorry fact was ignored by the majority of the forest, and the Elephant won the next election. To put it mildly, his trunk was jammed into the problem.
         Then, just as the Elephant’s term began, a storm hit the forest. It flooded the trees and left many of the Squirrels nut-less. The Elephant had a slow reaction time to this. It was at this point that the Elephant’s fame sank to an all-time low. Then the good folk of the forest noticed that the war on a rock had become something like one of the most recent wars that they had been in, and that the rock was mashing the troops into a political pus. The people of the forest pleaded to their leader to bring the troops home. The Elephant gave a speech, announcing that he would send in more troops. The Elephant’s fame was now a tiny spark.
         And more factors would contribute to this. One thing is that the temperature in the forest was going up, and that the Ice Cube was slowly but surely melting. Many said that it was because the Squirrels were smoking their pipes too often, which created gases. They asked the Elephant what his plans were, and he said that he would do nothing, in spite of the fact that the forest may be doomed.
         Another factor is that the Prairie Dogs of the South were sneaking into the forest. This presented the problems that people could not tell who was legal or not. Yet an even worse problem is that the Prairie Dogs, in the heat of the summer, were shriveling up on their way over the border into little wads of fur. Some suggested that the king offer safer, more legal routes into the forest. The Elephant said that he would instead build a wall.
         And the irony is that the person responsible for torching the tree was not found yet.
         As you see, all events become a political pus. This is not bad, until the pus becomes poison. It was a time of bushes when Prairie Dogs, rocks, Ice Cubes, and an Elephant all poured into the river.
         Let’s just hope that it doesn’t last too long.