Music whistled through the thick vegetation of dry
leaves. The wind played a familiar tune, but a new melody whispered on the horizon. Through the brush, the broad head of an African elephant appeared, shaking its ears free from the grasping
branches. Its gargantuan body pushed through the forest and into a clearing. Its long trunk unrolled like a fire hose, stopping just short of the ground. Its dry tip hovered over the crackling
grass—reaching, examining, and searching through the crusty casks of dead meadow for the slightest remnants of nourishment. Its hungry mouth opened to greet the long sought-after sustenance, but
quickly rejected the rotten vegetation it found and dropped it to the dead earth below.
From out of the distance and high in the air raced a
blanket of darkness speckled with twinkling colors. The storm swarmed around the elephant before it had a chance to find cover in the dying jungle from which it came. As the sun withdrew from its
battle against the impenetrable clouds, a mighty wind rushed through the elephant’s clearing. The storm’s ominous arrival insinuated a much-welcomed intrusion.
On cue, a long-desired drop of water fell atop the aging
elephant. The oh-so-foreign liquid was almost completely absorbed in the crevices atop the elephant’s crown, creating a large, temporary, tattoo. A crescendo of dancing leaves rolled from the north
and the east like an army of tiny soldiers, then a shower of epic proportions bathed the caked dust off the elephant’s entire body.
As if the elephant had just awoken from a dream, it
focused on the ground, its head swaying side to side. The animal’s trunk stretched like an old man in the morning, rejuvenated by the unexpected present. A light brightened from deep within the
elephant and shone through its eyes; a quivering lip appeared to almost smile.
The elephant reared its head back, readjusting its spine,
forced its chin high in the air, unrolled its trunk like a flower in bloom, and drank in every fate-guided drop it could. The creature’s tired eyes clapped on the falling drops as it fought off
instincts to close its lids, wanting its every sense to enjoy this moment. Appearing to almost gulp down the air of the world in a single breath, the mighty elephant inhaled and then trumpeted an
eardrum-shattering sound, seeming to suspend the raindrops above its trunk.
For nearly a minute it sung over the splashed canopy of
the forest and the moaning wind of the sun-suffocating storm. The elephant’s song quieted to a peaceful undertone, and its mighty horn kneeled upon its brow, bowing thanks to the heavens. Its mouth
remained open; its eyes relaxed, then closed. Its ears flapped and its tail wagged with joy in the wind.
From right above the soaked elephant fell a raindrop
unlike the others that had fallen before it, landing in its wetted mouth. Common colors for any drop ranged from translucent shades of blue to white, but this raindrop fell like a spill from an
oversaturated sponge just dipped in yellow paint.
The drop’s uniqueness went unnoticed to the blissful
beast, as it drank its fill before resting its entire body under this magical shower. It lay there a while, still, until finally it opened its eyes to the vision of a mud-puddle building before it.
Now aware that great things could get even better, the elephant rested on the mire.
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