The elephant first comes when you are two. Your mother won�t let you leave the table until your bowl is clean. Naughty girls get put out with the refuse. You feel the elephant�s trunk nudge your shoulder, pushing your arm until your soup crashes down to the floor. The tomatoes look like a flash of red blood, leaving a wound on the floor, but it�s the scream in your mother�s mouth that frightens you most.
do me
On your first day at school, the elephant doesn�t have anywhere to sit. It scares you, perching on the window ledge, so it moves to sit on the top bookshelf but that�s even worse. When your teacher tells you to get a book out, you can�t because that might wobble the elephant. Eventually you pull the book out fast with your eyes shut. When you open them again, the elephant winks at you. So you put the book back, pull it out again. Just for fun. At the end of the week, your teacher hands your mother a note. It says your concentration levels fall short of what is expected. You need to be tested.
the honour
You are allowed to stay on at school as a special case, but after many years of being treated differently, you wish you didn�t have an elephant and if anyone asked you about it, you would say nothing. But no one does, because you have to stay away from everyone anyway to give it room. It�s jealous, the elephant. You lose count of the fights you have on its behalf. Eventually you make a decision. When the elephant starts to slam the door after another row with your mother, you push it out of the way. You only wish you�d known before how light it was.
of becoming
The trouble is that without the elephant to guide you, it�s hard to find your own way around. One day you bump into someone who looks as lost as you. He is wearing a pilot�s hat and goggles. When you stand next to him, he shifts back to make way for his aeroplane. It�s impossible to navigate on the ground, he complains, because he has become used to the sky. You tell him that he�s not to be frightened. Together you can make a new map. He is the first person you tell about the elephant.
my wife
He calls it a double wedding but you refuse to worry, even when you see him note how narrow the Church aisle is. It leaves no room for others. The light pours in through the stained glass window, showing up every empty row. You hold fast on to your pilot to stop him flying away, your veil wound round his arm just in case, but with every step forward, you feel him become weightier. And when you both vow to keep only to each other, you realise. It�s really a double refusal.
