The disappearance of the elephant

I learned about the missing elephant from the town's elephant house from the newspaper. On this day, as usual, I was awakened by an alarm clock set to 6:30. Then I went to the kitchen to make coffee, bake slices of bread, turn on the FM radio, and spread the morning newspaper on the dining table with slices of bread. I always read the newspaper in order from the first page, so it took me a while to get to the story about the missing elephants. The first page covered the issue of trade friction between Japan and the U.S. and strategic defense ideas, followed by the domestic politics section, the international politics section, the economics section, the readers' letters section, the readers' column, the real estate advertising section, the sports section, and then the local section.

The story of the missing elephant was on the top of the local section. The headline is quite eye-catching: "Elephant's whereabouts unknown in ×× town". Followed by a line of subheads: "The town people are on edge, demanding accountability for management". There are also several photos of police officers verifying the elephant-less barn. Elephant houses without elephants always seem to be unnatural. Empty, cold and clear, like a huge animal dried out after being emptied of its internal organs.

I plucked away the bread crumbs that had fallen on the newspaper and concentrated on reading the story line by line. It said that the elephant was found missing at 2 p.m. on May 18 (i.e. yesterday). The food company people brought in food for the elephants by truck as usual (the staple food was leftovers from the students of the town elementary school) and found the elephant house empty. The iron ring on the elephant's foot was still locked, and it seemed that the elephant had pulled out the foot as a whole, and not only the elephant was missing, but also the male keeper who had been taking care of the elephant.

The last time people saw the elephant and keeper was the day before yesterday (i.e., May 17) at 5:00 p.m. Five elementary school students came to the elephant house to sketch, before 5:00 p.m. had been using crayons to draw a portrait of the elephant. These students were the last witnesses of the elephant, and then no one saw it again. As soon as the bell rang at 6:00, the keeper closed the door of the elephant plaza, making it impossible for people to enter.

The five pupils testified in unison that neither the elephant nor the keeper showed anything unusual at that time. The elephant stood in the middle of the square as usual, shaking its trunk from side to side once in a while and squinting its wrinkled eyes. It has been old, moving the body seems to be very hard. People who see it for the first time, often feel uneasy, really afraid that it immediately collapsed on the ground and died.

The above is the content of this news report.

The reason why the elephant was brought in by the town (i.e. the town where I live) is also because of its old age. When a small zoo on the outskirts of town was closed due to operational difficulties, the animals were transferred to different parts of the country through the hands of animal brokers. Only this elephant was too old to find a customer, because there were more than enough elephants in any zoo, and no zoo was good and abundant enough to receive a struggling elephant that seemed to be dying of a heart attack soon. Therefore, the elephant will be in the ruined zoo where all the companions are gone and nothing to do - not that it had anything to do - alone for three or four months.

Both the zoo and the town had quite a headache with this. The zoo has sold the old zoo site to a real estate developer. The real estate developer is ready to build high-rise apartments here, and the town has issued a development permit. The longer the elephant is delayed, the higher the interest paid. But the elephant can not be killed. If it were a monkey or a bat, it would be fine. But killing an elephant is too easy to reveal the target. Once the truth comes out, the problem will be very serious. So the three parties discussed together and reached an agreement on the disposal of the elderly elephant. (1) the elephant as the town has the property to adopt free of charge; (2) the facilities to accommodate the elephant by the real estate developers free of charge; (3) the keeper's salary by the zoo side to bear.

This is the content of the three-party agreement. It was exactly one year ago.

I have been personally interested in the elephant issue since the beginning. I clipped all the reports about elephants. I even went to the town council meeting to discuss the elephant issue. That's why I can now give such an accurate account of how the matter developed. The words may be a bit long-winded, but the "elephant problem" is likely to be handled with the missing elephants have a fairly close relationship, or allow me to write down the good.

When the mayor signed the agreement and was about to adopt the elephant, there was an opposition movement in the council centered on the opposition party (I didn't really know of any opposition party in the town council until then).

"Why does the town have to adopt elephants?" They questioned the town mayor. Their claims can be summarized as follows (I'm sorry for the number of items, but I thought it would be easy to understand): (1) the elephant issue is between the zoo and the private enterprise of the real estate developer, and there is no reason for the town government to get involved; (2) the management and food fees required are too much; (3) how can the safety issue be solved? (4) What are the benefits of keeping elephants at the town's own expense?

They pulled off the polemical stance - "Before raising elephants, won't there be a mountain of things for the town government to do such as sewer remediation and the purchase of fire trucks?" Although the wording is not too harsh, the implication is that the mayor is suspected of having a backroom deal with the real estate.

In this regard, the mayor's opinion is as follows: (1) the completion of the high-rise complex in will greatly increase the town's tax revenue, the elephant feeding fees and so on naturally not a problem, the town government to participate in such a project is natural; (2) the elephant is old, appetite is not very big, to the possibility of harm to people can be said to be equal to zero; (3) once the elephant died, the land provided by the real estate developers as the elephant feeding ground is the (4) the elephant can become a symbol of the town.

After a long debate, the town finally decided to adopt the elephant. Since it is located in the suburban residential area since ancient times, most of the town's residents live more affluent, and the town's finances are strong enough. Moreover, people can adopt elephants that have nowhere to go this initiative with good feelings. After all, residents are more likely to sympathize with elephants than with sewers and fire trucks.

I'm also in favor of the town keeping elephants. The presence of a high-rise complex is certainly a killer, but it's not bad to have an elephant in your town.

We should cut down the trees on the hillside and move a collapsing gymnasium from the elementary school to this place as an elephant house. The keeper who had been taking care of the elephants at the zoo came to live with them. The leftovers from the schoolchildren were used as elephant feed. The elephants were then transported from the closed zoo to their new home in a trailer, where they will live out the rest of their lives.

I also attended the inauguration of the elephant house. The mayor gave a speech in front of the elephants (about the development of the town and the enrichment of cultural facilities), a representative of the elementary school students read an essay (Elephant, may you always be healthy), an exhibition of elephant sketches was held (elephant sketches have since become an essential and important part of the town's art education for elementary school students), and two beautiful girls (not exactly beautiful) in fluttering dresses each gave the elephants a bunch of bananas. The elephant endured the rather tedious - or at least meaningless to the subject - ritual almost silently, taking small bites of the bananas with almost indifferent and empty eyes. After eating, the crowd clapped their hands together.

The right side of the elephant's hind feet set an indestructible heavy iron ring. The iron ring is connected to a more than ten meters long thick iron chain. The other end of the chain is invariably fixed on the concrete pier. Iron ring and chain at a glance to know its unbreakable, even if the elephant spent 100 years to make all the efforts also can not help.

I'm not quite sure whether the elephant is dissatisfied with the shackles. But at least on the surface it is indifferent to the chains on their feet. It always stares at a point in space unknown to it with a blank stare. Whenever the wind blows, the ears and white body hair will be lightly fluttering more than shaking.

Responsible for keeping the elephant is a thin old man. I do not know his exact age, perhaps more than 60 years old, perhaps more than 70. There is a kind of people in the world once a certain threshold will no longer be subject to age, this old man is one of them. The skin is red and black in winter and summer, the hair is short and hard, and the eyes are not big. There are no distinctive features of the face, except for the near-round ears that protrude to the left and right, making the whole face small and particularly striking.

This person is by no means aloof, someone will definitely give a satisfactory answer to the conversation, and also speak in an orderly manner. If he wants to, he can also show a warm look - although it makes me feel a little reluctant. But in principle, he seemed like a silent, lonely old man. He seems to like children. When the children come as kindly as possible, but the children do not accept the kindness of the old man.

The only one who accepted the kindness of the keeper was the elephant. He lived in a prefabricated hut next to the elephant house and tended to the elephants from morning to night. The elephant and the keeper have been together for more than 10 years, and the closeness of their relationship can be seen in every subtle movement and glance of both sides. If the keeper wants to make the elephant stand in the same place to move a little, just stand next to the elephant and tap its front feet and mutter something, the elephant will be overwhelmed slowly swaying body, move to the exact position, and then still as before to look at a point in space.

Every weekend, I go to the elephant house to observe this situation carefully, but still can't fully understand how the communication between the two is realized. Elephants may be able to understand simple human language (after all, they have lived a long time), or they may be able to grasp each other's intentions by tapping their feet. Or have telepathy that kind of special function and thus understand the thoughts of the keeper is not known.

Once I asked the old man; "How do you give orders to the elephants?" The old man smiled and replied "long time together", without further explanation.

Anyway, it was a year of peace and quiet, and then the elephant suddenly disappeared.

I had a second cup of coffee while I studied the story from the beginning again. The article was written in a wonderful way, as if Sherlock Holmes was tapping his pipe and saying, "Watson, look at this, it's so interesting!"

The fundamental reason for the fantastic impression of this story is the confusion and chaos that probably dominated the brain of the journalist who wrote it. The confusion and chaos apparently stemmed from the unstructured nature of the situation. The reporter tries to cleverly avoid the irrationality to write an "authentic" news report, but this pushes his own confusion and hesitation to a fatal level.

For example, the wording of the story is "elephant escapes". But looking at the whole story, it is clear that the elephant is not escaped, but is clearly "missing". This self-contradiction is expressed by the reporter as "there are still some ambiguities in the details". I do not think things can be perfunctory in any way with what "details" what "unclear" such clichés.

First of all, the problem is the iron ring on the elephant's foot. The ring is still locked and left there. The safest inference is that the keeper used the key to open the ring and remove it from the elephant's foot, then locked it again and escaped with the elephant (of course, the newspaper also recognized this possibility). The problem is that the keeper did not have a key in his hand. There were only two keys. One was hidden in a safe in the police department for security, and the other was in a safe in the fire department. It is unlikely that the keeper (or anyone else) could steal the key from it. Even if they did, there was no need to send the used keys back to the safe - when they were opened the next morning, both keys were lying in the police and fire department safes. In that case, it means that the elephant must have plucked its foot out of the impenetrable ring without using the key, which would have been impossible unless the leg had been cut off with a saw.

The second problem is the way of escape. The elephant house and the "elephant square" are surrounded by a strong fence more than 3 meters high. As the management of the elephant's safety was hotly debated in the town council, the town government took the undue precaution of policing an old elephant. The fence was made of concrete and thick iron bars (at the expense of the real estate agent, of course), with only one gate and a lock on the inside. The elephant could not have crossed such a fortress-like fence and run outside.

The third problem is the elephant's footprint. Behind the barn was a steep hill that the elephant could not climb. So if the elephant did fly over the fence by some means, it could only escape via the road in front of it. However, there is no trace of the elephant's footprints on the soft sandy road.

All in all, a comprehensive analysis of the news report, which is full of confusing and unpleasant wordings, does not reveal any conclusion or substance of the incident.

Of course, it goes without saying that neither the newspaper nor the police nor the mayor of the town are at least superficially willing to admit the fact that the elephant is missing. The police are investigating with the judgment that "the elephant may have been forcibly swept out by a premeditated strategy or may have escaped on its own" and optimistically predict that "considering the difficulty of hiding the elephant, it is only a matter of time before the incident is resolved". The police are also planning to request the hunting associations in the suburbs and the Self Defense Force sniper unit to search the mountain together.

The mayor of the town held a press conference (the press conference was not reported in the local edition, but in the social section of the national edition) and apologized for the town government's negligence in security measures. At the same time, the mayor emphasized that "compared to similar facilities in any zoo in the country, the elephant management system in this town is no less powerful and much more comprehensive than the standard." He also said, "This is a malicious, dangerous and frivolous anti-social act that should never be allowed!"

The opposition lawmakers repeated their argument from a year ago, "The mayor must be held politically responsible for colluding with the companies and easily involving the townspeople in the elephant treatment issue."

A mother (39 years old) said with a "troubled look", "I can't let my children play outside without fear for a short time."

The newspaper described the details of the town's adoption of the elephants before and after, with a diagram of the elephant holding facility. It also included a biography of the elephant and a description of the keeper (Rei Watanabe, 63) who disappeared with the elephant. The keeper is a native of Tateyama, Chiba Prefecture, who has long kept mammals at the zoo and is "trusted by the people involved because of his extensive knowledge of animals and his loyalty and honesty. The elephant was sent from eastern Africa 22 years ago. The exact age of the elephant is not known, and its person is not known.

At the end of the report, it says that the police are asking the townspeople for any kind of information about the elephant. I took a second beer and pondered this for a moment. After all, I decided not to call the police. For one thing, I'm not too happy to have a relationship with the police, and for another, I don't think the police will believe the information I provide. It was futile to say anything to guys who hadn't even seriously considered the possibility of a missing elephant.

I pulled out a collection of newspaper clippings from the shelf and slipped in a newspaper clipping about the elephant. Then I washed the cups and plates and went to work.

I saw the mountain search on the 7 p.m. news program on nhk. Hunters with large rifles loaded with tranquilizer bullets, self-defense forces and police officers scoured the nearby mountains one by one like a grate, and several helicopters hovered in the air. Although the mountains are called mountains, they are located on the edge of residential land outside of Tokyo, but they are just small hills. With such a large gathering of people, the search could be completed in just one day, and the object of the search was not a small killer ghost but a huge African elephant, whose hiding place was naturally limited. However, the elephant was not found until late in the evening. The police commissioner, who appeared on the TV screen, stated that "the search will continue". The TV news presenter concluded, "The maze of who made the elephant escape, where it was hidden, and what its motives were, is still deep."

The search continued for days after that, but the elephant was still nowhere to be found, and the authorities could not even find a trace of it. I read the newspapers every day, cutting out all the reports I could see with scissors. Even the cartoons based on the elephant incident were not spared. As a result, the newspaper clipping collection soon reached its capacity, and I had to go to the stationery store to buy a new one. In spite of such a large number of stories, none of them included the kind of facts I wanted to know. The newspaper was full of worthless stuff, such as "still missing", "searchers are deeply distressed", "is there a secret organization behind " and so on. After the elephant disappeared for a week, the number of reports decreased until it almost disappeared. The weekly magazines did carry a few sensationalist reports, some of them even pulling out fortune tellers, and soon they were also hastily dismissed. It seems that people are trying to force the elephant incident into the category of "unsolved mystery club" which has many members. The loss of an old elephant and an old keeper from the land would not have any effect on the trend of society. The earth spins monotonously, politicians make statements that are unlikely to be honored, people yawn at work, and children prepare for their exams. In the midst of the endless waves of daily life, one cannot be forever excited about an old elephant whose whereabouts are unknown. The months that passed without any particular variation rushed by like a weary army marching outside the window.

From time to time I took the time to run to the old elephant house, to see the elephants no longer elephants live. Iron fence door wrapped around several thick chains, no one can get inside. Peeking through the gap in the fence, the door of the elephant house is still wrapped in chains. It seems that the police in order to make up for the lack of elephants caused by the loss of elephants, and the elephant barn after the loss of unnecessary security. The area was silent and empty, except for a flock of pigeons resting on the ridge of the elephant house. The plaza has been left unmowed and is starting to fill with lush summer grass, as if it has waited too long to endure. The chains wrapped around the door of the elephant house reminded people of the python that guarded the decayed and ruined palace in the forest. The elephant had left only a few months ago, and the place was covered with a kind of fatalistic desolation, shrouded in a suffocating atmosphere of rain clouds.

I saw her that time, September is near the end of the month. It was raining from morning to night. The rain is monotonous but gentle and delicate, a common rain in this season, which washes away a little bit of the summer memories branded on the ground. All the memories flowed down the gutter towards the sewer towards the river and into the dark and deep sea.

We both met at a product promotion reception held by my company. I was working in the advertising department of a large electric company and was promoting a series of kitchen electrical appliances produced to coincide with the fall wedding fever and winter bonus season. My main task was to negotiate with several women's magazines to get them to run tie-in stories. It didn't take much brainpower, but we had to be careful that the stories were written in a way that didn't smack of advertising. In return, we could place an ad in the magazine. It's all about supporting each other in the world.

She was the editor of a magazine aimed at young housewives and was at the reception for an interview - an interview that she knew was a sales pitch for someone. I happened to be free, so I used her as my subject and began to explain the colorful refrigerator, coffee maker, microwave oven and juicer designed by a famous Italian designer.

"The key to this is harmoniousness." I said, "No matter how good the style is, it must be in harmony with its surroundings, otherwise it is meaningless. Harmony of color, harmony of style, harmony of function - that's the most important thing in today's kitchens. According to research, the housewife spends the most time in the kitchen during the day. For the housewife, the kitchen is her workplace, her study, her living room. Therefore they are trying to improve the kitchen environment and make it more or less comfortable. It has nothing to do with size. No matter how big or small, there is only one principle of a good kitchen. That is simplicity, functionality and harmony. This series is designed with this guiding principle in mind. For example, look at this cooking board ......"

She nods her head and makes notes in her little notebook. She wasn't particularly interested in this kind of interview, and I didn't have a preference for cooking boards, we were just doing our jobs.

"You seem to be quite familiar with what goes on in the kitchen." She said after I finished explaining.

"It's work!" I replied with a businesslike smile. "But I do like to cook - it's not work related - it's easy to do, but it's done every day."

"Do kitchens really need harmonicity?" She asked.

"Not the kitchen, the kitchen room." I corrected. "It would have mattered anyhow, but the company has such and such a rule."

"I'm sorry. So the kitchen really needs to be harmonic? Is that your personal opinion?"

"As for my opinion, there's no comment without untying the tie." I chuckled, "But today is kind of an exception. I think in the case of the kitchen, there are a number of essential things that should be available before talking about harmoniousness. The problem is that that kind of factor does not become a commodity. And in this world of quick success, factors that don't become commodities have almost no meaning."

"Is the world really in a hurry?"

I took a cigarette out of my jacket pocket and lit it with a lighter.

"I'm just saying." I said, "This makes a lot of things easier to understand and work on. This is similar to a game, or the essence of the rush, or the essence of the rush-style - say a variety of things. And it's the only way to think of it, so as not to invite complications."

"Wonderful insight!"

"It's not a wonderful insight to talk about, everyone sees it that way." I said, "By the way, how about a champagne that's not so bad?"

"Thank you, excuse me."

She and I then chatted over a glass of champagne, and over the course of the conversation, we came up with a couple of mutual acquaintances. Not only that, but my sister happened to have graduated from the same university as she did. We then used a few of these names as clues to start the conversation more smoothly.

Both she and I are single. She wears contact lenses and I have regular lenses. She appreciated the color of my tie and I complimented her on her blouse. We talked about the rent of the apartment we lived in, and griped about our salaries and jobs. Anyway, we became quite close. She was a charming woman with a glowing face, without the slightest hint of imposition. I stood and talked with her for about 20 minutes and found no reason not to have a crush on her.

Towards the end of the reception, I invited her into the bar of the same hotel and sat there to continue the conversation with her. Through the huge window of the bar, I could see the rain in early autumn. The rain was still falling silently, and the light of the street in the distance was a mix of various messages. There were hardly any customers in the bar, and a damp silence ruled the room. She asked for a daiquiri, and I asked for a scotch on the rocks.

As we sipped our respective glasses, we talked about what we used to say at the bar like men and women who were more or less intimate when we first met: college days, favorite music, sports, daily habits, and so on.

Then, I mentioned the elephant. As for why the topic suddenly turned to elephants, I can't remember the connection. I guess I talked about some kind of animal and associated it with elephants. It is also possible that I was extremely unconsciously trying to explain my opinion about the disappearance of elephants to someone - someone with whom I could seem to talk freely. Or maybe it was just a drink.

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized that I was bringing up the most inappropriate topic right now. I shouldn't talk about elephants. How can I put it, this topic is already in the past.

So I wanted to take it back immediately. The bad thing is that she has an extraordinary interest in the disappearance of elephants. As soon as I said I had seen elephants several times, she questioned me like a barrage of bullets.

"What kind of elephants? How do you think it escaped? What does it normally eat? Is it dangerous?" The list goes on and on. In response, I explained it lightly according to the caliber of the newspaper. It looked like she sensed an unusual coldness in my tone - I was raised to be very bad at perfunctory.

"Like a big surprise when you don't see it, right?" She asked as if nothing had happened, sipping her second glass of daigiri. "It must have been a surprise to anyone that an elephant should suddenly go missing."

"Yeah, maybe." I picked up a plate of fried potato chips, split them in half, and ate half. The waitress turned to me and replaced the ashtray with another.

She watched my face for a moment with interest. I picked up another cigarette and lit it. I had quit smoking for three years, and after the disappearance of the elephant, I started to return to my old ways.

"Maybe it is, that is to say, about the elephant disappearance more or less predictable?" She asked.

"Not much to anticipate!" I laughed, "one day the elephant suddenly disappeared, which is neither precedent nor inevitable, nor does it make sense."

"But that's a very peculiar statement, eh? I said 'an elephant suddenly disappeared, anyone must have been surprised', you replied 'Yes, perhaps'. And the average person is never to answer in this way. Or 'not bad at all', or 'can't understand'."

I gave her a vague nod and raised my hand to call the waiter to bring another scotch. We remained silent for the time being while we waited for the whiskey.

"I say, I don't quite understand," she said in a hushed tone, "that a moment ago you were talking all the way to the top, before the elephant was mentioned. But as soon as the elephant was mentioned, you seemed to become perverse in your speech all of a sudden. I can't hear what you're trying to say. What is going on? Is there something wrong with the elephant? Or is there something wrong with my ears?"

"There is nothing wrong with your ears." I said.

"So the problem is you?"

I flicked the ice cubes in the glass with my fingers and swirled them around. I liked the sound of the ice cubes colliding.

"Not serious enough to use the word problem." I said, "It's not a big deal. There is nothing to hide from others, but I didn't say anything because I wasn't sure I could. If it's peculiar, it's a little peculiar."

"Peculiar how?"

I had no choice but to take a sip of whiskey and begin to tell the story.

"One of the things to point out is that I'm afraid I was the last witness to the missing elephant. I saw the elephant at about 7 p.m. on May 17, and learned that the elephant was missing near noon the next day. No one has seen the elephant again during this time. Because the elephant house closed at 6 pm."

"Logic is not good to understand." She stared into my eyes, "How could you see the elephant when the elephant house was closed?"

"Behind the elephant house is a small cliff-like hill. The mountain is privately owned, there is no decent road to walk on, and there is only one place up there where you can peer into the elephant house from behind. And I must be the only one who knows about this place."

I made this discovery by pure chance. One Sunday afternoon, I went for a walk in the back of the mountain and got lost. Between walking in a general sense of direction, I happened to come to this place. It was a flat piece of land, the size of a sleeping place. When I looked down through the gap in the bushes, it was the ridge of the elephant house below. A little further down the ridge there is a fairly large vent, from which you can clearly see the elephant house inside the light.

Since then, I often go there to watch the elephants entering the elephant house, gradually became a habit. If someone asks why I bothered so much, I can't answer. I just want to see the private performance of the elephants, there is no deep reason.

When it was dark in the elephant house, I couldn't see the elephants naturally. But when it was nighttime, the keeper turned on the electric light to do this and that for the elephants, so I could see them one by one.

The first thing I noticed was that when the elephant and the keeper were the only ones left in the barn, they looked far more intimate than they did in front of people in public. This can be seen simply by watching a small gesture between them. It even makes people feel that they intentionally restrain their feelings during the daytime so as not to be seen to be close to each other, while to the night alone together will be completely free of such concerns. But this is not the same as saying that they have any special behavior in the elephant house. Upon entering the barn, the elephants remained dumbfounded, and the keeper went about his business as a keeper: brushing the elephants' bodies with a deck brush, gathering the huge dung balls pulled on the floor, and cleaning up what they had eaten. Nevertheless, the unique warm atmosphere created by the mutual trust between them does not allow you to remain indifferent. After the keepers cleaned the floor, the elephants swayed and tapped the keepers on the back a few times. I enjoyed watching this action of the elephant.

"You've loved elephants before? I mean not just limited to this elephant ......" she asked.

"Yes, I think so." I said, "There's something about an animal like an elephant that tugs at my heartstrings, and I felt that a long time ago, for reasons I'm not sure."

"So you went up to the back of the mountain alone that evening to see the elephants, too, didn't you?" She said, "Uh - May ......"

"On the 17th," I said, "around 7 p.m. on May 17th. The days got long at that time of year, and there was still a little fire cloud left in the sky. But the elephant barn was already lit up."

"There was nothing unusual about the elephant or the keeper at that time?"

"It can be said both that there was nothing unusual and that there was something unusual. I can't say exactly. Because after all, they were not very close to each other. The reliability as an eyewitness can also be said to be not very high."

"What exactly happened?"

I took a sip of whiskey whose taste was muted by the melting ice. It was still raining outside the window, neither too much nor too little, like a still life painting that never changes.

"It's not that anything happened." I said, "The elephant and the keeper are doing what they always do. Sweeping, eating, a little intimate teasing, that's all. It was the same on a normal day. What I felt was wrong was just its balance."

"Balance?"

"It's the size balance, the ratio of the size of the elephant to the size of the breeder's body. I think this ratio is more or less different than usual, and the difference between the two seems to have shrunk a little more than usual."

She cast her eyes on the daiquiri glass she was holding and gazed at it for a long, quiet moment. The ice in the glass had melted, like tiny ocean currents trying to burrow into the interstices of the cocktail.

"So the body of the elephant has become smaller?"

"Maybe the keeper got bigger, or maybe both sides changed at the same time."

"You didn't tell the police about that?"

"Of course not." I said, "Even if I told, the police would not believe it, and besides, if I tell that I watched the elephant from the back of the mountain at that time, I would inevitably be suspected myself."

"Then, is it true that the ratio was different from usual?"

"Probably." I said, "I can only say that it is probably. Because there is no evidence, and as I said more than once - I was peering in through the vent. But I've watched elephants and keepers under the same conditions no less than dozens of times, and I don't think it's possible to be mistaken about the proportions of their size."

Oh, maybe the eyes have an illusion. At that time I closed my eyes several times and shook my head, but no matter how to look at the size of the elephant is different from the usual, indeed some shrinkage. So much so that at first I thought the town had gotten a small elephant. But I hadn't heard of it (I would never let go of news about elephants). In that case, it can only be assumed that the original old elephant has suddenly shrunk for some reason. And if you look closely, the elephant raises its right foot and taps the ground as if it were happy, and strokes the keeper's back with its more or less thin trunk.

The sight was incredible. During the time I watched closely from the vent, it seemed to me that a cold, other kind of time flowed in the barn that only the barn had, and that the elephant and keeper seemed happy to commit themselves to the new system of involving each other - at least partially - in it .

I watched the barn for less than 30 minutes in total. The lights in the barn were turned off earlier than usual, at 7:30, and everything was shrouded in darkness. I waited there for a while for the lights to come back on, but they never did again. That was the last time I saw an elephant.

"So, do you think the elephant shriveled up quickly and got away through the gap in the fence? Or do you think it disappeared completely?" She asked.

"It's not clear." I said, "I just tried to remember more or less accurately the scene I had seen with my own eyes, and hardly considered anything else. The impression obtained by the eye was so strong that, frankly, I'm afraid I can't deduce anything from it at all."

These are all the things I said about the missing elephant. As I initially expected, these words were too specific for a conversation between a young man and woman who had just met, and were themselves long over. After that, there was a long silence between the two. After talking about the missing elephant, which had little to do with anything else, neither I nor she knew what to bring up again. She rubbed the rim of her cocktail glass with her fingers. I looked at the print on the coaster. I read it over and over again 25 times. I still regret that I should not have brought up the elephant, which is not the kind of thing you can just open up to anyone.

"In the past, the family had a cat that suddenly disappeared," she said after a long time, "but the disappearance of a cat and the disappearance of an elephant do not seem to be the same thing."

"Yes, there is no comparison in terms of size." I said.

Thirty minutes later, we said goodbye in front of the hotel. She remembered that she had left her umbrella at the bar, and I took the elevator to help her retrieve it. The umbrella was reddish-brown with a large pattern.

"Thanks!" She said.

"Good night." I said.

She and I never saw each other again after that. We spoke on the phone once about the details of the ad, and I was tempted to invite her to dinner, but in the end, I didn't. During the time I spent talking on the phone, I suddenly felt that it didn't matter how it happened.

Since the elephant disappearance incident, I have often felt this way. Whenever I do something, I can't tell the difference between the possible results of that action and the possible results of avoiding it. I often feel that my surroundings are losing their inherent balance. This may be an illusion on my part. Maybe it's some kind of internal balance falling apart after the elephant incident that causes external things to look wonderfully perverse to my eyes. I am afraid that the responsibility is on my side.

I am still selling refrigerators, electric toaster ovens and coffee makers all over the world on the basis of the fragments of my memory in this eager world. The more I became pushy, the more the products sold by leaps and bounds. The success of our product promotion sessions exceeded even our not-so-optimistic projections. I was then able to reach more people. Perhaps people are looking for a certain harmony in the big kitchen of the world. Harmony of style, harmony of color, harmony of function.

The newspapers hardly ever report on elephants anymore. People seem to have forgotten that they had an elephant in their town. It was as if the once lush weeds in the square had withered and the smell of winter began to ripple around.

The elephant and the keeper are completely missing and are unlikely to return.