The Elephant's Trunk

“It wasn’t anything THAT bad, Shae – it’s not like you haven’t seen one before.” Tina looks at me with a slight smile on her face, as if stressing every muscle in her body to prevent herself from laughing.

Oh yeah, that’s right.

“Yeah well, sometimes things are just fucking gross, okay?” Every part of my mind is trying to think of something strong enough to take away the mental image in my mind. The grass we’re standing on? Phallus. The cake I’ve been wanting to make all week? Phallus.

“Dude, are you still with me? Hello? Land of the living?” Fazing back into existence, I notice everything in my eye line is blurry – like looking through a camera that’s out of focus. Slowly I turn my knob and the image becomes clearer.

“Pen- Fuck.” My frustration comes out as anger as Tina’s brown eyebrows hang down as a frown.

“Aren’t you being a little bit of a baby about this? So what? Some old dude flashed us his dick – so what?”

“A baby? A baby would cry okay – I’m just annoyed I came all the way out to park for this shit.”

“That’s just city living for you.”

“Thanks, now I can tick this one off my bucket list.” The sarcasm hissing out of my mouth like a snake.

I see the sun starting to leave my line of sight as it hides behind the trees bordering the park.

“It’s getting late – lets go out for a drink and just forget about this okay?”

“A drink sounds nice.” It does, what can I say? “Where did you wanna go?”

“I’m not sure, I heard The Elephant’s Trunk is pretty good?”

What the hell? I can’t tell if she’s messing with me or not. Or maybe I’m just overthinking this. Ughhh.

“Eh, yeah sure.”

“You don’t sound too confident about that.”

“Let’s go, before I change my mind.”

Walking along the cracked pavement I notice a rising ray of sun flicker through the trees and my eyes squint. Shiver. I dare not look back and just keep looking forward.

Tina looking back at me and smiling asks, “Ugh, what’s wrong with you now? We’re going out, we’re going to have fun.”

I wish I could feel the same sense of ease Tina does right now.

“And, we’re here.” The sign looks like it had seen better days, but the artistry is actually really nice. A large elephant head on a circular wooden sign.

Opening the door, I walk straight to the counter. “What’s popular?”

The bartender looks at me, his familiar friendly smile evidently plastered on his face, despite being hidden by a well-kept beard.

“People generally order the Water for Elephants.”

“Um, have you got anything else?”

“I’m guessing this is your first time? Trust me, you want to try this one.”

“Ehhh, whatever – sure. I’ll take that one I guess.”

I get the beer in a large old-style tankard, bring it to my mouth and start chugging the whole thing.

“Wow, easy there. I’m guessing someone’s had a bad day?”

“Trust me on this, it couldn’t get any worse.”

“I’ll uh, take your word for it.” As he says this, Tina grabs my hand and starts walking to the door.

“Let’s go, I’ve got to show you something.” I smell the stench of liquor on her breath.

“Where are we going? We just got here.”

“You’ll see, just come.” She opens the door and the sun bursts into our eyes. We start walking up the same path that we had just walked down to get to the bar.

“I don’t want to go back to the park, Tina.” I can feel my heart rate rising as we trail the path.

“We aren’t going back anywhere.”

“Okay, just making sure. Where are we going then?”

Suddenly I notice my surroundings, we are back in the same spot we were previously. From the corner of my eye, I start to see a naked figure, now taking up the entirety of my vision. He looks familiar, I squint my eyes and make out his friendly bearded face.

“What the fuck?”

Thoughts of the last few days flood through my mind as my vision starts to fade for a second. I open my eyes.

“It wasn’t anything THAT bad, Shae – it’s not like you haven’t seen one before,” Tina says, looking at me with a slight smile on her face, as if she is stressing every muscle in her body to prevent herself from laughing.

Oh yeah, that’s right.