The elephant in the room is the elephant in my room. It has stood the test of time though has not stayed entirely intact. Bumps and brushes with my shelf have persuaded it into a free fall. But every time, the little wooden statue has gotten back up, and went back to its perch with it’s legs a little shorter, or a peice missing from its trunk.

The little brown statue had been given to me by my uncle after he spent several years in Sudan, he said he was an “economic advicer,” he said he helped “replaced their currency from the first pound to the second pound.” While there, he picked up a little wooden statue of an elephant. He said at the time it was “unremarkably cute.”

I don’t know its origins, where it was made, who made it, and whether or not my uncle just picked it up at the airport gift shop. But the mysterious qualities of the statue have always persisted as it watches over me from on top of the cedar bookshelf in my room.

Once, it had stripes around its legs, but they have since weathored off, still though it sits on three legs one hanging in the air, the next time it drops, maybe a new leg will collapse to the shortest position and that leg will become one of the trio, it’s made of a fine but brittle wood that comes off in small pieces

I wish i could be as resilient as a statue, when something bad happens to it, and it is sent crashing down, with some help it gets back up, a little changed, yes; but still ready to stand again. When my parents fight about money or how Dad stays up too late, and they brush up against the bookshelf in my room when I’m in the closet, sometimes the elephant gets knocked loose and the statue stands a little shorter. But, when I place it back, with each leg a different length, it does not complain and happily stands up again. Over the years his trunk has got shorter, when I rush to my closet when the fighting starts, it rises again.

When it’s not falling, it is silently watching, it watches the fights leading up to the abbreviation of its legs. it watches them silently, it silently watches me, It sees me procrastinating on the homework that will lead to my academic decline, it sees me write, and leads my imagination and dreams when I sleep.

In the future, maybe my shortened elephant will start to look more and more like a snake, as it falls over agian and agian but continues to get back up, maybe this snake will stop faling ever again, it’s rounder body more easy to roll with what hits it. Maybe it will never fall from its perch again and will forever by unequal legged, accepting and content.

I don’t think that what will happen though; probably eventually, it will fall for the last time, it will become nor more. Idon’t know how it will happen, maybe i will bump into it again, maybe it will be someone else who does. But someday, i think, there will be a fatal fall, and when that happens it will be no more and no longer will sit above me, watching listening, and when that happens it will not watch over me, not remember all, not judge, and not break anymore when something bad happens.