Loxodonta
An aged bull was rubbing his back lazily against the truck of a broad acacia tree. Beneath its prickly branches, shards of deep shadow were welcome in the heat of midday. The red sandy earth beneath his feet was bright and baking, hot enough to cook a body. From the lone male, a breath escaped in long, laboured sighs of several minutes. His ribs, clearly visible through his skin, lifted and fell gently. Eyes seemingly vacant, he scanned the horizon and counted.
One, two, three men and a jeep found him as he was slumbering, rocking quietly to stay on his feet. He was such a venerable age that his long tusks swept forward in long, low arches that almost touched at the fore, and which emphasised the thinness of the head beneath. The approaching men, who smelled bad from walking and hunting in the heat, surrounded the bull without a word, creeping in slowly and peacefully.
“He’s an old fellow. Makes our job easier, doesn’t it?”
“Sure. At least he’s had a life. How old?”
“Dunno. Probably near ninety, from the look of his feet and his tusks. Check out the tears on his ears, too. Looks like we’re doing him a favour.”
One bullet was enough. The shot was louder in the shade and the report shocked dazed birds out of the trees. Their weapon was meant for much tougher prey than this animal, who slipped down, sank and keeled over almost without a sound. There was no hurry and they waited, lighting cigarettes. Five minutes later they figured he was dead. Ten minutes after that, two great tusks were lying covered in the jeep, the body of the last elephant left to decay where it lay.
This band of men was not to blame for extinguishing the flame. All slow-moving guardians of the savannah had been shifted out of the way with the advance of suburban Africa. The savage yielded to the tame. Wild creatures incapable of domestication were judged pests and routinely cleared off land needed for agriculture, away from fish ponds. Precious wet patches and shimmering marshes were reclaimed for growing food and the forests harvested for wood. Bulky elephants made easy targets for Russian-style semi-automatic machine guns. Picked off singly, or butchered in families as they grazed, washed or licked salt from secret deposits, they gradually disappeared.
Their ivory was shipped to the east to make aphrodisiacs and potions that sold for thousands of dollars in the Asian markets. The West, too, with its hunting parties and exclusive safari deals had a hand in the demise of Loxodonta. Skeletons were scavenged and scoured to make talismans and powders. With the demise of the elephants – though no-one cared enough to notice at first – native trees, matured to hardiness over thousands of years gradually thinned out and disappeared, like the hair on an old man’s head. Gradually, the savannah became a bare expanse of sand, with rocky outcrops and low-lying shrubs clinging to the edges of housing developments. Losses were gradual, unseen until dust kicked up everywhere because the trees were not there to hold it down. With their vast, extending root systems, trees were like the tap in the sink, keeping the water in the soil. Without them, and without the elephants to partner them, the stuff of life gradually disappeared, leaving a giant dustbowl on the World’s largest continent.
Acacia became endangered, and although it was monitored for growth and germination success, lab results were stunted and inconclusive….not enough could be done, quickly, to save the species, so scientists, who had been flown from Zurich and Amsterdam and America to help with the problem, worried. From their purpose- built labs they sent out distress signals around the planet, hoping to find a cure.
On the fringes, other watchers waited, just as they always had. Men and boys at the gates – the gardener who clipped the bushes into shape and kept down the termites with creosote and sprays of sparkling water from a coiling hose; the houseboy who swept aside the dust every morning and afternoon and straightened the mats – knew that the world flattened up here would soon crumble into powder. The glass would shatter and the bricks would bake.
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May 12, 2014
Difficulties
Fran Macilvey acceptance, change, choices, communication, gratitude, hope, learning, letting go, peace Fran Macilvey, Path To Publication 2 Comments
Why does everything have to be so difficult? Discarding my clothes and relaxing, just seated on the edge of the bed, last night I paused and wondered. For once, I could look at this and see an interesting question, clearly expressed and heartfelt, but without the usual emotional downer that usually accompanies introspection of this sort. Even so, I was unsure there would be any answer.
To learn – that challenges can be overcome – with increasing ease?
Well, that felt like an interesting notion. Living is about daily practicalities. Understanding is not just about knowing things, and theorising on them. I know, for example, that love is the strongest force, and that life is easier and more relaxing when we give out love and can see only love in whatever happens to us and to those around us. I know, the more often I give out love and live in appreciation – every second, for everything – the nearer I come to living in the perfect present. For me, success means living so closely with the perfect present that we have no need of regrets, worries or fears. In that state, we don’t even need to ask, because a wish expressed is always heard and understood. Gratitude is the lubricant of our desires, as every wish is heard.
I believe this is where we are all heading, eventually. But life is a practical course, which teaches its lessons the only way it knows – by placing challenges before us and watching to see how we respond to them. Whether the car stalls at the lights, we are fed up with spinning here and there, we can’t see a way to the light at the end of a tunnel – if the lights feel like a train coming straight for us – despite travails such as these, life is always an enormous buffet with a range of choices. If we can hold on to that grain of faith which asks us to meet every consequence with the same light heartedness, we have really won the game.
We are meant to have fun with this. Options open out as we move forward in faith and optimism, and that is how we fashion our lives. It makes a good start, to accept that “difficulties” are only opportunities to learn how to be consistent, and then consistently, increasingly, successful, whatever we choose to do. Lots of difficulties, lots of different angles, these all challenge us, all the time. They ask the question, Are you faithful enough and strong enough to remember the lessons of last time? Can you do this? And this? Let’s try, shall we?
I am totally delighted that today my book and my blog are featured on WordPress http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2014/05/12/more-wordpress-books-authors/, a piece of good news which can be likened to the good fairy coming and blessing this house. Thanks so much, Ben Huberman!
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