Still Elephant


Once upon a time, in a land before time, the world was roamed by elephants. But not just ordinary elephants, pink and blue elephants. There were elephants that were pink with blue polka dots and blue elephants with pink polka dots. The two types of elephants were know for not getting along.


Everyday, at a quarter past noon, all the elephants arrived at a big waterhole to drink. Everyday the elephants would fight over the water. Whichever colored elephants would tire first from fighting would have to find water somewhere else.


One day, two different colored, little baby elephants were playing in a nearby pond on the side of the big watering hole. The blue and pink polka dotted elephant’s name was Arnie. The pink and blue polka dotted elephant’s name was May. Arnie and May were oblivious to each others color because they were both born colorblind. They could not see color. Everything they saw was in black and white or gray. When the older elephants saw them playing, they all got mad and rushed over to them.


“ Don’t you see his hideous color?,” asked a pink and blue polka dotted elephant. “Don’t you see how different she is?,” asked a blue and pink polka dotted elephant.
“ They don’t see,” said Arnie’s’ father, “ They were born colorblind. They don’t see.”
“ Yes I can!,” insisted Arnie, “ I can see. When I look at May, I see two big ears, a long trunk, and little tusks. May says she sees the same things when she looks at me.” “ You all look the same to us,” said May, “ Different shades of gray, but still gray, still elephant.”


All the elephants looked around at each other. They all saw two big ears, a long trunk, and two big tusks on each other. They were different colors, but reversed with polka dots. Different, but still elephants. From that day on, the elephants stopped fighting. It took a couple of little colorblind elephants to see what they could not.