Dear Fellow Earthlings,
This is the eighth (and final) installment of an 8-installment story of how things will end up if we do not STOP killing elephants NOW!
The Last African Elephant page 8 of 8 pages
Some of the talking apes had hoped that hearing my ‘own kind’ would give me the will to live. Yes, some apes seem to be trying to protect me from the killer apes. These “moral apes” have the capacity to feel mercy, to empathize with the plights of others...
Their efforts have been too little – and, now, too late!
I am the king of the animals. I am one of the largest mammals ever to walk on the face of the Earth. I will not be abused further!!!! I will not even allow you to stuff me!
There’s a big truck parked just outside my enclosure and it has diesel fuel in its tank. I will set myself afire with the fuel -- I do not want to be stuffed! I am not a toy! My tusks are not going to adorn some museum for sentimentalists to gape at with regret or compassion. Aha! An ape has thrown a lighted cigarette at me and I have picked it up. I have seriously injured my left shoulder just now as I crashed headlong into the wall of my enclosure, managing to get to that truck as a result. I have just torn the fuel tank off the truck! The cigarette has sparked the fuel! The fire is spreading! The wind has picked up the flame and ignited the skin on my truck and ears. The flames are like a hungry dragon consuming my flesh, exposing – and then blackening -- my bones. I am burning alive!!! Oh God! Deliver me to my cousins, to my mates, to my children, to the plains of my birth!
Apes, you have destroyed another species! What can I say except “Goodbye forever!”
-- THE END--
This and the previous 7 installments were all part of one work of fiction. Let’s make efforts to make sure that this short story does not become another instance of humans’ inhumanity to ourselves and our fellow living cretatures.
Steve Walker
Earthsaver and Jingles Creator
© 2013 Steve Walker, The Jingles-The Japan Foundation for English Pronunciation, Summit Enterprises.