Baby Elephant

Okay so it just occurred to me that the themes of motherhood and identity are not so newly on my mind. Here's a short story I wrote that got published (believe that!) a few years ago in a book of short stories by Long Beach writers.





* * * BABY ELEPHANT * * *

I put on The Wiggles DVD so that maybe he’ll leave me alone for five minutes.

I want to write about big things and little things – true things that show how life is. I want to write like early John Updike or like Hemingway in Hills Like White Elephants where the couple talks about something serious without ever saying what it is.

"You can’t put the dishes in there like that! Round things have to go on top and you can’t put plastic on the bottom!"

"You asked me to load the dishwasher and I did. You’re never happy with how I do things. If you don’t like how I do it, do it yourself."

Mommy, what your doin?

I’m working on the computer.

I wanna do the comchuter.

Not right now, honey. When I’m done.

Waaaa! Pleeeaase! I wanna do the comchuter.

Not right now. Go watch The Wiggles.

"I have to do everything around here! I ask you to do one thing, just one thing, and you don’t even care enough to do it right. Why can’t I count on you for just one thing?"

"Give me a break! I can’t ever please you! I took out the trash, did two loads of laundry …"

"Yeah, and you overloaded the dryer with both loads and left them in there half damp and all wrinkled."

I’m way up high. I can jump!

No, baby, don’t jump off the counter; it’s too high.

Get me down.

You can get down the same way you got up.

I can’t do it. Get me down. Pleeeaase!

(I go to the counter and he jumps into my arms.)

Come here my little white elephant.

I’m not an elephant. I’m a little boy.

Yes, you are. You’re a beautiful little boy.

* * *

Alrighty then.