Elephant's Famous Fries

The elephant, beleaguered and sprawled out among the grasses like Christina’s World looked on with chagrin at the approaching convoy rolling over the dusty hills. Leading the charge was a box truck which leaked dance music and oily steam, both as clouds rising in the style of a locomotive. Hyundais, Audis, Cadillacs followed closely behind. All of the vehicles looked less than two years old, cascading down the road wearing militaristic outer shells.

Checking his watch which wrapped around his trunk like a wrist, and judging the second hand against the progress of the convoy, the elephant decided he had about twenty seconds to pull himself together. By the time the steaming truck reached him, the elephant hadn’t had a chance to stand on his legs. A team of deliverymen began onloading crate after crate of piping hot waffle, shoestring, crinkle-cut, cottage, wedged, curly, and smiley french fries. Ramekins of ranch, ketchup and catsup arrived in separate boxes as accompaniment. French fries sat in paper sleeves, arranged in their boxes, like bushels of bananas in a banana’s box. The elephant was rapidly enclosed by the frites. They left an opening large enough for his trunk to reach through to the outside. Salty steam overwhelmed the elephant’s eyes and made them water like crying.

All those cars that had followed the french fry truck over the hill parked nearby and their passengers formed a line bursting at the seams. One by one they ordered bespoke arrangements of chips and condiments from the bewildered elephant hidden beneath his supply. Papas fritas, pomme frites, fries, sweet potato chips, and patatas bravas flew this way and that, taking down spilled ketchup with them into the mud, as the elephant did his best. With each order fulfilled, the french fry enclosure over the elephant diminished by one brick’s worth. Before sundown, the elephant was once again unburdened by the fries. He emerged to find everyone gone. The elephant reclined in the grass watching the last of the sunlight catch the exposed side of a lonely farmhouse. He retraced his day from beginning to end in an attempt to catalog the signs, if there were any, in case an attack such as this ever happened to him again.