The Elephant--

Elephant's Memory - A Touching Story

In 1986, Mkele Mbembe was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from
college.
On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant
standing
with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed so
Mbembe
approached it very carefully. He got down on one knee and inspected
the
elephant's foot, and found a large thorn deeply embedded in it.

As carefully and as gently as he could, Mbembe worked the thorn out
with his
hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot.
The
elephant turned to face the man and with a rather stern look on its
face,
stared at him. For several tense moments Mbembe stood frozen,
thinking of
nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted
loudly,
turned and walked away. Mbembe never forgot that elephant or the
events of
that day.

Twenty years later he was walking through a zoo with his teenaged
son. As
they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned
and
walked over to near where Mbembe and his son Tapu were standing. The
large
bull elephant stared at Mbembe and lifted its front foot off the
ground,
then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted
loudly,
all the while staring at the man. Remembering the encounter in 1986,
Mbembe
couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant.

Mbembe summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his
way
into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared
back in
wonder. Suddenly the elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk
around one
of the man's legs and swung him wildly back and forth along the
railing,
killing him.

Probably wasn't the same elephant. Tweet