The Elephant and Chris

The elephant told herself

She wouldn’t do this again

She sits across from Chris

Looking down into her coffee

Trying to twiddle thumbs

She doesn’t have

Her trunk rests casually on the table

Next to her scone

Chris chews on some bacon

She imagines telling Chris

That this isn’t going to work

They’re just different people

Well, he’s a person anyway

And she’s got aspirations

That he doesn’t share

Chris describes his ideal sandwich

The elephant nods

And thinks about trampling him to death

Across the café, there’s a cheetah

Breaking up with a guy named Floyd

And for a brief moment

The cheetah and the elephant share a moment

A sort of—Yeah, same here, sister

Meanwhile, Chris sops up runny egg yolk with his toast

And the elephant wants to gag

What is wrong with you, she wants to ask

If you wanted a sponge, why not just ask for one?

Why take bread—which is already spongy

Harden it

Then try to make it into a sponge?

He was an illogical force of nature in her life

Like a thunderstorm

Or an unripe melon

The elephant clears her throat

And her coffee cup flies off the table

And halfway across the room

Sometimes she doesn’t know the strength

Of her own breath

Chris reaches over to touch her right ear

But she pulls away

And says ‘Don’t’

He grimaces

The man across from the cheetah

Starts to cry

The elephant thinks about getting up to leave

But where would she go?

Besides, the tables are too close together

She’d end up knocking something over

Or stepping on a croissant

Chris asks her if she likes her scone

‘What’s not to like,’ she asks

Trying to keep the wild fury from her voice

‘It’s a scone’

He senses that something is wrong

His nose twitches

Then flops out of his face

And onto the table

Right onto his pancakes

His ears jut out from either side of his head

And the fingers on both of his hands

Began to run together

Like flippers

Then swell like water balloons

His skin turns a mid-day grey

And his clothes fall off in threads

Like snake’s skin

Great, the elephant thinks,

Now there are two of us

The waiter stops by and asks

If they’d like a refill on their coffee

Two nods

The waiter nods

More coffee on the way

The elephant dashes her hopes

This breakfast will go on forever

The cheetah is now alone

The man across from her got up to use the restroom

And never came back

Chris has fallen asleep at the table

His trunk landed in her fruit cup

Great, thought the elephant

Just great