The Girl who Had a Way With Elephants for sarah palin

The Girl who Had a Way With Elephants
for sarah palin

fiction
edward w pritchard

It was unheard of for a young woman to become an elephant handler at this time in our Country's history, since the work was dangerous and elephant handlers were often course and vulgar. Additionally, although not all the citizens were traditionalists, most discouraged women from doing this type of work, and for good reason, because the elephants were unpredictable, and there were many injuries and deaths in the normal course of the occupation.

However, no-one could argue that the young woman had a gift and a knack for calming the elephants, organizing the elephants, and because of her skills, the young woman became known as a most skilled elephant handler. It began to be spoken of quietly and in private that in time, the young woman might become a competent chief elephant handler.

After the young woman had been working in the field for a couple of years, the men elephant handlers began to begrudgingly admire her skill and expertise. Those males who were mean or disrespectful to her, often changed their attitudes and ways because of the collective behavior of the elephants toward the girl's detractors. When the elephants sensed or noticed disrespect toward the girl, and this included comments and innuendo about her appearance, shapely ankles, etc, either individually or sometimes as a group, the elephants would stare down the offending party with the evil eye, and no one no matter how determined or brave can stare down a full grown elephant, who is both intuitive, and vengefully calculating. And, as everyone knows an elephant has a very long memory for a grief.

So the young girl skillfully worked with the elephants for a couple of years, until by chance several of the elephants caught a contagious disease and there was eventually a loss of over 20% of the elephants because of an epidemic. The girl was of course blamed for the deaths although she had nothing to do with it, but in the hysteria over the losses she was a convenient target, and since no one benefited from her innocence, human nature being what it is, she was vilified as the cause of the losses. In fact, some physicians, noted that a mutation in the original contagious disease effecting the elephants might have occurred, and the disease jumped to humans as a case of schadenfreude against the young girl. A plethora of anger, and high handed judgments were thrown at her by people near and far, even those who didn't care about the elephants but were just glad to see a woman cut down a few notches, so to speak. Sadly, while a male elephant handler may have been eventually forgiven, like male religious leaders, who tearfully confess their transgressions, people will of course forgive a man but never a woman, and the girl eventually was forced to resign as an elephant handler and return to the North. Happily, the young girl, became happy as a wife and Mother and the occupation of elephant handler is no worse for her stint in the business, and it is still whispered that she might again make someday, a good chief elephant handler.