The Sultans Elephant

Daydream, I fell asleep amid the flowers, for a couple of hours, on a beautiful day.

“Ok I just landed. See you soon, S. Oh, ehrm … sorry about the road.” text message coming in on my mobile phone.

I hurried, I didn’t want to be too late. It’s not everyday I got a visit from S., especially not here in London. We were going to watch the Sultan’s Elephant.

And we did have to look for it, as it was not where we thought it would be. It was delayed. Which was great, because I somehow managed to miss the train from work. And S., well as you can see on the picture, he had some trouble finding a good spot to land. Can’t believe he just landed a few hundred meters from Buckingham Palace. But since everybody was focusing on the Elephant, nobody really noticed.

But the Elephant had waited for us. It had taken a longer rest on Pall Mall, and when we finally found it, it blinked to us and slowly awoke. When I saw it for the first time, well it was big, but not mindbogglingly big, as they had promised. I found out that that was because it was laying down. When it slowly rose, and stood up it was twice as high. And I have to say that they were right, it really was HUGE. We were impressed.

I have never seen anything like it. It’s eyes moved, it’s trunk moved, he could spray water, it could make elephants noises (you know like trumpetting) and it’s walk was really very real. What a piece of work ! It was made of wood mainly, and it’s ears were made of leather. All in all a very impressive animal to watch. I think there were 20 people (or more ?) alone to steer the Elephant. Behind the Elephant was a truck, and on it was a live band, playing the most exotic and fantastic live music, the perfect company for the Elephant. It was fantastic.

The Sultans Elephant in London – yes that’s a man on his head, he is controlling the ears

The Elephant will be in London the rest of the weekend, where it will take part in a kind of fairy tale performed on different places in the city. Tomorrow it will block all traffic on Trafalgar Square. I love the fact that this is possible in London, it must be a huge operation to set this up.

Slarti on the other hand had to leave already today, which is sad, but we’ll meet again. I followed him back to his spaceship. We walked back along the Thames.
“Did you know I did the …” he started.
“Of course I know you did the fjords in Norway” I smiled at him “with award an all. Everybody knows that!”.
“No, no, I mean, I did the Thames too” he said.
I was amazed. “Really ? So that’s why it is so curved! ”
“Yes, straight rivers, I was so bored with them. So I put some extra effort in this one”.
“Fantastic” I said, “you should have had an award for that too! ”
He was flattered. And while talking about a lot of other interesting matters, we arrived at his ship.
“Doesn’t it look a bit, uhm, old fashioned, this spaceship ?” I asked him. “What happened to the other one ?”
“Well, long story, have no time to explain, didn’t want to attract too much attention” he said. “As soon as I am back in the air, it will transform itself back to my normal ship. I better go now”. He hated goodbyes. I do too.
I gave him a hug, wished him a safe trip home, watched his spaceship until I couldn’t see it anymore and walked home.

I have to say it again. London is one of the coolest places in the Galaxy. If you hurry up you can catch the elephant the 2 coming days. And if you happen to be in the neighbourhood, you would be mindbogglingly stupid if you didn’t take a look at it …

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