Post 7: Elvis the Elephant

Delighted with my first days work at the Circus I returned the next day eager to advance my pile study with another exotic piece of WILDLIFE. I chose the king of all the land beasts: 

The Elephant.

And now, I must confess, for the first time on my journey,  things started to go a little weird.

Here is a brief Biography about Elvis the Elephant:

1984: Born in India

1985: Stolen from his happy family home by traders

1985-1990: Locked in a dark room for months on end, given only basic amenities and subjected to Psychotropic drugs and a disturbingly frequent dosage of CIA-sanctioned Coercive Persuasion videos.

1990: Released by the U.N and sold to the ANIMAL CIRCUS WITH LOADS OF ANIMALS IN IT

1990- Present: Trained to do handstands and travels the world wowing his sometimes obsessive fanbase.

Now, like any warm-blooded Human Being I must admit that I was rather distraught by his tragic life story, but on the other hand:

 HAVE YOU EVER SEEN AN ELEPHANT DO A HANDSTAND???

It's pretty much the most awesome thing in the World. Whatever unfortunate quirks and jerks of fate had befallen Elvis in his past that lead him to this moment, my own personal gratification was being severely topped up by the site of him standing on his front paws.

I was so chuffed with this that I nearly forgot to investigate his pile, but investigate I did, and this, my friends, is where the hunt for piles takes its VERY FIRST turn toward the strange. 

Up until now every pile was easily explainable. Elvis' pile, to be Frank, was not easily explainable.

Elvis had contrived to gather a small collection of tiny, all-singing, all-dancing, all-Shoop-Shooping Chers!!

(Cher born Cherilyn Sarkisian on May 20, 1946 is an American recording artist, actress, director and record producer. Referred to as the Goddess of Pop, she has won an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, three Golden Globes, a Cannes Film Festival Award and a People's Choice Award for her work in film, music and television)

With a melancholy swish of his trunk Elvis explained to me that this song (The Shoop Shoop Song [It's in his kiss]) was number one in the pop charts when he was released from his psychedelic solitude, and now, whenever he saw a Tiny Cher nearby, he would collect it and keep it with him to remind him of that brief moment of joy he had once felt...

Naively believing he would be be free to wander the great plains of the World - headbutting trees, finding a mate (and then headbutting her), raising children and teaching them how to headbutt trees and headbutt their mates.. before dying an old and happy pachyderm with his family around him and a rerun of Last of the Summer Wine on his television set... 

Instead it merely soundtracked the beginning of a new chapter of his tormented life The chapter in which Elvis would be a handstanding elephant, a chapter which Elvis now believed would see him through to the end of his mortal coil on this Earth...

No wandering the great plains.

No headbutting trees

No mate

No child

No teaching the child to headbutt trees

No teaching the child to headbutt its mate

No bassy guffaws to the latest hilarious high-jinks of Compo and his pals... 

No...

Elvis just had his cage. 

His Handstands.

And his Shoop-Shooping Chers.

Poor bugger.

I shed a brief tear for Elvis. I really did.

But then I asked him to do another handstand for me, it really is the most awesome thing in the World.

WARNING

If an elephant sneezes whilst doing a handstand he is liable to crap himself. 

Elvis the damaged elephant and his pile of semi-naked evergreen diva's