ELEPHANT GAMES

An elephant spins a red ball beside the black oil sea with its trunk. The sky is grey; there is no sun. Darkness stains the tips of the elephant’s feet as the tide begins its shift.

Circus music creeps toward the scene, curious. The music keeps its body hidden.

To the left, another deflated elephant. Identity unknown.

If enough animals gather, perhaps they’ll refill it.

But for now the elephant’s ball continues its spin. And we are on it. We are tiny.

A palm tree shivers. Then a second. Then a third. The Trainer has arrived. In his top hat, with his whip.

Beneath this purple top hat he is an inkblot, a fancy shadow-presence. The obscene smudge on your grandmother’s portrait. He snaps his shivering whip at the elephant’s stained feet. The feet always obey.

Our elephant folds inward, curling into a silver sphere. It floats upward and begins to orbit the red ball. Slowly at first, but then with a quickening hunger.

Below, that second flaccid elephant ascends quietly, swelling with Invisible Spirit. He reaches his apex and snaps into focus.

No trace of deflation remains.

With a spidery trunk he grips the silver ball and tosses it. The silver ball greets the red with blue teeth. It devours it.

Yes, that red ball. The one on which we sleep.

Soon, we are Nowhere. We never were.

And the word Doppelgänger turns empty.

For every copy is a copy of a copy.

Of a copy.

Of a copy.

Of a—