Dark Horse

The older kid, Jason, was totally off his rocker. He went on a tangent and asked me if India indeed had any cars or the people still used elephants for transportation. I didn’t quite fathom what prompted him to ask such ignoramus nonsense. That was such a dumb questioning that I couldn’t help but snigger. And I must admit he was just being curious in a very simple sort of way with no offence intended to me. Axel shook his head for a moment and then looked at me with a grin on his face. I nodded at him knowingly in an approving manner. So Axel took over from there.

He said, “Heck no, kid! Don’t you know this simple fact? India doesn’t have any cars or automobiles for that matter. It must be pathetic wondering about such trivia. But why do you ask?”

“No, I am just curious. Like we have here fancy cars. What do they do over in India?”

Axel said, ”Well, Jason! They ride elephants as you rightly pointed out. For these animals they have special type of roads. Like any where else, some times there is a traffic jam with all those elephants running amuck. You know what I mean.”

Jason asked Axel, “There must be whole heck of a lot of elephants over there. Eh!”

“You better believe it. It’s really crazy out there in the middle of all those elephants running around.”

“So, how does one control the beast?”

Axel said, “You see, like we have a driver to drive a car around. They also have a person mounted on the neck of the beast controlling its movements.”

“But, where are all those animals stored?”

Axel said, “No problem at all for them elephants. You see, like we have parking lots, they have multi-storied parking for elephants. There are huge elevators to move these animals up and down. In fact all the elephants have identification tags so the owner can find them.”

Jason exclaimed, “Oh, wow! You aren’t kidding me, right?”

“No, absolutely not.”

Jason continued, “Far out! That must be fun.”