It used to be, if there were a topic that was obviously on everyone's mind, yet the fact that no one would mention it was growing oppressive to all, that topic would be called, "the elephant in the room." "Clearly the elephant in the room is that Edna's husband Roger is having an affair with Leon. So, Edna - Edna, you've had enough Scotch, no ... where did you get - put down the gun, Edna - NO! OH MY GOD!!"
That was the way those conversations used to go. But now, suddenly, everyone is referring to an 800-pound gorilla in the room. And the question everyone seems to be avoiding is, where'd the elephant go? Scared off by the gorilla? Please. I don't think so.
Some say the elephant retreated to the refrigerator. What led them to this conclusion? The elephant's footprints in the butter, they claim. A moment's thought is all it takes to realize the impossibility of such a thing. One toe of an elephant would flatten any typical stick of butter, and it's doubtful the refrigerator itself would survive an elephant's attempt to leave a footprint in any firm spreadable, in the dairy compartment or on one of the shelves, it doesn't matter. Certainly an elephant's trespass in one's refrigerator would leave a number of clues more worthy of note than prints of its tread in a polyhedron of solidified fat, any solidified fat, and yes that includes margarine.
I don't know about this 800-pound gorilla who's replaced the elephant, but there used to be a 900-pound one. And this 900-pound gorilla seemed to have hit rock bottom. He had no place to stay, though he had a lot of good-hearted folks looking out for him. I can't count the times, when I was between the ages of six and eleven, that I heard people asking where this 900-pound gorilla was going to sleep.
And inevitably some wag or other would quip, "Anywhere it wants to!" Yeah, real funny. The poor animal's probably going to have to sleep out in the woods tonight, the woods, where the bears go to the bathroom, and you're making jokes. I guess it is a little funny. But it's funny because it's true, whereas the claim of elephant footprints in the butter is funny because it's false. Ha! I cannot but laugh at your lies. And your truths.
Yes, it has occurred to me that the 900-hundred pound gorilla wanted to sleep in the room where the elephant was, and the elephant, being more socially connected than the gorilla, graciously ceded the space, or perhaps the elephant had wearied of sitting around a room with a bunch of people who did nothing but try to avoid acknowledging his presence. Which is perfectly understandable. One almost wonders what kept him there so long in the first place.
My question is, if the 800-pound gorilla in the room is in fact the 900-pound gorilla everyone was so concerned about finding a crash pad for, what happened to the other 100 pounds? Yes, of course a gorilla can lose a hundred pounds, it's not out of the realm of possibility, but this was a homeless gorilla, eking out a subsistence in the mean streets. Are you trying to tell me now that he's found shelter to lounge around in he's going to lose weight? Come on. Is there no depth to which you won't stoop with your prevarications, obfuscations, and nonsense? And mendacity? Why are you like this?
Something isn't right. What we know is that one unmentionable elephant and one hundred pounds of gorilla are missing. And all anyone wants to do is joke about it. Maybe that's the only way they can handle such an egregious, glaring atrocity - perhaps they think they can ignore it into non-existence, because perhaps it's just too terrifying for them to face, that our society has done away with so much animal mass once in such close, familiar proximity to us, which we ignored for our own selfish reasons. Because to admit our own complicity in such a deed would be to strip away the facade from behind which we must never emerge if everyday life is to go on. We cannot remove these masks because they not only allow us to conceal our own true, primitive selves, but they also protect us from the knowledge that all our fellow human beings, in whom we must trust if we are to continue living, are in fact the same kind of horrific monsters we hide within ourselves.
So we sit about our salons, congratulating each other on how civilized we are. And all the time there lurks something, something we dare not name - call it a, I don't know, boogeyman, or a salamander, or a prawn - no, something bigger, much bigger - there in plain sight. Maybe a bear. Or a mountain. Something. Something sits in the salon, right in our midst, and we dare not speak its name.
Maybe it's an anteater, a giant anteater.