“How did I even get here?” When it comes to Jumbo the cat, the question of “how” is always a question left unanswered, even by himself. With his
‘go-with-the-glow’ motto (he saw it on a two-leg sign and severely misread it…), partnered with his horrible memory, adventures with Jumbo always sound like a fever dream to anyone who will listen.
Alas, he’s never been to a place much like this.
Lights everywhere, weird creatures in cages, and many, many two-legs.
Jumbo wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted to see first. He was thankful that he had, somewhere along the line, gained the skill to read two-leg marks, and he read himself some of the signs.
“Lizerds” lizards.
“Monkes” monkeys.
“Procupi-”
Jumbo gave up trying to read that one.
“Liuns” lions.
“Elehpants” elephants.
Jumbo gasped. Elephants. They sound so beautiful, small and magnificent. Jumbo headed towards the elephant sign, unable to read the bright red and very obvious “
out of order” sign above it.
Jumbo looked around for anything that could be recognized as an elephant. He tried to ask the unnaturally flat and 2d shaped animals around the exhibit but they didn’t answer him or even move. It was very rude of them, but he decided that maybe they were feeling shy, and he assured them that they were all very pretty despite their 2d figure.
He looked through all the cages and could catch the small whiff of a past animal living there, but no sign of life was present, besides the
pesky two-legs that have been making their
pesky two-leg noises at him.
Defeated, Jumbo headed back to where he had woken up in this weird cage forest, upset that he couldn’t find his beloved “elehpants”.
That’s when he spotted it. A blue figure with many weird shapes, but Jumbo just
knew it was an elephant. It had to be. He rushed into the small two-leg den and stopped right in front of the den wall holding his beloved prize. Jumbo paused.
Why was this elephant so… sad? He read the sign next to it to hopefully get some clarity of the situation.
“Elehpant Costoome” Jumbo was even more confused by this. Is that some sort of clan name? He knew that most inhabitants of BarleyClan had weird cat names like “
waterfire” or “
treebranch” but he wasn’t aware elephants did this as well. He meowed at the elephant, trying to catch its attention.
“Greetings elephant! Are you okay? Do you need medical assistance? I can go get some herbs?” The elephant didn’t move or make any sounds. Jumbo was suddenly distraught.
Could it be dead? He heard a loud cry of a two-leg kit and immediately entered defense mode. He stared at the kit… it was
wearing the elephant?
Was this kit secretly an elephant? Jumbo was now completely confused and convinced that this, unlike his many other adventures, truly was a fever dream.
But then he pondered,
"
could I be an elephant too?"
(496 words)
