The plight of the urban elephant, the soul-rememberer. This giant was felled by development adjacent to the old Bromwell Hotel in Salt River, now home to a ’boutique mall’ and a deli with an atrocious baguette, puffy and pale.
The pachyderm – unnamed – caught the pity of Mr. Blobz almost a year ago, as she lay, felled beyond the weedy grass that had overtaken this site, a squalid compaction of old plastic and oil fronting a rotten corrugation of assorted materials. Now, scaffolding ensnares the fading corpse. When Mr Blobz paid a belated visit the puffy Congolesienne security man wanted to call the avarocious owner – No Photo! – even of a dead elephant.
Mr Blobz senses they know what they’re building on. An elephant graveyard.
My wife Wendy is researching the representation of animals in cities. I will pass this on to her.
Did you chain yourself to the scaffolding to save the elephant?