Tantor

Written for the Daily Flash Fiction Challenge with a word limit of 300.

The prompts: Story must have a telephone, an elephant and a daisy

Tantor

Tarzan slowly placed the phone back onto its hook and then gazed out over the vast grasslands of northern Africa.

He had been in the northern part of the continent for several months, helping local authorities track down poachers. He felt a great deal of satisfaction from the impact that he had made. Knowing he was around made most poachers seek more legitimate sources of income.

He had left his native jungle behind, knowing it would be there when he returned. The jungle resisted change with the same determination of the moon resisting a fall from the sky. It had always been there and would always continue to be.

Today, Tarzan had found that change did come. It was as inevitable as the passage of time. You could resist it, but time was the most patient master of all. In the end, it always won. Yesterday, in the densest part of the great African jungle, time knowingly watched as nature took its inevitable course. Tantor, the mightiest of all elephants and Tarzan’s closest companion for most of his adult life had died.

Tarzan took a train south to the northern edge of the jungle before disembarking. At the station, he shed all remnants of the civilized world and disappeared into the dense jungle.

It took him three days of swinging, running and swimming to reach the old elephant’s final resting place. Jane sat at the edge of the clearing waiting for her husband. She knew he would come. She knew he would need her to be there. Swaying gently nearby as she mourned her lost was Tantor’s longtime mate, Daisy.

The ape-man landed noiselessly a few feet from his wife. Without a word, she rose to meet him. He held her tightly and then, the Lord of the Jungle wept

Word count 300


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