The elephant was on the high cliff overlooking the ocean.
It was not a trip he often made, for although he found the view exhilarating, it was also disquieting. He missed the comfort of the trees and the jungle. Even the grasslands promised an eventual border of protection. But here, his gaze became lost in the horizon, and he could see nothing to prove there was an end.
As he pondered this panorama, he noticed a cloud moving across the ocean below him. It wafted its way up the side of the cliff.
“This is a switch,” said the cloud.
“What’s it like down there?” joked the elephant.
“That would be an easy thing to discover,” noted God.
“This looks like a place of Revelations,” said the elephant.
“Well, thank your God it is no road to Damascus,” said God. “A flash of light could easily startle you over the cliff. Then where would you be?”
“A good question,” pointed out the elephant.
“Touché,” said the cloud. “In fact, this would even be an unwise place to kick against the pricks. One false move, and —”
“Exit elephant.”
“Exactly.”
“I thought it was a little knowledge that was dangerous.” The elephant was not yet used to being eye-to-cloud with God. “Shouldn’t a leap from here safely get me all the answers?”
“Don’t overestimate death,” said God. “It’s a transition — not an end. All the answers do not await you at the bottom of this cliff.”
“You make it sound as if I’d just be waking from sleep.”
“‘For in that sleep of death …’”
“‘What dreams may come!’” shouted the elephant. “Yes. Yes. ‘What dreams may come.’”
“Step back now,” cautioned the cloud. “We don’t want you making your quietus quite yet.”
“But that’s the way it often happens; isn’t it?” The elephant carefully moved away from the cliff. “We get the great thing we have wanted for so long but at the same time lose everything else.”
“Your trunk can only hold so much,” pointed out God. “To pick up one thing, you have to put down another.”
“I dunno,” said the elephant. “Keeping up with you is like keeping track of the monkeys when they’re in the vines. It leads to utter confusion.”
“You feel confused?”
“Yes.” The elephant paused and looked around. “Well … no.”
He gazed out over the ocean for a long time and sensed that the silence was not going to be broken by anyone but him.
“You’re doing it again. I get so excited by understanding something that it calms me. Then I get so peaceful because I’ve figured out something, that it frightens me. I get frustrated when I realize how much there is to learn, yet I fear I’ll be bored if I learn too much.”
The elephant walked deliberately back to the edge of the cliff. “I feel as though I could step off and fly to the ends of the sun and the sea.”
“That’s not a feeling I would put into action,” said the cloud.
“No?”
“No.”
“So. One revelation a day.”
“Oh, you could handle two,” said the cloud. “But it would be your last one on earth.”
“Gotcha,” said the elephant.
“If you’ve had enough of the view,” suggested God, “perhaps we should be getting back.”
“OK.”
The elephant stood a long time and watched the reflection of the sun. It spread its golden path across the surface of the ocean directly at him. He then turned and started walking home to the jungle.
“Are you coming with me?” he called over his shoulder.
“I’m always with you,” said God.