Reginald the elephant was very grumpy. He was mad at the other elephants, mad at the humans…mad at the whole world, which as far as he knew extended from the lion enclosure on the one side of his pasture to the condor exhibit on the other. He knew that his pasture was in the Portland Zoo, but he knew neither what Portland meant or what a zoo was. But he did know that he was grumpy.

Reginald huddled with the other elephants as far away from the loud noises as he could, against the far wall of their pasture. He tucked his head against the wall and tried to block out the banging and rattling. He wished he had forepaws like the humans so that he could plug his ears.

Normally, Reginald found the humans adorable with their little paws that they picked things up with and carried them around for no reason, or the useless tuft of fur that only grows on the top of their head. Such silly creatures. They even brought the elephants lots of food, apparently not realizing they could eat the food themselves. But since Reginald didn’t know where else to find food, he figured it was best not to explain this to the humans, lest they stop bringing it.

But today the humans had brought noisy yellow animals. There was a giant woodpecker with a beak so hard it could break through the ground. Reginald saw the humans hold it by its front legs while its beak rapidly broke through the concrete next to the primate forest. There was some big animal that could carry dirt on its back and dump it wherever it pleased. But worst of all was the big metal elephant with a spiky trunk that could dig up earth and pour it in big piles. Elephants were not afraid to play in the dirt—no, not at all—but digging. Digging?! That is not the way of the elephant. Furthermore, this metal, yellow elephant was far louder than an elephant should be.

And why was he outside of the enclosure!? Running around with the humans, digging up dirt and making piles, and having fun with the metal-beaked ground-pecker. Why could Reginald not play out in the rest of the zoo? He was the biggest of the elephants. He was the leader. Who was this metal newcomer who dug in the earth like a dog?

Manny the backhoe driver was on break from digging the trench for the new sewer line. The zoo was planning to add a restroom, and that meant lots of construction for the coming weeks. He felt bad for the animals, honestly.

Manny had always been a fan of the zoo and had come here as a kid growing up. He had epilepsy as a child, and on the days when he felt just bad enough to stay home from school and just good enough to go out, his mom would take him to the park. Sometimes the zoo. But the days of feeling wiped out from a seizure were behind him, and he’d forgotten about the zoo until he took this job and had been thinking about bringing his little girl to see it. Now, he wasn’t so sure. Looking around at all the animals huddled in the corners of their pens, he felt bad. It didn’t seem right. They couldn’t understand what all these loud noises were for.

The lions were alert but clustered together. Every so often, the big male would let out a roar that could sometimes be heard over the construction equipment, voicing his displeasure at not being the loudest thing in the zoo. The gorillas ran and jumped about, bearing their teeth. Some even covered their ears. And the poor elephants, the gentle giants that they were, stood huddled together for safety as far from the noisy construction as possible.

But now the noises had briefly stopped while the workers grabbed a snack or stretched their legs. Manny pulled out his ear plugs and pinched his nose, blowing out until he heard two satisfying pops. He opened his lunch box and pulled out an apple, even though he wasn’t very hungry, and wandered over to the elephant enclosure. His daughter loved elephants. He knew they were one of her favorite animals. Definitely in the top two.

One of the gentle creatures looked up at him. It was the biggest one, and likely the bravest. The leader, checking to see if it was safe now that the noises had stopped. Manny looked at the placard next to the enclosure:

“African Elephants—Meet Reginald and his family…”

Cute.

Manny deduced that the large elephant who was now facing him must be Reginald, the leader of the herd. Mann could see why his daughter liked elephants with their big ears and their silly trunks they use to grab things like poorly designed hands. Manny noticed another sign:

“DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS.”

Manny glanced around. The zoo was dead that day, customers probably having heard about the construction. There were no staff in sight either. He held the apple in his hand out over the plexiglass barrier into the enclosure.

Reginald turned his head left and right, fixing each eye on the human in turn, making sure what he was seeing was real. The human wore the bright vest and hat that signified he worked with the big metal animals, so Reginald was understandably mistrusting. On the other hand, this human had food. Reginald approached, cautiously optimistic.

Between the pasture and the wall where the human stood was a small pond. Reginald found this most unfortunate as it made it so he couldn’t reach the human even with his trunk outstretched. He wished the humans would use their metal animals to fill in this pond. It would make receiving food from them so much easier.

But the human—clever as they sometimes can be—tossed the apple across the pond. It landed next to Reginald’s feet and he deftly scooped it up with his trunk and deposited it in his mouth. Its taste was sweet, but sadly short-lived. Reginald was pleased nonetheless. He extended his trunk once more and blew a trumpet of thanks. In response, the human smiled his adorable little smile and walked away.

Cassy was four and obsessed with animals. Her favorite animal was the elephant, but maybe Godzilla. She really liked Godzilla. Her dad had shown her all the movies when she was little. But now she was a big girl and still really loved Godzilla. And elephants.

“Mommy, who’s bigger: an ephelant or Godzilla?”

Her mother looked at her in the rearview mirror and smiled. “It’s pronounced ‘elephant.’ And Godzilla is bigger.”

Cassy knew how to pronounce “elephant” but sometimes her mouth didn’t want to make the sounds right. She had only recently learned the difference between “three” and “free.”

“But remember,” her mother said, “Godzilla isn’t real. But elephants are.”

Cassy didn’t understand the word real, but she nodded all the same.

Her mother continued, “So, when we go see Daddy at the zoo today are we going to see elephants or Godzilla?”

“Elephants!” Cassy shouted cheerfully, then added, “Because Godzilla’s too big for the zoo.”

Her mother giggled, though Cassy didn’t know why. She giggled too anyway.

At the zoo were lots of big machines that made loud noises. The noises used to scare Cassy, but now that she was a big girl, she wasn’t afraid. Her dad had explained to her he drives the machines because they do lots of work, and how people used to use big animals like horses to do work. But then people made the machines to replace the animals, kind of like how Mechagodzilla was made to replace Godzilla. But this explanation made no sense, because Mechagodzilla wasn’t as strong as Godzilla. When she had pointed this out to her dad he had laughed.

Anyway, Cassy wasn’t afraid of the machines that Daddy drove because she was a big girl. But she worried for the animals. They were big too, but they looked scared.

“Cassy,” her mother said. “Wave ‘hi’ to Daddy.”

Cassy turned her attention from the frightened giraffes all standing in the corner like they were in time-out. She saw her Daddy in his big machine and waved. He spotted her and waved back.

Manny paused mid-dig when he saw his wife and daughter waving at him from the path near the elephant enclosure.

What a great surprise!

He waved back and was about to turn off his engine to go hug his girl when he felt himself slump forward. Something wasn’t right. But it had been years since he—

“Oh my god!” Cassy’s mom cried.

Cassy looked up to see her mom’s hands over her mouth. She then tried to yell to the other men who worked with Daddy.

“He’s having a seizure!”

Daddy’s big machine started moving forward. He was at the controls but he was shaking a lot. Cassy felt her heart beat faster. She was a big girl, but this was still scary.

The men who worked with Daddy were running toward him, but the machine began to turn as it moved, and the big shovel Daddy used to dig spun around and around, which stopped the men from getting to him.

“Oh my god!” Cassie’s mom cried. Probably, she was calling for Godzilla to help Daddy, but Mommy calls him “god” for short.

Across the pasture, Reginald the elephant looked away from the wall. The loud ground-pecker had stopped its hammering, and the humans were shouting. This caught his attention, and he looked in time to see the humans battling the yellow elephant, as it swung this way and that, trying to trample them.

Coward! 

Reginald trumpeted as he ran across the pasture. What kind of elephant attacks poor defenseless humans? If only there were a way through the wall that separated them, Reginald would teach this yellow elephant some manners!

Cassie ran. She didn’t know where she was going, but she ran and tripped over dirt but got up and kept running. She didn’t know where Mommy was. People were running around. And Daddy was still in the machine shaking. It crashed into a wall and broke through it. Everything looked like in the Godzilla movies when the people are running around in the street to escape the big monsters.

The machine stopped for a second, and Cassie turned and watched as it spun free from the wall and continued its rampage. A man had managed to get on it but was knocked off. He looked hurt, and somehow Cassie knew that this was a hurt that a kiss from his Mommy wouldn’t fix.

The machine turned in her direction and she froze. It was too fast for her to run and too big for her to stop. This was Mechagodzilla, and though she was a big girl, she wasn’t big enough. Everyone knows there’s only one thing that can stop Mechagodzilla, and he didn’t live in the zoo because he’s too big.

The machine beared down on Cassie as she watched in petrified horror. And then she heard it. A piercing roar coming from the hole in the wall. She knew that high pitched scream!

“It’s Godzilla!” Cassie shouted with glee.

Reginald the elephant bellowed as he ran through the hole in the wall and smashed into the metal elephant, knocking it off course so that it narrowly missed what had to be the tiniest, most adorable human Reginald had ever seen. The metal elephant hit a pile of dirt and banked around, trying to get to the girl. Its yellow, metal skin hurt Reginald’s head, but he kept pushing it away from the small human.

How can you hurt them!? They bring us food!

Reginald nearly gasped when he saw that there was a human somehow on top of but also inside of the elephant. His powerful elephant brain could hardly process this. Furthermore, the man seemed to be clutching onto a series of strange, black tusks that the metal elephant had inside/on top of it.

We do not eat humans!

Reginald snaked his trunk around the man who he recognized as the one who had given him an apple. He pulled him free from the metal elephant’s transparent stomach, but as he did, Reginald accidentally bumped one of the strange inside-tusks. The metal elephant spun around and hit Reginald in the face with its massive trunk.

Reginald bellowed in pain as he turned away, cradling and protecting the human. He retreated and deposited the human among several others, who dragged him away. The man who had given him the apple could not move on his own.

What have you done, metal monster!?

A female human was trumpeting and pointing with her forepaw. Reginald turned to see the metal elephant was spinning its trunk round and round and getting ever closer to the tiny one. Reginald charged forward and braced for impact, wincing as his head crashed into the metal elephant’s powerful trunk, stopping it. He then shifted toward his foe’s body, putting all of his weight against his opponent, while the metal elephant’s strange spinning feet pushed back in vain. The dirt under the metal elephant gave way and Reginald managed to push him sideways across the loose soil.

Reginald pushed the metal elephant into the long ditch it had been digging. It fell sideways and its transparent stomach which might also have been its head shattered against the other side of the ditch. It let out a dying cry and then was silent.

Reginald placed one foot on the monstrosity’s metal skin and raised his trunk to the sky. He let out a long, loud trumpet for all the world—from the lion enclosure to the condor exhibit—to hear. And for their part, the lions and the condors came to the edges of their pens. The gorillas and the giraffes too. The other elephants peaked through the hole in their wall but dared not follow their leader outside. Even the penguins, who were noted nihilists, raised their flippers in recognition. All roared, chittered, trumpeted, and screeched, “Hail Reginald! King of the zoo!”

For show-and-tell the following week, Cassie brought in a big stuffed elephant she had got at the zoo. She was originally going to bring a toy of Godzilla, which her mom didn’t seem to want her to do. Her mom was much happier when Cassie had announced her favorite animal was definitely the elephant now. But Cassie knew secretly it might also be the Loch Ness Monster. 

She also brought a newspaper clipping with a picture of her and her Daddy. Reginald the elephant stood behind them in his enclosure. She couldn’t read the paper for her class and teacher, but she let them know that Reginald got hurt, but that the elephant doctor said he’ll be fine. He now gets lots of apples which are like candy for him.

Regional stood in his pasture, happily watching the other elephants trot around unafraid. The lions lounged lazily in their pen. The giraffes did mostly the same thing as the elephants. The gorillas still ran around and jumped a lot, but it seemed like much happier running and jumping.

Reginald breathed a sigh of relief. Another day and no more loud metal animals. The humans had stopped bringing them for some reason. Reginald wasn’t complaining.

The one man who had ridden the metal elephant had come by everyday. And everyday he had tossed Reginald an apple. It was almost like he was thanking Reginald. But of course that was silly. The human probably couldn’t even recognize Reginald, let alone understand the concept of gratitude.

---

Vincent Spiezio was born and raised in Pottstown, PA. He has worked in mental health services for ten years and has recently earned his Master’s Degree in Applied Economics. Though he grew up in Pennsylvania, he has also lived in New York City, Oregon, Ukraine, and the Czech Republic, each of which has been a source of inspiration for his writing.