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Abstract

e blasts of the bicycle horn, the hehp holds up two fingers, two more blasts of the Elephant trunk from two hundred yards away, down by the rice paddy fields — stage right.Resolutely I exited stage right, followed by Chicolini and the Hehp.Resolutely I entered stage left, followed by the Hehp and preceded by Chicolini. Chicolini stopped and held up his hand to my face, stopping me in my tracks. He said “Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”The Hehp kept going and by the inexorable logic of proceeding when everyone else is standing still came to the forefront of the procession. The Hehp stopped, and began to jump up and down pointing, directly ahead of us lay a metalled road and beyond that a miry waste of paddy fields a thousand yards across, not yet ploughed but soggy from the first rains and dotted with coarse grass. The elephant was standing eight yards from the road, his left side towards us. Wearing my pajamas.“Shhhhhhhhh, boss, I think it’s wearing your pajamas”“Yes, how it got into my pajamas I’ll never know” I responded, not really expecting to be believed.“Ah, ‘at’s a good one! At’s good.” laughed Chicolini, the Hehp also started laughing -slapping his legs and gyrating his hips making kissy faces.The elephant took not the slightest notice of these antics. She was tearing up bunches of grass, beating them against her knees to clean them and stuffing them into her mouth.Looking at the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot her. It is a serious matter to shoot an elephant wearing your finest silk pajamas and obviously one ought not to do it if it can possibly be avoided. True, the shocking pink color of the pajamas might not be too much ruined by a splotch of red, but still they were quite expensive and should not be ruined during retrieval.But at that moment where I resolved not to shoot the elephant my orderly, Chicolini, started jabbering “There she is boss, you gonna shoot her, shoot her boss, aw shoot why doncha?” And it became apparent to me that I was going to have to shoot the elephant or he would never shut up. It is a difficult thing having an orderly always asking you to shoot an elephant minute after minute, day after day, year after year, decade after decade, century after century etc.So resolute I lifted up the rifle, took aim and.. suddenly the Hehp grabbed hold of my rifle and pointed it downward and wagged his finger at me with a scowl on his normally smiling face. Chicolini shoved him and said “Ehh, let the man do his business”The Hehp rolled up his sle

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eve, made a pathetic fist, and smidged his nose with his thumb, after which he started hopping around with both fists up. Chicolini hunched up his shoulders and started circling around the Hehp with his hat pushed down and a snarl on his lips, saying “Eh you want some a this do ya, eh you gonna get in trouble”While they were distracted I raised the rifle to take my shot, but just as I was about to fire Chicolini grabbed hold of the rifle and pointed it downward and said “ah no you don’t, we got to settle this here first!”The Hehp was similarly vexed, and he grabbed hold of my rifle and pointed it back up. Chicolini pointed it down. The Hehp up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down Up. The both stepped aside. Chicolini said “Ah at’s good, at’s what I like to see!” The Hehp tooted his bicycle horn several times in agreement.It was at this tooting that we finally got the elephant’s attention.She stood up on both hind legs, which is an impressive thing for an elephant to do, and she trumpeted loudly to signal her anger at my presence and pointing a gun at her.I of course understood her point, even if she seemed somewhat melodramatic, when you spend a lovely night with a special someone like me and take their pajamas as a memento it can be very annoying to find that person pointing a rifle and demanding the pajamas back.She trumpeted loudly again. The Hehp blasted back . At this point she’d had enough and she stripped off the pajamas and threw them in my face, they smelled of hyacinths and hay, the scent of love.Chicolini and The Hehp whistled. She took off at a run, jumping and clearing several obstacles in her path to disappear into the jungle and out of my life forever.But at least I had my pajamas back, even though they had been stretched out quite a bit and never fit perfectly thereafter.<figure id="df39"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*HZlKP6Exwkg8Zx9C5y715w.png"><figcaption>Love has gone away, took the pajamas off of my body, and nothing left to say, but oh, oh how I miss her baby.</figcaption></figure><figure id="165f"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*B-71-kKbBxejXfLGmYDTrg.png"><figcaption>Bye-bye, Baby bye-bye</figcaption></figure><figure id="46cc"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/0*zaHUrNDTC5yAsGkc.png"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>The story was submitted by IG Agent 71, who claimed to have found it in an old steamer trunk of writings from one of our more famous agents, IG Agent 119 — AKA George Orwell.</article></body>

On Shooting An Elephant in My Pajamas

By George Orwell (IG Agent 119)

Picture of the Author as a Young Shootist.

As soon as I woke up that morning and I saw that my body was naked (except for my lavender colored underwear with the yellow tiger faces) and a note (size 6 feet by 4) was stuck on the flap of my tent “Last night was a blast but I must be going” with the single tear-stained imprint of an Elephant’s foot at the bottom of the note I knew it wasn’t just going to be any old hootenanny to find and put on my pajamas.

It is of course always difficult to put on pajamas after one has woken up and gotten out of bed, as it implies an upending of the natural order of things and makes one feel cross, but it is even more difficult if you have to find an Elephant in your pajamas after waking, and convince it to disrobe, without seeming like a pervert.

For this reason I immediately sent to Mrs. Teasdale’s bungalow to borrow an elephant rifle. My orderly, a fellow named Chicolini you wouldn’t pay me to get rid of no matter how low I set the price, came back in a few minutes with a rifle and five cartridges. He was accompanied by a moonfaced idiot wearing a flannel nightgown and a tophat, holding a bicycle horn.

“Eh, Boss” said Chicolini “I brought Hehp”

“Hehp you say?”

Taking the rifle in hand I craned my neck around and jumped up and down with my hands to my eyes looking in every corner of the jungle trying to find what hehp he could possibly be referring to. The idiot blew the horn.

From somewhere in the distance an Elephant responded. I acted like I didn’t hear it or maybe didn’t think it was MY Elephant specifically but the idiot blew the horn two more times and pointed emphatically into the darkness of the Jungle stage right, from which came two answering blasts, and I knew it wasn’t going to work to pretend to be too stupid to figure out what was going on, there was too much competition in that business to make a go of it.

“Oh yeah Boss, the hehp says the elephant is in the paddy fields below, only a few hundred yards away” with which he pointed to the idiot and smiled at me like he thought he had me outsmarted.

“the what?”

“the hehp, the hehp” indicating the idiot again.

I looked at the idiot like I first saw him just that instant, incredulous at his appearance on the scene “Are you the hehp?”

Two more blasts of the bicycle horn, the hehp holds up two fingers, two more blasts of the Elephant trunk from two hundred yards away, down by the rice paddy fields — stage right.

Resolutely I exited stage right, followed by Chicolini and the Hehp.

Resolutely I entered stage left, followed by the Hehp and preceded by Chicolini. Chicolini stopped and held up his hand to my face, stopping me in my tracks. He said “Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”

The Hehp kept going and by the inexorable logic of proceeding when everyone else is standing still came to the forefront of the procession. The Hehp stopped, and began to jump up and down pointing, directly ahead of us lay a metalled road and beyond that a miry waste of paddy fields a thousand yards across, not yet ploughed but soggy from the first rains and dotted with coarse grass. The elephant was standing eight yards from the road, his left side towards us. Wearing my pajamas.

“Shhhhhhhhh, boss, I think it’s wearing your pajamas”

“Yes, how it got into my pajamas I’ll never know” I responded, not really expecting to be believed.

“Ah, ‘at’s a good one! At’s good.” laughed Chicolini, the Hehp also started laughing -slapping his legs and gyrating his hips making kissy faces.

The elephant took not the slightest notice of these antics. She was tearing up bunches of grass, beating them against her knees to clean them and stuffing them into her mouth.

Looking at the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot her. It is a serious matter to shoot an elephant wearing your finest silk pajamas and obviously one ought not to do it if it can possibly be avoided. True, the shocking pink color of the pajamas might not be too much ruined by a splotch of red, but still they were quite expensive and should not be ruined during retrieval.

But at that moment where I resolved not to shoot the elephant my orderly, Chicolini, started jabbering “There she is boss, you gonna shoot her, shoot her boss, aw shoot why doncha?” And it became apparent to me that I was going to have to shoot the elephant or he would never shut up. It is a difficult thing having an orderly always asking you to shoot an elephant minute after minute, day after day, year after year, decade after decade, century after century etc.

So resolute I lifted up the rifle, took aim and.. suddenly the Hehp grabbed hold of my rifle and pointed it downward and wagged his finger at me with a scowl on his normally smiling face. Chicolini shoved him and said “Ehh, let the man do his business”

The Hehp rolled up his sleeve, made a pathetic fist, and smidged his nose with his thumb, after which he started hopping around with both fists up. Chicolini hunched up his shoulders and started circling around the Hehp with his hat pushed down and a snarl on his lips, saying “Eh you want some a this do ya, eh you gonna get in trouble”

While they were distracted I raised the rifle to take my shot, but just as I was about to fire Chicolini grabbed hold of the rifle and pointed it downward and said “ah no you don’t, we got to settle this here first!”

The Hehp was similarly vexed, and he grabbed hold of my rifle and pointed it back up. Chicolini pointed it down. The Hehp up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down Up. The both stepped aside. Chicolini said “Ah at’s good, at’s what I like to see!” The Hehp tooted his bicycle horn several times in agreement.

It was at this tooting that we finally got the elephant’s attention.

She stood up on both hind legs, which is an impressive thing for an elephant to do, and she trumpeted loudly to signal her anger at my presence and pointing a gun at her.

I of course understood her point, even if she seemed somewhat melodramatic, when you spend a lovely night with a special someone like me and take their pajamas as a memento it can be very annoying to find that person pointing a rifle and demanding the pajamas back.

She trumpeted loudly again. The Hehp blasted back . At this point she’d had enough and she stripped off the pajamas and threw them in my face, they smelled of hyacinths and hay, the scent of love.

Chicolini and The Hehp whistled. She took off at a run, jumping and clearing several obstacles in her path to disappear into the jungle and out of my life forever.

But at least I had my pajamas back, even though they had been stretched out quite a bit and never fit perfectly thereafter.

Love has gone away, took the pajamas off of my body, and nothing left to say, but oh, oh how I miss her baby.

The story was submitted by IG Agent 71, who claimed to have found it in an old steamer trunk of writings from one of our more famous agents, IG Agent 119 — AKA George Orwell.