By Baba Galleh Jallow
Dr. Elifant DaMoskito, managing director of Whatyasay Enterprises was extremely exasperated. He was so extremely exasperated that he wore his special wooden hat, locked himself in his office, dashed under his executive desk, and loudly wept and blew his nose and pulled his ears. So angry was he that he stuffed Chinese balm into his ears, rubbed it into his eyes and furiously rubbed some onto his teeth. Then he squat on the polished floor of his posh office under his executive desk and loudly wailed and called down curses on all those impudent blokes who would have him dead. All those jealous midgets who would not let him speak and would make unfounded allegations and ask him silly questions of no particular origin and no particular destination.
Dr. Elifant DaMoskito could just not understand why people hated him so much and wished him dead. He could not understand why people opened their big mouths and told lies not only about themselves, but also about his respectable and illustrious self. How could they go so far as to claim that they knew who was the first woman to set foot on the moon, or that in fact, the Americans took a monkey with them on their trip to Mars, which they called a red planet while it was in fact blue.
Dr. Elifant DaMoskito could simply not understand why people told white lies and red lies and blue lies and green lies and lies of multi-colored layers, all because they wanted to be famous like him and would not call him Doctor.
And then when he took his valuable time to do those nonentities and the entire big wide world a huge favor by pointing out their errors, telling them what was wrong with them, healing their intellectual ailments and mapping out the way forward for their confused thought processes, every single one of them jumped out in their puny little coats with their puny little minds and midget ideas and dared to call him fool, liar, and mad, and all the other stupid names their blind imaginations suggested to them! They even dared to say that he had no right to wear his wooden hat or his iron coat when he addressed his faithful cronies!!
Dr. Elifant DaMoskito’s current anger arose from a very simple affair; an affair so simple that he saw no reason why he should bother explaining it at all, or even thinking about it.
But his decent senses had just been so severely offended that he could not keep his computer brain from thinking about it and his soul of all souls from grieving at the monstrous idea. Hirsute hell, chimney smoke, black thunderclouds! Would he were in a position to get hold of all those impudent blokes and put them in their places! Physically slap them in the face, punch them on the nose and bang them on the mouth, so that next time they would think four big times before they opened their big mouths and tried to monster him! If he saw something written in the local media, or heard someone say something inaccurate, something wrong, something really stupid and petty, something likely to lead the whole world astray, something likely to make good honest folks stumble and fall on their noses and hurt themselves, was it not only proper that he should rush to the urgent rescue? If people were dying of unknown and incurable illnesses, was it not proper that he, the one and only one who knew the answers to all their diseased questions, should rush to the urgent rescue? Was it not only proper that he, Dr. Elifant DaMoskito, PhD Saachatics, MA Nairatah and BA Pushanteh – is it not only proper that he should put aside all he had to do and run to the pious rescue? Could they not see that he was in fact their promised land?
But then, when he took his invaluable time, his precious energy, his very special pen and paper, his book and notebook, or that when he opened his prominent mouth and set his diamond brain to work and mingled with the wretched of the earth, or when he wrote a treatise on the virtues of recognizing his talents, truth-telling and the great dangers of lying, everyone – the whole big wide world of fools and hypocrites! – opened their big mouths and started asking stupid questions, making illegitimate and ridiculous demands on him, and positing bogus theories about him, as if he was the only person who ever spoke.
For months on end, big-mouthed fools and jealous midgets sent letters to the editor or posted on social media harping on what he should do and what not. They wrote such stupid things as Dr. Elifant DaMoskito does not seem to understand . . . Elifant DaMoskito completely misses the point . . . Could Elifant DaMoskito please explain . . .? Dr. Elifant with all due respect . . . Our respectable compatriot DaMoskito . . . Elifant DaMoskito is an intelligent man but this time around . . . Elifant DaMoskito is delusional. . . Elifant DaMoskito this and Elifant DaMoskito that!!! Elifant DaMoskito Doolihaj!! He was sick and tired of all those stupid fools making it their business to set him straight! He was sick and tired of all those intellectual dwarfs trying to measure their flat heights against his giant stature! He was tired of every Yum, Yem and Yarry spoiling his pious name and asking him stupid questions! In fact, he had no time to respond to any jealous midgets! He was going to keep his pious cool and let the idiots rave and rant their sick lungs out! “I really do not care what they say. I will just be me and keep going,” he would snarl.
Thus resolved, our great Elifant DaMoskito maintained a stony silence for a few days and all our common townsfolks started asking “where is Dr. Elifant DaMoskito? Why hasn’t he responded to our queries? This is unlike the great guy?” Little did they know that Dr. Elifant DaMoskito, alias Vulture, was cleverly perched on top of his favorite tree, patiently waiting to swoop down and teach them a very good lesson they would never forget. Silence is the best policy, he kept reminding himself. Yet, he could not help but release a bombshell once in a while to cool his pious temper. In fact, very soon, he decided, he would go out every week on a special day to show his personal magic and tell those jealous midgets who he actually was.
No more playing or hiding! Out in the open he must go!! He was going to have his noisy say and if they don’t like it they can hit his shadow!! After all, he held a whole degree in Pushanteh Techniques from the famous University of No Teaching Open Fine. “They must know that I am here by popular demand. In fact, they must know that my secret name is By Popular Demand and that I am not going anywhere,” he loudly emphasized as he stepped out from under his executive desk and peered around for his wooden hat.
