The cocktail party was the norm, filled with people and things that thought themselves more important than the person they were talking to. It was a like a bookstore, with cheese and wine. I had spent too much time talking to the millionaire duck and was decidedly finished with his, "So I 'quack' told him to sell the fucking 'quack' idiot." So, I introduced him to a longshoreman and I made my escape.
The party was in full swing. All of the elite of society was there: The president of America, the president of Disney, the president of the International Society of Talking Spiders (I steered clear of them). It was like all the parties I had been too lately pedaling my new book The Life and Times of Typewriters: A study in fact and fiction. It was getting rave reviews in The Post, and Anthropomorphic Animal Weekly. Maybe, I was pedaling myself. The Leopard in the corner looked most beautiful, but her glances were hard to read, sex or hunger?
Getting tired of the same rhetoric I scanned the room. I saw an elephant in the corner standing gloomily; People and animals alike giving her a wide birth. I meandered over to her, narrowly missing the glance of Rebecca the Duchess of Unimportant Providences. The elephant was new, maybe making the party worthwhile.
I greeted the elephant with fake jubilee.
"Great party." I said.
"Hummmph" She replied, looking grumpier.
"Problem?"
"Oh you know how it is. Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink." She said glancing at me with her black marble eyes beneath what looked like a tad too much mascara, even for an elephant.
"I'm sorry I don't follow." I said, because I didn't.
"Well sometimes," she said, "it just feels like everyone here is trying to ignore me, like I'm not even here."
I knew what she meant, but didn't find it polite conversation for the evening so, I decided it was better to not think about it or her.