The elephant in the room wants more attention than we are willing to give, and frankly, if five guys out of a proverb want to come over and fondle him in the dark while hypothesizing as to the beast’s identity, they are welcome. I’m sick of our pachyderm. Have been for over a year, if truth be told.

Veronica says we’re going to have to do something about this state of affairs soon. I agree.

The elephant in the room is moody and not above pitching a fit or shattering an evening’s quiet with his trumpeting. We’ve done what we could about this, but our living quarters are small and there’s not a lot you can do with an elephant in the city that isn’t going to burn a hole through your wallet.

Veronica says she wanted a Sumatran tapir in the first place, and that this was a mistake. I’ll grant her that. We were on the verge of splitting back then, had gone so far as to meet one overcast day in a coffee shop to exchange belongings we’d left in each other’s residences-one pink tennis shoe with a Hello Kitty decal on it, a pair of cracked sunglasses I no longer wore. But after our espressos, there seemed no good way to end things, and moreover, we still saw something between us that was worth saving. So later that day when we saw this stray elephant-our city is rife with them!-in an alley furling and unfurling its trunk in what to me seemed like the most tender of pantomimes, a pantomime suggesting a forgiveness and understanding that could breach any divide between any two people, that decided everything for us.

Veronica and I are good again and we’ve even moved in together. We love each other, but although we do, does that mean we have to keep our exotic friend? We’ve discussed this endlessly. What do we owe him?

The elephant in the room can sense what all of our closed-door conversations are about. We don’t ever underestimate it. What isn’t stated explicitly, the pachyderm can tease out of the air with a shake of its great radar-dish ears.

Veronica and I will come to a decision soon, but it will be a fair and compassionate one for all parties involved.

The elephant in the room is no one’s fool, after all.

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Alexei Kalinchuk says, “I’ve been published in the UK anthology Punk! Punk! and with Foliate Oak, and am almost a Master in the art of Ukrainian Massage. Also, my knowledge of root vegetables has kept me in great demand on the expert witness circuit.”