Daisy the elephant

Once there lived and once there once an elephant. It was a very stupid elephant due to the fact that it was bounced on its head repeatedly as a baby by his mother, who then ran off with the local gamekeeper. The elephant, (the stupid one that is, not its mother, who was also rather stupid in fact for not realising that the gamekeeper was not out for a meaningful relationship, but for a quick profit on her tusks), was called Daisy.

This was not his real name you understand, but Daisy could never remember his real name on the account of the head banging. Having a name such as Daisy can cause quite a problem when you're big, grey and most definitely male. This did not bother our Daisy however as he had come up with the name himself. Daisy, as has been noted already, was a very stupid elephant. You see Daisy believed that he was a cow.

Literally.

He took this belief very seriously indeed, to the extent that one day he decided to run away from the herd and find other-like minded elephants who also believed they were cows, (for Daisy was convinced they existed), or better yet, to find a real life herd of cows to live with. This was Daisy's livelong ambition.

However, there was one small problem. Daisy was an elephant, an African elephant. Cows, especially ones called Daisy, were rarely found in Africa, but on rolling hills and in green meadows on an old-fashioned English farm. Or so said Daisy' mother before she banged him on the head. Mentality was a bit of a problem in Daisy's family.

So Daisy decided to go to England. In a boat. Hiring a boat proved to be rather difficult, for apart for being an elephant, he also had no idea where England was. But having money means no questions asked and Daisy's father had left him a substantial sum in his will before he committed suicide by repeatedly ramming his head into a palm tree after first hearing Daisy's claim that he was a cow.

So Daisy managed to hire a boat and set sail for England. But poor Daisy forgot one very important fact. Elephants, like cows, are not very good swimmers. So when his boat capsized in a freak meteor shower a mile out of harbour, poor Daisy drowned and never got to find out if the grass really was greener on the other side.

***

No animals were harmed in the writing of this story except for a small, previously believed to be extinct bug that I just stood on. Sorry.