Still Life With Elephants

"Oh."

"This can't work, Anastasia. How am I supposed to manipulate this gravity distortion thing when I've got 200 years of physics to catch up on first?"

"I don't think you have to understand it. I read that it was sort of an instinctive thing. You just did it. All the theory and math on why it worked came later."

Instinctive. This was getting worse by the minute. "Forget it. Not that it doesn't sound like an awesome act, but there's no way I can do it."

"But you have to or I've changed history."

"You haven't changed anything. I had no intention of juggling elephants before you showed up, and I'm not going to now."

A look of horror came over her face. "I've changed history and when it comes time to juggle the elephants and you don't, I'll melt into a puddle of pink goo!" She started to cry.

Hesitantly Max slipped his arm around her shoulders. Could she be serious?  "Anastasia, you will not melt into a puddle of goo. Who told you that?"

"Yes I will," she sobbed. "Every teacher I ever had told us if we changed history significantly, we'd get caught in the time paradox conundrum and melt into pink goo."

"Sounds like a boogey man story to keep little kids in line. Did you ever actually know anyone who melted?"

"Well, no but..."

"There you go."

"Max, please... " Maybe it was the combination of terror and hero worship in her eyes. Maybe it was the off chance Anastasia knew what she was talking about, pink goo and all. Maybe it was the fact that anyone who leaves M.I.T. and gives himself two years (which were almost over) to succeed as a juggler believes in long shots. Or possibly it was the brilliant idea that just flashed through his mind!

In any case, he tilted Anastasia's chin up until she was looking into his eyes and said triumphantly, "Tonight, for the first time on any stage, the incomparable ('and probably stupid,' he told himself) Max Backwards will attempt to juggle not one, not two, but three elephants. I'll need a lovely young lady from the audience to assist me. May I have a volunteer?"

Maxie! How goes it?" Jordan Perry leaned indolently against a backstage support with the star of his act, a six-foot black snake, wound around his shoulders.

'Just answer me one question. Is that incredible girl waving at me or you?"

Max turned to see Anastasia waving victoriously with three elephants in tow. Anastasia patted the young Indian handler's arm, assuring him they would be ever so careful.

She was a lunatic, a charming lunatic, but a lunatic all the same. Or maybe he was

the subject of some futuristic thesis: "How Gullible Were People of the 20th Century?"

Two minutes to show time. Max stood on his mark behind the darkened curtain, asking himself how he'd ever gotten into this. He'd told Anastasia he wasn't nervous. He wasn't, he was terrified! There weren't words to describe how big a fool he would be if this didn't work.

The problem was, could he really trust Anastasia? There she was, right this minute, off in the left wing chatting with Jordan Perry like old friends. Suppose it was a practical joke after all. Anastasia had found the elephants far too easily. Supposedly she'd seen an elephant act on the far side of the park this morning on her field trip. Although this morning was 10 years ago for her. Which was pretty hard to believe no matter how he looked at it. How could he have been so stupid? Kissing the $1000 prize goodbye was bad enough, but how was he ever going to live this down?

The curtain parted. A blue-white spotlight sliced through the velvet darkness, splashing across his harlequin red and gold. He was trapped.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the master of ceremonies boomed, "tonight, for the first time on any stage, you will see something so unbelievable... "

The gigantic grey mountain beside Max glared at him balefully, as if it heard but couldn't believe such nonsense. Anastasia, dazzling in a spangled blue leotard donated by Mephisto the Magnificent's girlfriend, led two towering elephants in from the far side of the stage. She smiled across at him, her face glowing with excitement. 

He had to admit that the sight of her sent a jolt through his central nervous system. That still didn't mean this was going to work. He paused for a long beat, partly for effect, partly to focus his concentration. Slowly, Max bent beneath his elephant and lifted. An expectant hush spread through the audience. As he lifted, ever so slowly the monstrous pachyderm rose into the air. The crowd gasped.

"You did it, Max!" Anastasia exulted. Max was stunned. Wearing one third of Anastasia's gravity ball, the elephant was as easy to lift as a kitten. Anastasia hadn't liked the idea of Max using her technology, but there just wasn't any other way. "Pink goo if you do, pink good if you don't," she'd finally conceded, good sport that she was.

She still didn't appreciate that he had to solve the real problem - sheer bulk. He certainly couldn't hold one in each hand. What was going to happen if this idea of his didn't work? Would Anastasia really melt into a puddle of pink goo?

Twisting around in the air, the mountain of elephant fixed a piggy-eyed stare on the juggler. Suppose the elephants got nervous and tipped themselves over in midair and their gravity balls fell off. Suppose they crushed someone in the audience? Suppose they crushed him?!

Anastasia had coaxed a second elephant onto the plank. Max leaped onto his end of the makeshift teeter-totter, bouncing the far elephant into the air. While it was airborne, he tossed the elephant he was holding onto the far end of the plank where the first elephant had been. It was truly incredible to watch five tons of elephant sail over his head and land on his outstretched arms. Max bounced onto the teeter-totter again, keeping the simple rhythm of a two-ball exchange. Hop, pass, catch. Hop, pass, catch.

"Now!" The crowd exploded as Anastasia tossed the third elephant to him. Incorporating it into his rhythm, he kept tossing. One in his arms, one in the air, one on the teeter-totter. Balance flowed through him. It was incredible! He, Max Backwards, was actually juggling elephants! A sudden rush of affection for Anastasia swept over him. As he turned toward her, a flashbulb lit the darkness, immortalizing a juggler grinning joyously as an elephant sailed over his head.

Jane Schnetlage is a 33-year-old real estate appraiser from Hopkinsville, Ky., with years of experience in juggling other people's money. A renaissance fair juggling exhibition sparked the idea for this story, but western Kentucky's current baby elephant shortage prevented her and her husband from field testing her theory with real elephants.

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