Eli - a fable on being in the Now

When Eli opened her eyes, the world was tipsy-turvy and unfamiliar. When she eventually righted herself from lying on the ground, things got even worse; there were no trees, no sounds of birds, no running rivers, and worst of all, no family around. Her instincts kicked in and when she tried to run, she found there was a strange force holding her back. The harder she tried, the more her back leg hurt her. She started crying and wailing and hooting, and whatever else an elephant calf was capable of by her lone self.

“Hey! Hey! Calm down! Focus, focus!”

Eli reflexively responded to the authoritative voice, albeit not one she could recognize.

“What’s your name, little girl?”

“I am Eli,” said the elephant calf. “What’s going on? I’m scared.”

“You are fine, you are fine,” came the soothing voice. “My name is Rafeez, I am an old bear.”

Eli gradually caught her breath again and was able to focus on the voice that was coming from about ten feet away; in the semi-darkness, she was just about able to make him out.

“Yes, my mother had told me about bears before. You are strong, and you eat lots,” said Eli, matter of factly.

Rafeez chuckled at the youngster’s candidness. “Yes, that’s true, I do eat lots, so, just as well they treat us quite well here!”

“What’s here, where am I and where’s my mom?”

“Here is what they call a circus, and I am afraid you will not see your mom or your herd again,” said Rafeez, simply and directly, since in his experience, there was no other way to break the news.

On hearing that, Eli tried to take off again, only to be tripped up by the strange force once more.

“Don’t bother, my child,” pleaded Rafeez, “you will just hurt yourself more. There is a chain on your leg, you cannot break free from that.”

Not taking his word for it, Eli continued to struggle for another half hour, before fatigue and despair got the better of her.

“Eli, listen, focus and breathe, focus and breathe,” said Rafeez, almost as if he was beginning to chant. “Breathe more deeply and focus on where you are right now. Deeper still, and notice where you are right now, the past is bygone, the future is veiled, focus on where you are now…”

On hearing sounds of rhythmic breathing, Rafeez had hoped that blissful sleep had finally overpowered his new friend’s exhaustion.

The circus was on the move again the next day, which gave Eli and Rafeez a little time to get acquainted in their shared wagon that was part of the circus convoy.

“What’s your story, Rafeez?” said Eli, feeling a little more upbeat, following a hearty breakfast.

“I was born here, actually, I haven’t known anything else. That was some time ago now,” said Rafeez, resignedly.

“You seem pretty wise, though,” said Eli. “Thanks for helping me through last night.”

“I have lots of time to think!” said Rafeez. “They usually just get me doing the same old tricks. Other than that, I just eat and sleep!”

“Tricks?” said Eli, flummoxed.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” Rafeez said, flatly. “They teach you stuff, you entertain people; sometimes, it’s quite fun. But then, like I said, that’s all I’ve ever known, so…”

“Okay! I’m up for that!” Eli beamed.

Rafeez eyed the newcomer with intrigue. Looks to be a quick study and an open-minded learner, he mused.

True to Rafeez’s prophecy, Eli was impressive in how quickly she was picking up the acrobatics and how cooperative she was. Before long, she was the star both inside and outside of the circus.

One day, as the convoy neared a town, they stopped. Following a little commotion, Eli noticed that only some of the wagons had continued onwards, whilst some others, including hers, had stayed put.

“What’s going on, why have we stopped?” asked Eli, turning to her trusted mentor for clarification.

“Oh, this happens occasionally,” said Rafeez, “when the town is too small to accommodate our entire fleet. We’ll be staying here for a couple of days. The training and practice will continue, though.”

That evening, after the handlers handed out their food, Rafeez looked at Eli and said, “What’s the matter, kiddo? Where are you?”

Eli snapped out of her trance, “Oh, sorry, I was just thinking back on the mistakes I made during training earlier, falling off while doing the plank trick.”

“When you eat, eat!” said Rafeez, sternly. “Focus on the Now, it’s dinner time!”

Eli smiled warmly to herself, feeling lucky she was well looked after both physically and spiritually. “Well, in that case, I’ll come back to the rest later.” With that, she went back inside her cabin and rested for a while longer.

By the time Eli returned to her half-eaten dinner, her nicely laid out meal had turned into a revolting looking mess.

“What happened?” cried Eli, more shocked than disappointed.

“Must have been the wild dogs,” said Rafeez, emerging from his cabin after hearing Eli’s cry.

The next day, following the afternoon training routine, Eli was escorted back to her wagon, and a plate of food was presented as scheduled. She noticed that Rafeez was already halfway through his.

“I think I’ll rest a bit more before taking dinner,” proclaimed Eli.

“Seriously?” said Rafeez.

“Yes, why?” said Eli, genuinely intrigued. “I want to have a think through what I was doing this afternoon first.”

“What about the wild dogs?” said Rafeez, flabbergasted. “You do remember what happened yesterday, right?”

“Sure, but I am focused on the Now, the past is bygone, and the future is veiled!” Eli winked.

Rafeez was momentarily taken aback, the only time he had said those words to her was when she arrived as a panicked calf, he wasn’t even sure she was hearing him at all that time, let alone retaining it all this time. He felt deep reverence for his protégé.

Sure enough, that same evening, Eli stood in the middle of her wagon, feeling hungry after the wild dogs had once again ravaged her dinner, and looking decidedly dejected.

To lighten the atmosphere, the old bear produced a loaf of bread from the back of his cage and tossed it over for Eli. “Saved this for you!”

Delightedly surprised, Eli wolfed it down without saying another word.

Ostensibly changing the subject, Rafeez asked, “How was training today?”

“Good!” Eli managed to slip it out before swallowing the large gulp of water she had just slurped up from her trough. “Same trick, but up another level of difficulty.”

“So, when you put your feet on the plank, or the ball, or whatever you do, what do you think about?” inquired the bear, apparently naively.

“Oh, nothing else!” replied Eli, in a heartbeat. “I am absolutely laser focused! Have to, otherwise, you fall off!”

“That’s being in the Now,” Rafeez drawled, much to Eli’s delight.

“True, true!” Eli exclaimed.

“But if you had really chosen to disregard the past, like you did with yester-evening’s wild dogs,” continued Rafeez, “how, then, were you able to accomplish anything, let alone more difficult tricks?”

“Huh…” Eli was momentarily startled by the left-field Socratic rebuke. “How do you mean?”

“When you are ‘absolutely laser focused’ in the moment, you are, for sure, experiencing the Now, but the question is, ‘How long is the Now?’”

Without waiting for the starry-eyed Eli to respond, Rafeez pushed on with his discourse, “In this example, your ‘Now’ would have included the present moment, plus the accumulated relevant moments in the past year from your time in training. Those accumulated moments inform your present moment.”

“That… actually makes a lot of sense!” conceded Eli.

“You know something else is interesting,” mulled Eli, “sometimes, when I feel tired or unsure before a show, I would focus on how the audience are so pleased with me afterwards and the big dinner I get rewarded for afterwards; that makes me focus better. Does that mean if my moment of Now includes the future, it can similarly inform my present moment?”

Just when Rafeez was about to, once again, shower Eli with praise and amazement of her astuteness, he noticed Eli suddenly stood frozen on the spot, as if she had entered another trance. Moments later, when she ‘emerged’, there was a conspicuous change in her demeanor for the worse.

“What is it?” asked Rafeez, gently and carefully.

“I thought I could hear elephant calls, I thought I could feel the ground vibrating, too. Oh, it’s probably nothing, just my imagination.”

The old bear knew better. He understood that elephants were majestic creatures whose links to each other were deep and mysterious. He had no doubt Eli had sensed something real just now.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Eli turning her head to look at her ankle chain, perhaps subconsciously.

“You know,” said Rafeez, “you used not to eat so much!”

“Well, of course!” said Eli, having been snapped out of the episode by the lighthearted banter. “I’m bigger now, need to eat more!”

“Yeah, you are a big girl now,” teased Rafeez. “Funny, though, how they still chain you to the same pole as the one you had when you first arrived here!”

“Anyway, goodnight, my friend, tomorrow is a new day.”

Eli spent the night reminiscent of the first night at the circus – restless, mind swirling, a surge of determinism. Her experience of the Now, right then, consisted of her realization on how vision of the future could similarly inform the present moment, and Rafeez’s subtle reminder that, just like her appetite, other aspects of her life had also needed to be updated, such as realizing the fact that she was much bigger and stronger than when she first arrived.

As she closed her eyes, she envisioned herself stomping freely in the savanna, as part of the herd she knew she heard. Her heart began beating faster as her feet started taking on a rhythm more akin to an elephant roaming in the wild than performing in a circus.

Rafeez woke to a cacophony of noise and panic the next morning, apparently coming from the cage next to his, where Eli was; or, on this fine morning, was no longer. The old bear looked across and saw a crowd of the circus workers, including the circus master himself, standing, dumbfounded, around a broken wooden pole, the one they used to restrain Eli with, and his only thought was, she didn’t even say goodbye.

The old bear turned around back to his alcove, smiling contently to himself.