Once Upon a Rhinoceros

leave my horn alone...

Once upon a Rhinoceros

While visiting my favorite watering hole

I stumbled upon an old friend, the once great

and mighty rhinoceros, Rhino Bob.

 

He didn’t look in the best of shape and

his health seemed to be in a bit of a decline.

His eyes were filmy and he had a few broken

teeth. His horns were worn to the bone

and brittle to the touch~

 

To put it mildly… he

was a pitiful site to behold---  

 

I said, “Bob, what the hell happened to you. When

last I saw you, you were the meanest, strongest, and

most feared rhinoceros on the planet. You’re now a

shadow of what you once were--- and a pale one at that.”

 

Bob looked at me and sighed~

shook his head wildly a few dozen times

stomped his feet, blew steam out of his nose-  

and in the hoarse and guttural tones of a rhino said~~~

 

“I had an affair with the most beautiful hippopotamus

this side of the equator. As you can guess both of our

families were none too happy about it.  Her family buried

her in six feet of mud and let the sharks pick away at her

fat---while mine banished me to the desert~

where the sun burned the mean out of me-

and withered and gnawed away at my skin and bones.”

 

A tear fell out of the corner of my eye-

 

I polished his horns

fixed up some of his broken teeth

and rubbed the film out of his eyes~

he almost looked like his old self---

 

He snorted his thanks-

jumped into the watering hole

and buried himself in the mud

next to his beloved. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RC

08/15/15