Do you think I need wings?

 

Today’s question, “do you think I need wings?” comes from the elephant in the stories of Toon Tellegen. The elephant is tired of the forest. “Nothing but walking, standing, and walking again, he thought, no, that isn’t really my thing. I am going to fly.” So he did, on a beautiful day, the other animals in the forest were watching him. He aimed for a cloud and was planning to disappear behind it. He took off, flew all the way up, over the trees, passing a swallow, disappearing from sight. Then he fell down.

In later stories the elephant climbs trees obsessively. He always falls down in the end, he always tries again. “To be happy for a moment, now and then, just before I fall, I cannot do more. But maybe that is the only way to be happy, to be truely happy, and is falling a part of that."