Téa Obreht, "The Space Elephant"

from Zoetrope: All-Story, Fall 2010, Vol. 14, No. 3


—Now there’s a thought. Where do space elephants come from? Maybe there are plains dotted with herds of them, rising like cathedrals into the sky. Think about it. Think about their yawning life spans, their big rubbery hearts, their rickety-ladder legs. And if an elephant never forgets, consider the memory of a space elephant: how the world, from their height, straightens into points that are sharp, and always far away.


In this story, the narrator interviews an old man about his remarkable house on the beach which is built entirely from driftwood. But the story he really gets is about the man’s Space Elephant. And it’s a lovely, though bitter sweet, story.

There’s a sort of friendly, likable craziness about the old man, and maybe something similar in our narrator who is interviewing him. Both seem to have found, or invented, something that makes the world more interesting for them. But they also both seem to have lost something along the way.

I believe that loss is definitely one of the themes of this story, but also discovery; and is it any less a discovery, any less necessary, if it’s imaginary?

I was moved.