A long time ago, in Obulabongobabongojabongobalabongogogo country when the elephant decided to invade the cricket in his Republic unprovoked, many elders tried to dissuade the ever-bullying creature and the tetrarch of the jungle from his misadventure, but he would not heed their advice.
Other elders who had become frustrated for their inability to prevail on the elephant to stop his planned unwarranted aggression in the Democratic Republic of Cricket (DRC), comforted themselves with the dictum: “those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.”
Concerned that in that imminent war, the cricket would be smashed into smithereens by the elephant, they advised him to flee to a foreign land, but the cricket refused, saying he would remain and battle the tetrarch of the jungle, fighting till the last cricket standing, who he reckoned would bring home the diadem of the war with the elephant.
One day, when the cricket was sleeping, the elephant, behaving as if he was sozzled with a good doze of Vodka, began to bomb and bomb, pound and pound, shell and shell, firing rockets upon rockets into the DRC – hurling Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) into the land of the cricket, including fighting dirty with all sorts of chemicals against international conventions and war rules, thus reducing everything in the cricket Republic to a rubble, with many dying, kids, youngsters, young adults, men and women, including the elderly!
Whilst the war between the elephant and the cricket was ongoing, there was a sage in the Sheep country who out of anger told the elephant point blank: “it is not bravery, but an unparalleled cowardice for you to embark on such crassly insensate misadventure and an unwarranted aggression.”
Reputed for his ancient wisdom, the sage, very much revered by his fellow sheep and often referred to as “elder” – Elder Obumbummahumbumbumhoho, so he was called, queried the elephant in this manner: “what is super-power about the tetrarch of the jungle to war with a tiny creature like the cricket?”
Yet in that war, it was the cricket and not the elephant that won.
And the chroniclers of that war recorded that the cricket thoroughly rubbished the elephant, turned the whole world against him and destroyed everything about him and his country’s national economy, leading to an unprecedented uprising of immense magnitude against him and his government in his now rogue or pariah country.
The damage as chronicled was such that all the creatures of the world isolated the elephant and refused to do business with him. And having been deserted by the whole world without a friend, the elephant died afterwards of loneliness.
But news making the rounds about the elephant said he died of a serious health condition - cancer. Some conjectured that he committed suicide, whilst others yet believed he asked his close aide to kill him.
