100-Word Memoir

Instinctual Fear

Elephants Demand Respect

Tanzania, photo by author

We sat motionless in the sand of that dry riverbed, watching a herd of elephants drink, in turn, from a single waterhole. Fifty meters away, we pretended to be invisible until we weren’t.

The rumbling sounds were good, low, and vibratory, but suddenly the matriarch raised her trunk, wafted her ears, and let out a…