The Encounter That Changed Everything
We had this elephant at our zoo that nobody could get close to.
“Oh great, here comes another rookie…”
Every time Dumbo spotted someone in a zoo uniform, he’d let out what could only be described as a resigned sigh, drag his massive trunk along the ground, and shuffle off to the farthest corner of his enclosure. This was Dumbo—all 5.2 tons of him, a 32-year-old Asian elephant with trust issues that ran deeper than anyone could imagine.
He held what had to be the saddest record in our zoo’s history: fifteen years without letting a single human get close to him. Every new keeper who got assigned to the elephant house would start out all fired up, swearing, “This time’s gonna be different,” but it never failed—within a few months, you’d see that same defeated look in their eyes.
“That elephant’s never gonna trust people again. Not after what he’s been through.”
But none of us had any clue that everything was about to change.
