“Let me see it,” she said, facing the sun, her long hair flapping like a flag in the wind and whipping me with its wonderful smell every now-and-then. I sigh, frustrated with her being stubborn and not allowing me to explain what it is. “Alright, but it’s not an elephant,” I reply. She grabs the silver charm at the end of my neck and pulls me close, meaning to examine the bright metal in the sun. “No, I see an elephant. I don’t even know what a ch’ai is.”
This was the charm my parents gave to me as a gift in response to a glorious celebration of my being confirmed as a Jewish man. Gleaming bright in the dim light as I raise it over my head as if to coronate myself. I lower it down, past the breaches of my neck and shoulder blades until the charm is stuck flat in the middle of my sternum. There it still gleams, a gateway to my soul.
“Oh, stop! I told you before; it is a word of good luck. Why must you insist it is something it's not?!” I was laughing because she seemed as if to still not understand me while slowly lying back on the towel in the middle of the field and closing her eyes, forgetting about me and my stupid obsession with the charm. I soon followed suit to drink in the sweet bliss of my favorite place.
As I closed my eyes and breathed in deep, I saw many colors and lights swirling through my vision under my eyelids. As I loosened my nerves one by one, I saw these colors and lights take a definite shape, abstract as it was. I could understand it enough to smile up at the sky and fall asleep. It was the silver elephant