The Red Jasmine Revolution

Chapter 2. Rampage

Pinkwetha was sure it wasn't his birthday. But he did not think too long about pesky things such as reasons why when Jakan and Sotha came to him that morning with an entire branch of bananas, flower and all, and a stack of juicy yellow persimmons. Danh arrived too and began to massage his shoulders as Pinkwetha ate out of the other's hands. He could tell from the slightly musty smell that the bananas had been cut the night before but he didn't mind as they were still deliciously squidgy. The persimmons were an exotic type he had never tasted before, a treat in itself. They were so sweet he took a leisurely time with each one, sucking them clean to the skin and then performatively spitting out the seed along his rolled tongue. He was so caught up in his own gluttony he didn't notice that with each mouthful, Jakan and Sutring were taking a step back and his greed was following. Danh walked alongside, patting and rubbing him in encouragement as his hands kneaded the thick ropes of sinewy muscle in Pinkwetha's back.

He was still a teenager and not yet a full worker. Occasionally he might help with portering pots and pans back and forth from the camp to the inner forest, but he could not really complain of sore muscles at his age like his uncles did. But he was enjoying the massage and the breakfast feast so much he did not stop to wonder why he was being treated so kindly. Perhaps it was his birthday after all, though he remembered his seventeenth had been a rainy one and today the sky was cloudless and blue.

The two men who had been carrying fruit suddenly climbed over a short bamboo fence. It was then that Pinkwetha realised there were fences at his sides too. He turned his head to ask Danh for help but Danh had gone and when he tried to walk back he found that a gate had been shut against his rear. He was pinned in tight like a stone in a mango. They had led him into a pen. Betrayal clouded the air like thick pollen as more familiar faces appeared through the gaps in the bamboo, apologies falling from their mouths but an unmistakable mirth in their eyes.

And then came the ultimate indignation.

He had grown up in a camp where all his aunties and uncles had carried the men to and from the forest to collect fallen trees, but he had still not been prepared for the sheer humiliation of a man sitting on his back for the first time. To make things worse it had been young Jakan, who he had known since they were children, who made the first attempt to ride him. Pinkwetha bucked and writhed in a fury trying to shake the boy off. It worked and Jakan went flying. But he never came down. Pinkwetha was so tightly caught in the pen he could not look up but in front of him he saw a group of men tugging a rope that went up into the trees and realised that Jakan was on the other end of the rope and they were lifting him up to safety each time he bucked.

At full charge he could have broken this pen in one hit, but he could not run, only bend his neck and butt the sides of the pen. Over and over again he butted the fence, no longer caring about the men who were taking turns to sit on his back in their attempt to break him in. He was too angry to care about anything other than damage. Most elephants would have given up sooner or later, but perhaps there was something special about those bananas from earlier because Pinkwetha would not give up. Steam and dust were rising in a fury inside the pen as the young elephant wailed and bashed the sides in a rage. He must have hit them well over a hundred times and soon enough, there was a cracking sound. One stick of bamboo, just a little thinner than the rest, snapped. He carried on, butting the fence, breaking more sticks. He was the river and the pen was a failing dam.

The smirks on the mens' faces were beginning to sink into frowns of concern. They were off and running away to their huts as he dug his small tusks into the final gaps and then with a sudden jerk, twisted his head, crushing the sticks against each other and shattering the pen wall. Pinkwetha ran out in a rage and kicked out his back legs as he broke free from the pen. The men had all disappeared, except Jakan who had been left dangling in the air high above the pen, a pathetic pleading expression on his face as he caught the elephant's angry eyes. He was too high to reach so Pinkwetha ignored him and ran towards the forest in a rage.