The Parable Of The Elephant Gun

Hear, O man;

That there was once a Mighty Hunter, so appointed by the Lord.

And this Mighty Hunter wore a cloak of stars, and his name was Jingo.

The Mighty Hunter strode over rivers and deserts, and, yea, the gulfs of the oceans were as nothing to him, neither were the birds of the air beyond his reach. His eyes saw almost all, his ears heard almost all, and he knew he did the Lord’s work, for, yes verily, he was a mighty hunter of the Lord.

Now it so happened that with the fullness of time the Hunter decided that his weapons, great as they were, were no longer enough to do the Lord’s work: he needed more weapons, because his quarry were getting bigger and more muscular. No longer were they mere hyaenas and wolves; nay, verily, with his weapons he had to hunt down tigers and lions and sometimes gorillas besides.

So Jingo the Mighty Hunter of the Lord had himself made a Gun; not a gun merely large enough to dispatch lions and cape buffalo; but a Gun of Guns, capable of dispatching rhinoceroses and even the mighty elephant, for the Hunter of the Lord knew not when the Lord would send him to remove the Elephant and his tyranny over bird and beast from the surface of the earth.

But then it so happened that the Lord sent the Hunter to fight something far different: a plague of rats, which swarmed over there little patch of country, where nothing grew and where nobody else wished to live. Jingo the Hunter came to that land with his cape of stars and his great Elephant Gun, his mind already busy with the mightier Guns he would build in the future, to destroy ever larger beasts that were the enemies of the Lord; machinery to make machine elephant guns firing patriot missiles, and more. And with his elephant gun he laid waste to the land of the Rats, and sent them scurrying back into their burrows.

But then rats old and young, big and small, stuck their heads from their burrows and said to each other, “Brothers and sisters, this Hunter is standing on our land, and his mighty weapon is slung over his shoulder, and can kill us with ease; but he is one, and we are many, we have nothing to lose but our little lives, and we have right on our side, for he standeth on our ground.”

And the rats big and small came out of their holes and began biting and scratching at the Mighty Hunter, for all that he was so big, and they were so tiny. And the Hunter laughed and took his Elephant Gun and blasted away at them, and, verily, with each blast he laid one or two rats low.

But the rats were many, and the gun heavy and clumsy its bullets big and few, and the rats could scurry faster than it could turn; and they came in their thousands with their sharp teeth and long grey tails, and they made the Hunter’s blood flow grievously indeed.

And the Hunter said, “Lord, I need more and bigger guns to defeat these rats, for my Gun can only kill a few, and there are many of them, and I am close to being overcome.”

And saith the Lord in reply, “My Son, verily I say to thee most solemnly, thy Elephant Gun is for killing Elephants, but thou needest a rat gun instead.” But the Hunter would not listen, and he set himself to making a Gun of Guns, capable of destroying Enemies large as worlds themselves.

And meanwhile the Elephant gun blasted away, and the rats swarmed over the Cloak of Stars, and ripped it away, and they ate Jingo the Hunter to the bone.