By Martin H. Levinson

The elephant in the room saw a fly on the wall and, curious as a cat, made a beeline to get a look at the insect who, by the time the elephant got to where he first saw the wee creature, had flown the coop. Taking the bull by the horns, the pachyderm decided to let sleeping dogs lie and not go on a wild goose chase. He returned to talking to his companion, a sitting duck who frequently chickened out in being forthright in conversations, claiming he had bigger fish to fry.

The fowl was in therapy, trying to overcome his reluctance to go the whole hog when engaging in tête-à-têtes. But often when speaking to his shrink the cat got his tongue and he stayed silent as a lamb, which was a bad move for rather than being quiet as a mouse he should have ponied up his thoughts to the therapist and told him what was on his mind.

The elephant advised the duck to quit horsing around in therapy and face the green-eyed monster that was making life tough for him. The duck said if he let the cat out of the bag in therapy, he might make an ass of himself, which would be a fine kettle of fish. It was a dog-eat-dog world, the duck opined, featuring pigheadedness and chickens coming home to roost. The best strategy to survive was to not make yourself a target and end up like a lamb led to the slaughter. Better to keep a steady leash on your interactions with fellow creatures. Why cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war? There was more than one way to skin a cat and that included weaseling out of awkward interchanges.

The elephant decided not to flog a dead horse and flipped the subject to why so many people use cliches that involve animals. The duck said he didn’t know the answer to that question or why mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. Maybe it was because humans were as lazy as toads in talking to each other and happy as clams to not make the effort to be more specific and direct in discourse. But you can’t teach old dogs new tricks, the duck said, so cliched speech among human beings was probably here to stay. The elephant agreed and concluded that further conversation about the duck’s unwillingness to be upfront with members of the animal kingdom would be useless. The poor bird would just have to live with that albatross around his neck. Then he left the room and headed to the jungle to chew the cud and share shaggy dog stories with his tusker friends, who were packed in like sardines and drinking like fishes at a watering hole back home.