You Can't Always Be What You Want

Charlotte the elephant looked like every other elephant in her family. She had big grey ears and a looooong grey trunk like her aunts and uncles. She had four toes on her front feet and three on her back, just like her sister and cousins. She had tusks and thick, strong legs just like her parents and brother.

But Charlotte was different. Charlotte wanted to be ... a ninja. (illustration: Charlotte dressed in black, 'hiding' behind a tiny potted fern)

Her parents thought it was a phase. "She'll grow out of it eventually," they told their bewildered friends.

Her teachers thought it was imaginative. "She's so creative," they wrote on her report cards.

Her brother thought she was crazy.  "She hides in my closet and watches me sleep," he reported to the school social worker.

Charlotte didn't care.  She was busy practicing how to hold nun chucks and walk silently across rice paper. (illustration: thought bubble while in a straight jacket)

Her parents began to get a little concerned. "She's just a little withdrawn," they told their friends, who had stopped coming by for tea.

Her teachers worried about her future. "She refuses to participate in class," they wrote on detention slips.

Her sister started emotionally regressing. "She hit my dolly with a throwing star she made out of a pie plate," she told the judge.

Charlotte wasn't concerned. She was too busy running across rooftops in the moonlight and scaling city walls in one leap. (illustration: drug induced hallucination)

Her parents made arrangements to visit her on weekends. "We hope you'll get better soon sweetheart," they told her through the glass.

Her teachers were glad to have some modicum of normalcy returned to their day. "We'll send her a big card," they told her relieved classmates.

Her orderly was careful not to turn his back on her. "She seems resistant to the medication," he told the doctors.

Charlotte wasn't worried. Her training had prepared for this. (illustration: deranged imaginings during psychotic break)

MC and I plan on writing a series of wildly unpopular children's books about managing expectations and how reality is nothing like your dreams. Basically the opposite of Disney in every way.  I think we may be on to something here.