The Constipated Elephant: A Mystery at Pennington House

By A. Jay

The Constipated Elephant is a mystery of a ninety-nine-year-old lady, Claire, who spins her life out to her nurse, Rosie. In turn, Rosie desires to write Claire’s life story. Her husband, John, who works for the FBI warns Rosie to be careful. Humor, serious, and sorry tales evolve either through Claire’s conversation or in her journal, at which Rosie finds and copies it, discovering how Claire’s secret desire is not to let her children ever know what truly happened in her life. Sheriff George is out of the picture in this one as it involves FBI. However, he is asked to help out with his local knowledge of the main character.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638856665

Book preview

1

A Written Paper

Claire Boudreaux, a vivacious ninety-nine-year-old woman, sat in her favorite chair, a 300-model automatic touch control lever readily accessible at any time she wished to move. She had been digging through some of her papers she had written in the past. Hiding them away was a good idea, and they were safe from mysterious intruders.

This was her favorite pastime. As she glanced over the paper she held, her eyes rested on the date it was written. Oh, dear, it’s dated January 23, 2021. That was almost twenty years ago. Today’s date is 2037, she said out loud.

It began,

When Joe and Craig became friends and…

Claire’s eyelids became very heavy, and as they shut, the hand’s grip on the paper she wrote some twenty years earlier relaxed, as the paper she held slowly drifted to the floor and settled between her shoes at the base of her bed stand. Oblivious of this, she fell into a deep sleep.

2

Author Interviewed

Two years later, 2039

Arthur Murray, spokesman for the literary guild was speaking to the television world about new published author’s experiences and how they ventured into that particular field. So, without further ado, I wish to introduce to you one of America’s newest authors, Rose Angel Sophisko. Welcome to the show, Ms. Rose Angel Sophisko.

Thank you for having me here, Mr. Murray.

You can call me Art. First of all, what made you write this story?

Well, first most people call me Rosie the Nurse. I have worked at the locally funded hospital for several years, a branch in the small town of Pickford, Michigan, named Pennington Manor. Up until the day I met Claire, I had never known such a lively and inspirational patient. The stories she told me compelled me to write this fictitious novel. She is the primary part of it. She talked to me each day while I was on break or during my personal care for her.

Will you write another as a sequel?

I may, but I’m waiting to see how well this one is accepted first.

Was it hard to find a publisher?

Actually I was referred to a publisher by a dear friend of mine, and they accepted it right off. I would go this route the next as well because they were more than a publisher, they were a fine group of people to work with.

How, Ms. Sophisko, can an avid reader get a copy of your book?

You may get it through Barnes & Noble, Amazon, e-books, and Kindle through any book supplier, such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Book sellers can contact the printing company at such time they print the books upon demand. There are a few physical books available through the printers, which are rare these days, but through research on the computer, you can find them.

And can I tell our listeners what the name is of this publishing company?

Of course, it’s Covenant Books. They’re located in South Carolina.

There, folks and want-to-be authors, Arthur Murray spoke to the crowd and watchers, we know who to contact when your book is marketable. Is there anything else you would like to tell us before the next author joins us?

Yes, I would like to say my husband, John, and family encouraged me to write it. Especially after I shared some of the things my patient had talked to me about. I thank my family for not letting me change my mind about going through with this elderly lady’s stories. I became very attached to her. I want to thank the publishing company for their help, suggestions, and patience with me through the publishing stages, everything from editing, cover, author’s notes, dedications, and acknowledgments, which among them was primarily my patient Claire Boudreaux.

Well, thank you much for your input and a few details of your book. I’m sure the world will be very excited to get a copy and read the whole story. I’m sure also this book will be one that will not be put aside for a later story. I wish you the very best for its popularity and sales. Stay right here while I call in the next author.

Rose the Nurse sat and smiled through the next three authors and listened with her mind elsewhere. She knew this was a giant step to her popularity and success. Yet she also was thinking how glad she was that the suspense was over. It was a long year of investigating as she secretly was, but that’s giving away her story.

3

Rosie Finds Claire’s Writing

Two years before being interviewed, 2037

Rosie picked up a type written paper that had fallen from Claire’s lap where she sat in her room. Curiosity compelled her to read it. I was dated January 23, 2021.

This may be something I can put in Claire’s memoirs. I’ll have to get it later when she isn’t aware of it, she thought.

It began,

When Joe and Craig became friends and lived happily ever after, they were alone. There was no begat. And so as life went on, Donna and Carolyn loved each other, and they were alone, and there were no children. The Shakers, on the other hand, believed there should be no sex, the body should remain pure. By rejecting sex as a sin, it was necessary to convert others to their faith. They became famous for the furniture they built, but soon they faded away because they lacked future generations.

As ages passed even from early in the history of man, some people would and could chose to not have children; thus the abortion system began, for the first few who did this it was taking a chance because the mother more often than not died shortly after the child was taken from her flesh. They usually died by bleeding to death. As history evolved to the ’50s, the abortion clinics were an underground group of doctors who chose to do this on the quiet, in only large and select cities, with a few exceptions. Usually this was unheard of in other parts of the country.

Stories were that the woman or youngster would try to self-abort by using a coat hanger and both died, baby and mother. As time progressed, the laws changed to protect the mother and to be in control of all the bloodshed and deaths. The government would and did open legalized abortion clinics, until to date where in some states the baby could even be full term or born and be put to death (murder in the name of abortion).

Why? It seems that money became the root of all evil. Greed for the things one wants versus their need became the trend. Scruples have blown out the window. Respect was becoming dim, not only for others but for self. The babies from abortions forty years ago were used in cosmetics purposed to maintain one’s youth. We were told by certain companies that this was proved factual. Was this propaganda? Or was it the truth?

As early as 3000 bc, condoms were formed from fish skin. However, by 1960, an oral contraceptive was introduced. Birth control has developed again in the form of shots, containing various sources, which changed the body with side effects that might or might not prove to be good for human bodies. Thus, again we are living for their own desires instead of for good health, love, and compassion for others; their goal was greed for money to support their desires for sex, drugs, and, most of all, money.

The latest word is that body parts from abortions are being sold. Money, greed, no respect for their lifestyle, no compassion for self, others, and mankind has slowly evolved. Destruction of a life as we know it from the beginning of time to date has become subjective.

Marijuana became legal, and this was not even heard of earlier in the twentieth century. But marijuana was not a bad thing. It has been proven to be medically created for healing. What is and has been the creeping giant is the medical pain pills that the population has become addicted to in but a few days after surgery. For a large amount of our population, it has caused people to lie, steal, and visually appear normal until research on other people’s effort has revealed a pattern of those addicted to sleep away their lives.

If our country continues at this pace, we will have destroyed the complete reason for its creation. Leaving us incapable to protect it and not caring. It will become weak and destroyed by those who crave to take over and gain the most desired country in the universe. Thankfully our freedom from precisely this was the reason for the Mayflower’s arrival on our nation’s shores.

Feed America came about in the twentieth century or early twenty-first century where needy people stood in line in the heat in summer and the frigid cold in winter, waiting to be served the food the nation decided to give out for free. It has been run once a month for an approximate duration of six months per year or more of donation, according to location. There were various locals who were made available to serve these needy people and make it easier to spread the donations out to the population. Some would leave their home two hours early to be first in line as the choice of food may be gone, and many times the supply dwindled, where latecomers went away with little to nothing.

While waiting, the folks talked, and the remaining few listened and waited patiently and watched the volunteers peel slimy outer leaves off the lettuce to give to our nation’s hungry people in need. In the past, these items would have been given to the farmers for their pigs. The volunteers would talk as well while they piled the lettuce in boxes measuring approximately four to five inches in diameter. Most of the fresh food came from clearance racks in large grocery stores—items that others did not want to buy. The baked goods became hard, sometimes spotted with mold, or frosting had melted away on top such as cinnamon rolls. So what remained again was given as a donation to Feed America, and by the time it reached the warehouse, they truly were outdated and becoming decomposed. A bag of potatoes were given and sometimes two or three just to get rid of them as they were blighted. One would have to peel the green off the outer skin of the potato, making it necessary to peel double amounts to prepare the dinner. Sometimes cabbage heads were given out, huge ones with very little green left and cracked down the middle from exposure to drought, then watered, which caused the cabbage to be undesirable to the public shoppers. Often, the vegetable had turned brown on the cracked edges, and as the needy people inched their way along the line, volunteer workers offered two heads of cabbage if they wanted them. Often a bag of apples would have one or two apples that had rotted. While some of the people talked, they exchanged the information that many went to each location to get all they could so they would not go hungry until the next truck came in a month or two. Were these people truly starving? Or were they also greedy and wanted all they could get for free? Greed showed in many who reached for the best of the supply.

Back in Washington, the various representatives of our country who were voted in to positions to speak and act for the people and the betterment of the country made contrary decisions. Some leaders sent billions of dollars to other countries that were actually our enemies. Vast amounts of money was spent on unheard-of organizations to see how much Earth could survive if the ozone became bigger. Other experiments were done with the thought that global warming was gaining in its plight. Often, representatives voted for raises and retirement for themselves for life after holding office or exempted themselves from mandates to the citizens at large. All of the monies to do these things came from the tax dollars of the working class, which also included low-income and what the needy had to pay to our government. Yet America was considered the best place to live in the world. Little did the remaining population in the world know the truth, and many of them wanted to come live in this wonderful land of the free while greed and position became the law, and soon the people holding the position took the laws into their own hands and slowly changed the whole spectrum of way of life and living.

Then a small group of millionaires and billionaires wanted to change America’s constitution. They changed the laws to fill their pockets and in some cases pull the strings while the ‘needy’ were the puppets. Abortion to full term so the greedy could sell the mature baby body parts. Meanwhile, the regular Joe Brown asks what next. Will they give ‘the pill’ to the elderly to also get money from their parts? (Soylent Green)

And now comes the issue to allow illegal immigrants to easily enter as they may into our country to find that pot of gold, that illuminating bait that has so cunningly fed them the desire to come to the land of plenty, not knowing why the leaders are willing to allow it. It could be votes, which is the first thought, while they would be under scrutiny for only our creator knows what.

*****

Wow, that was sixteen years ago. Currently it is 2037. A lot has happened since then, Rosie thought. After reading it, she set it on Claire’s lap and left the room. After a few minutes, she checked on Claire again and found her reading the paper.

Hello, Claire, did you have a good nap?

Yes, I did, and I was reading this old paper I wrote a few years ago about things that passed through my mind. Here, would you like to read it?

Nurse Rose took the paper and said, Could I take it home with me when I will have more time?

Sure, oh my goodness, yes, by all means you can take it home, Claire quickly agreed.

This appears to be a really good paper. But, Claire, you never published it? I’m surprised. You really are a writer.

Oh, thank you, but it was controversial, and I refrained from putting it out there. Claire thought for a moment before she went on. Yes, I wrote many novels until I couldn’t see well enough to get things right. And, of course, money was an issue, not just the publishing cost but the internet, ink for the printer, virus-free computer costs, and let’s face it, all things change in our lives, but I still think of stories that would be a ‘good one.’ I wrote another paper similar to this later in my life., I have it here someplace, but, oh dear, I can’t recall where I put it.

Claire, I would love to hear your story. Will you tell it to me?

Claire laughed, totally delighted. I never thought anyone would care to hear it. You know, there’s good, and there’s negative as well. I may share these with you too. I wouldn’t want you to think I was telling you a fairy tale where everything is wonderful and there’s a happy ending.

Not at all. I want to hear it all. Let’s say you tell me a little each day on my break or even at therapy time with you?

Why, I’m thinking that would be special and something for me to look forward to each day. She smiled to herself, feeling truly happy and blessed.

Nurse Rose wrote down everything Claire told her. Sometimes she had to ask the next day if she forgot.

4

Claire Begins Her Story

The next day, Rose asked her to start anywhere because it wouldn’t matter and that she would love to hear it. If you forget something, you can always add it in during the next time we talk. Okay?

Okay. So do you want me to start right now?

Yes, yes of course.

*****

"I was born in one of the largest cities in Michigan. It was during the end of the Depression and the building up to the Second World War. I say that because Hitler had been working on ‘change’ for some years. In those days, late 1930s and early 1940s, things were tough. We were never told to clean our plate; as hungry as we were, it was licked clean. Not just the poor people but everyone shared the same dilemma. My family was still happy. Mom played a Hawaiian guitar, and Dad played a M. Hohner harmonica, made in Germany. They sang and kept us happy during those times when we were all together. After the first few years of my parents’ marriage, we were blessed with a very big house in a nice neighborhood in the eastern part of the city near a big river. There were two bedrooms and a bath upstairs, and on the second level, there was another bedroom and a living room. The lower level had a lovely dining room with paneled walls up to the chair top with ledges, then the wall above was painted. One step down brought us to the kitchen where we spent much of the day while Mom washed clothes and cooked. The washroom and furnace was in a room off the back entrance where we left our muddy boots. It was while we lived there that I entered kindergarten.

"While waiting in line in the hall of Ulysses S. Grant grade school, a second grade boy looked at me, and he asked me if I liked gravy. I looked at him and fell in love immediately—dark hair and blue eyes, my reply was yes, then he replied, ‘Kindergarten baby!’ and all the boys laughed at me. I stayed clear of that boy for my total attendance there.

"We moved from there a few years later in a home that was unfinished so Dad could finish it the way he and Mom wanted it. That was where my sister and I decided to run away from home. I cannot remember why, but we were almost across the lot next to ours where weeds grew almost over our heads. We had read about how these two brothers left home and thought it would be very