Menagerie Dreams
I think I will always have those dreams. The scent of kettle corn wafted through the tent while a kaleidoscope of colors lit the room aglow. People would cheer as I performed my trick and call for an encore before the curtain closed.
The muffled applause would fade away completely when Sedgwick entered, praising my act and solidifying his approval with my favorite snack: apples.
But with every morning the haze of my dreams fades into my current reality.
The humans’ war caused a shortage of working horses, so the merchant in charge of me fitted me with boots and a harness, then leashed me to carts hauling metal and munitions through the streets of Sheffield.
But you know what they say: you can take the elephant out of the circus, but you can’t take the circus out of the elephant.
I loved causing a little mischief here and there by swiping hats from children’s heads. And who could blame a gal from tasting an unattended dinner just sitting there in a kitchen window.
It was hard work, and my feet ached against the cobblestones even through the leather. My back learned the weight of scraps instead of applause.
But the locals filled a little of the void. They’d reach out to pet my trunk, or smile when they saw me meandering down the road. And every so often, someone would offer me an apple, the same small kindness Sedgwick once gave me in a life that already felt like someone else’s.
This cookie is dedicated to the real circus and menagerie animals of WWI-era Britain, creatures never meant for war, who filled the gaps left behind when the horses went to the front. Lizzie, an Indian elephant leased from Sedgwick’s Menagerie to a Sheffield scrap merchant. Her fate after the war was never recorded. Menagerie Dreams is our way of remembering her and the uncelebrated animals who carried more than they should have for a war they didn’t start. 
