The man read about the elephant that got loose from his Tokyo town’s elephant house in the newspaper’s regional news section. The story included a photo of a policeman inspecting the empty cage, and the man studied every word and visual with curiosity. The elephant’s keeper, Noboru Watanabe, had disappeared, as well. 

The elephant was old and slow moving and had been left behind in a bankrupt zoo. When the zoo closed down, the city council decided they would take ownership of the elephant at no cost, the developer would provide free land for the animal, and the zoo’s former owners would pay Watanabe. The decision sparked some opposition from the townspeople, with some saying it was not the town’s responsibility to care for the animal. At the elephant house’s dedication, the mayor presented the animal to the public, which wore a heavy steel cuff around its leg. 

Watanabe was an old man in his 60s or 70s who kept to himself. He dedicated his life to caring for the elephant and they communicated nonverbally with one another very effectively. This communication fascinated the man reading the newspaper, who had visited the elephant house on weekends to watch them interact. A year after the council’s decision, the elephant and its keeper vanished. 

The newspaper article reports that the steel cuff that had been fastened around the elephant’s leg was still locked, despite Watanabe not possessing a key. Secondly, the elephant was enclosed by thick steel bars and only one exit door, which was found still locked from the inside. Lastly, it would have been immensely difficult for the elephant to climb the steep hill outside of its enclosure, and no tracks had been found. Based on this, the man thinks that the elephant couldn’t have escaped, but that it instead vanished into thin air.

The mayor held a news conference and apologized to the public for the town’s inadequate police resources in solving this case. The man thinks about calling the police and telling them the elephant and its keeper have simply vanished, but decides against it because he knows he won’t be believed. After a few months of no clues, the police give up the investigation and most of the public forgets about the elephant altogether. 

The man worked for a PR company, working in his company’s products into women’s magazine articles. One day, he showed the editor around a hotel party to help her get material for an article she is working on. They get to chatting casually about kitchens and drink champagne. They were both unmarried and after the party concluded, he invited her to join him in the cocktail lounge. Eventually, he broached the topic of the elephant and she became fascinated, asking him questions about the disappearance. After some coaxing, he opened up to her about how he was the last person to see the elephant before it vanished on a Sunday evening after the house closed. He remembered seeing the elephant and its keeper that night, but that their size differences had decreased, with the elephant appearing smaller and the keeper larger. When he finished the story, an awkward silence hung over them and they said goodbye and never saw one another again. 

After the elephant vanished, the man felt like the earth’s balance had been disrupted, but he accepted that the animal and its keeper are gone forever.