“Elephant tracks! They were all around my tent this morning. There must have been several.”*
This sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
For most of my life I have been waking up to elephant tracks.
I never hear or see any elephants.
Every now and then I feel a vibration
see the faint ripples in my cup of late night tea.
How do those big things move around so stealthily?
How do the huge events come and go
leaving only tracks and questions?
*Earl Theiser:“The Last Safari” from Audobon Sept-Oct 1999
Myriad Ways 
You should read Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell…. 🙂
I have read that story. It is so vivid and self-aware. I love the matter of fact tone of his shorter work. He certainly was able to portray himself and situations he lived through in an honest light. Definitely one of my favorite writers of any time.