They left their bags at the station and headed out toward the hills. She walked slightly ahead of him, keeping a brisk pace. He walked slowly and kept falling behind, forcing her to periodically stop and wait for him to catch up. He stopped to look back at the station and wondered if his bags would be safe while he was away. As they walked he didn’t look at the hills where they were going but trudged behind her, eyeing only the footprints she left behind. The closer they got to the hills the more clearly she could see the white elephants, and she eagerly told him so, hoping he would see them too, though he said he couldn’t. Her mouth was parched from the warm day and the winds against her face and she took a swig of cold water from the canteen she, unlike him, had been prudent enough to bring. She turned around, canteen in hand, but noticing how he looked neither at the hills while they walked nor in her eyes as she turned around, changed her mind and didn’t offer him any water. The walk would be long and it would probably be better to conserve the water, she thought to herself.
Interesting post-script to the original story. Does she intend to test him, abandon him or kill him? The symbolic meaning of the white elephant could have been used effectively here - "A white elephant is an idiom for a valuable but burdensome possession of which its owner cannot dispose and whose cost (particularly cost of upkeep) is out of proportion to its usefulness or worth."
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