Seven ancient blind men are attempting to identify a garden-variety Rashomon elephant. They don’t need to see to know that this is a living, breathing and very actively digesting creature. As we might expect, though, they have different ideas about it based on the parts that each has grasped.
The inevitable arguments start almost immediately, not due to the uncertainty, but because these are foolish and aggressive blind men. In fact, they don’t even know that they’re blind. And they’re so vociferous with their truth claims that they begin fighting among themselves.
They realize that the only way to end the disruptive fighting, enabling completion of the identification project, is to take their elephant parts away for more careful study. So, taking hold of the parts, one with the trunk, one with the tail, and the other five with the assorted parts in between, they begin to pull. Then they pull some more. It takes some time and there are lots of piteous cries from the elephant, but eventually, they succeed in pulling the poor animal to pieces.
The men begin proudly to drag the varietal parts back to their respective jungle clearings. And, speaking of pride, a group of seven lions, heretofore dissuaded from attacking the tasty if wizened human morsels by the presence of the elephant in their midst, attack and kill the blind men.
Before they die, however, each man has, in turn, an unprecedented moment of clarity regarding their attackers, realizing beyond dispute that:
This is a fucking lion!