Tag Archives: humor

It is nice to have things to remember.

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sun and moon (2)

I do not completely understand the purpose of remembering things. I know the ability can be useful sometimes. One time I buried a perfectly good rabbit skeleton next to an old, bug filled log. Several weeks later, I found myself wanting a rabbit skeleton to chew on in the middle of the night. I did not have one immediately, so I used a series of images and smells I remembered to go out and fetch the rabbit skeleton I buried by the log. If I had not had those memories, I would have had to find a brand new rabbit skeleton to chew on. Rabbit skeletons are not very easy to find.

However, for every rabbit skeleton my memories retrieve for me, they also do something that is not so useful or pleasant. All too often, I find myself suddenly remembering something terribly embarrassing for absolutely no reason. Even without putting any effort towards retrieving the memory, I will randomly be reminded of something I do not want to think about. I recently stopped lapping up water mid-drinking because remembering the time I accidentally ate a bee and it stung the inside of my cheek made me feel so embarrassed that I was felt stunned.

Why bother being able to remember embarrassing things? I already made the mistake or recovered from the particular instance of lapsed judgment, so why make me relive it? It seems like a cruel thing for memories to do. I suppose memories want you to be reminded so you will not make the same mistake again in the future, but surely there must be a better way to remind me of that than to make me relive my embarrassment and pain in such great detail.

There are other moments when memories fail to do what they are best at, which is reminding you of something. They might only remind you of parts of something important or just minute details that do not add up to a whole, coherent image. Memories will often only deliver moments of your life to your mind in sporadic, nearly nonsensical chunks. Fragments you have to put together as best you can. Pieces that will never quite fit together no matter how desperately you want them to.

I know I have not always been a single, lone bear. I know, at some point in my life, there were other bears with me. Large bears. Bears my size. Bears who licked the top of my head while I rested by the riverside. Bears who stood up on their hind legs with me, hurling their paws at my face in a playful manner. Bears who kept me safe. Kept me company. Kept me warm.

Those memories, the ones of the bears who must have been an important part of my life at some point, are scattered and difficult to recall. Those are the memories I want to recall, though. Those are the thoughts I want to be randomly reminded of while I sip river water. The fragments of those thoughts are so difficult to hold together, though. Sometimes I even doubt they are real. Maybe I made them up myself. I do not know.

I am still grateful that my head lets me have memories, though. Despite how painful or distant some of them might be, there are still many that are an absolute joy to have and cherish. One of my favorites happened late in the afternoon of an otherwise very regular day. The sun, with its lovely warmth and glow, was beginning to rest into the horizon. At the same time, the moon, with its proudly pale light, was beginning to rise from the horizon. For a little while, the two giants, who normally represented completely different feelings and ideas and temperatures for me, shared the sky above the trees. I stared at the scene for as long as it persisted.

Then a tiny a gnat got caught in my eye, a part of that memory that I feel more distinctly and vividly than any other from that moment.

I am a bear.

You can read more bear thoughts by clicking these lovely blue words.

There are foxes.

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fox dead (2)

The first thing I saw when I was roused from my third nap yesterday was Susan (the rabbit) hopping frantically by my nose in an attempt to gain my attention. I sat up with a yawn and a sneeze (something she was not too fond of) and asked what was so important.

Susan (the rabbit) hopped up onto my belly and placed her front paws around my muzzle.

I had to sneeze again, but the sheer look of terror in her eyes subsided the urge. I did not want to upset her any further.

There was a long moment of silence as Susan (the rabbit) tried to gather her thoughts. Something was important enough to wake me, and whatever it was had petrified her.

In the gentlest tone I could muster, I asked what was wrong. Why was she so scared? Is a third nap really a nap if it lasts longer than four hours? Or at that point is it just sleep?

Susan (the rabbit)’s voice quivered. “There are foxes,” she squeaked. She seemed to not have a response to my questions about naps.

I continued my line of questioning by asking: What sort of boxes? Was there food in said boxes? Could she take me to them? Does she require assistance in transporting the boxes? Can the boxes be napped upon?

She hopped off my belly and sighed. “No,” she said, “foxes. There are foxes.”

This, of course, was no revelation to me. I was quite aware of the presence of foxes in the forest, albeit I have never met one who was in a non-carcass form. I am certain that non-carcass foxes are far more interesting (and certainly more lively) than their carcass counterparts. Because of the possibility of meeting a non-carcass fox, Susan (the rabbit)’s claim piqued my interest enough for me to postpone my third nap until it was time for a fourth nap.

I got up, stretched my paws, and started out of the cave when Susan (the rabbit) hopped in front of me. I asked her why she was stopping me.

“Please, don’t go,” she begged. Her ears were curled around her tiny head like some sort of sad hat. “There are foxes.”

I told her that I was well aware of this and that she had already said as much.

“You don’t understand, bear,” Susan (the rabbit) shook her head grimly.

Apparently, I did not. Susan (the rabbit)’s limited information and/or vocabulary did not quell my curiosity. If there really were foxes beyond my cave walls, I wanted to meet them.  I would love to discover what they did for fun, what it is like being orange, how it feels to not be a carcass, etc.

Despite her request, I strolled past Susan (the rabbit) and headed out of the cave and into the forest.

I expected to see a dozen or so black-tipped tails wagging in anticipation to meet me, but I was only met by Francis (the coyote) sitting on his haunches. His eyes were closed as he gave the air exploratory sniffs. I decided to join him and began to smell my surroundings.

This went on for a few minutes before we said hello to one another.

“Hello, bear,” Francis (the coyote) said with a nod. “Seen Susan (the rabbit) anywhere?”

I heard a fretful squeak behind me as Susan (the rabbit) hunkered down behind my rear legs. I told him yes and stepped aside so Francis (the coyote) could see where Susan (the rabbit) had gone.

Francis (the coyote)’s reddened muzzle curled up into a bright smile. Clumps of white fur fell to the ground as he did so.

I asked him where all the foxes were. Had he scared them away? I still wanted to meet one.

“No foxes out here,” Francis (the coyote) said. “Just me.” His smiled widened, exposing a series of yellow teeth speckled with crimson. Bits of bone protruded between them. He must have just eaten lunch.

I turned to Susan (the rabbit) and told her there were no foxes. There was just Francis (the coyote). I explained to her that she could have easily mistaken him for a fox, though. The red mess on his face mixed with the bit of white fur gave his head a lovely, orangey hue.

Susan (the rabbit) suddenly bit my nose and hopped away into the forest. Francis (the coyote) followed her.

I shouted a goodbye to the two of them. Hopefully, they enjoyed the rest of their day together.

I plopped down in the dirt by my cave to contemplate my nap schedule for the rest of the day, when a wave of disappointment washed over me. I wished there had been foxes. They seemed like wonderful creatures. Suddenly, a second emotion swept away disappointment in what I can only describe as not-happiness. What if there have never been foxes? What if they were carcasses and nothing more? Does being a carcass make them less fox or, in some terrible way, more fox?

Is there some way to discover if I will become more or less of a bear when I am no longer moving around? Will there be a breakdown of the very fiber of my bearness on a molecular level? Will my bearness transcend this plain of existence and arrive where there might be non-carcass foxes?

When will I meet foxes?

There was no way to really tell, so I decided to sniff the dirt by my cave for awhile and then take another nap. I still do not know why Susan (the rabbit) bit me.

I am a bear.

You can read more bear thoughts by clicking these lovely blue words.

There probably is not a lot of everything.

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moss man (3)

There is only so much of everything, probably. It is hard to understand that by simply looking around. Trees and sticks and leaves and birds and air as far as the eye can see or the nose can smell, all of these things seem too vast and numerous to ever not be the things they are. And the seemingly infinite number of these things tricks me into thinking I might be infinite, too. After all, I am also made up of many things (fur, teeth, nose, etc.).

Everything eventually stops being the thing it is, though. All of the trees fall over and all of the birds crash into the ground and all of the air stops being nice to smell and all of the me will probably fall over and not move anymore eventually. I do not know what any of it turns into (if any of it turns into anything at all), but I do know everything eventually stops being what it is. Everything runs out of what it is.

Part of me gets sad when I think about this. I mourn the finite and wish it could be not so final in some way or another. The thought has kept me up at nights in my dark, damp cave. Even with the calming smell of mold and the cool night air twirling around my fur, I often still find myself staring blankly into the bleak emptiness of my cave, its nothingness reminding me how, eventually, everything (even the particular nothing I stare at) might be nothing some day. Sometimes I get confused by the idea of nothing turning into more nothing (is it just a different kind of nothing or even more nothing on top of nothing?), yet I welcome that confusion over the emptiness of the thought that led to it.

Sometimes I swat at the nothing with an angry paw in the middle of the night, hoping some brute force can stop the thought from crawling into my mind. There is a pile of chipped claws near a particularly dark part of my cave. One time I ate them. They were salty.

I do not want to become nothing. I guess that is what it comes down to.

I also do not want anything else to become nothing.

When I am not recycling the same sad idea over and over until I fall asleep, another part of me wants to find ways to fix or, at the very least, put off the sadness of everything running out of itself. I do this by finding things I fear could turn into nothing and caring for them.

For example, I watched over a sad looking raccoon for awhile once. I followed it from tree to tree and from dumpster to dumpster, ensuring it was safe from the anger of nature or the sadness of itself. I made sure nobody followed the creature into its den and that no snakes were around as it looked for berries in a bushel. I even stood outside of the dumpster it was foraging from until it spotted me and ran away. I lost track of the raccoon after that. I hope it is not nothing now. And I hope it did not mind me taking the bread covered in red sauce that I found in the dumpster. I ate it. It was salty.

I tried saving some sticks from nothingness, too. I found three sticks (very good ones) and tried to put them under my belly for warmth and protection from the elements.

They broke under my belly.

I do not know if breaking in half makes a stick turn into nothing, but if it does, I did a very terrible thing with the best intentions.

Of course, there was the baby bird I found in my cave as well. I had no intention of stopping nothingness from swallowing the baby bird when I first met it. That idea was not part of my thinking at the time. I was so busy enjoying thingness that I had no time for even considering nothingness. Maybe that carelessness lead to what happened to the baby bird. I am sure I could have done more.

I know it is impossible to save anything from possibly being nothing eventually. I understand that horrible, relentless, fear-inducing fact, but I cannot help continuously becoming upset and obsessed over it. No matter how frequently I try to think of good things (bread, warm dirt, soft grass, moss pillows, etc.) while I rest in my cave during the night, that dark nothingness I stare at still haunts me and makes me want to try stopping it from becoming more nothingness.

I should at least stop swatting at it. And I should probably not eat my own claws.

I am a bear.

You can read more bear thoughts by clicking these words.

I would like some more friends.

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friend list (2)

I wish I had more friends. Despite its diverse inhabitants, the forest can be quite lonely. Especially at night, when all I can hear are crickets in the distance, chirping their songs. I could venture out to greet them, perhaps ask how their evenings are going or swap twig-soup recipes, but we all know crickets have notoriously short tempers and are quick to profane tirades regarding the value of their non-musical legs. I harbor no ill will toward them, but crickets are simply not friend material for someone like me.

I have been reviewing possible friendship candidates in the forest for the past few days. Rob (the squirrel) reluctantly helped me. He commented, however, that his squirrel feelings were hurt. He felt that he was more than enough friend for me. I had to explain to Rob (the squirrel) that our relationship would not change. We would still share acorns and he could sleep in my fur on chilly nights, but I needed to explore options. I needed more companions in my life. Surely there is a badger or an owl or a deer (well, maybe not a deer) out there who shares common interests with me. Someone I could confide in and with whom I could make new memories. Rob (the squirrel) responded to this line of thinking by hurling an acorn at my eye and hissing at me. He can be strange.

After much deliberation, I complied a short list of potential friends. They are the following:

  • Susan (the rabbit)
  • Franklyn (the stray tabby cat missing an ear)
  • Bernard (the opossum)
  • A red bird I saw
  • A bunch of napkins I found in a dumpster
  • Some sleeping bags I left dirt in once
  • Ants?
  • Not snakes

Rob (the squirrel) looked over the list. With an unimpressed scoff, he gave me a grimace and ran up a tree, leaving me alone to wonder which name jotted in the dirt near my cave insulted him. I would bet on Bernard. Or maybe that red bird I saw. I suppose it did not matter, though it is not great to see Rob (the squirrel) have hurt feelings. He does not take rejection (or any negative feeling for that matter) very well.

As I stared at the names on the list, something occurred to me: perhaps they can all be my friend. In fact, could not every creature and object I meet (except for the deer by the river and he knows why) be my friend? Elated, I chewed on my paws for a moment before running out into the forest to proclaim our friendship.

On my way to find a clearing (somewhere with soft grass and optimal sunlight) another revelation struck me. If anything and everything can be a friend, then can we not be friends? You, reading this right now, can we be friends?

I am a bear. What are you? Whatever you are, would you like to be my friend? You can still continue being a whatever you are. Being my friend should not change that (I think). I will give you time to think about it. If you decide you want to be my friend, feel free to etch your name in the dirt near my cave. If you do not know how to spell your name, please just leave a checkmark. I will get the point.

But if one of you is the deer across the river, do not leave your name, hoof print, or antler debris anywhere near my cave. If you try to leave any markings, they will be deleted from the dirt. If you try to poke the dirt with a stick, the indentation will be ignored. Even if you are friends with Rob (the squirrel) on his cave dirt (and I am pretty sure he has his own) and he vouches for you, we will not be friends. Never. You are not my friend, and I am not your friend.

As for everyone else, I would love to be your friend. While I wait for your friend approvals, I will roll around in the sun-baked grass. So please, take your time, friends. I know I will.

I am a bear.

You can read more bear thoughts by clicking the words you are currently reading.