HELP! A Bear Is Eating Me! - Mykle Hansen [38]
But what’s that sound … hello! Look who’s come to join the party? If it isn’t everyone’s favorite stinking mammal, Mister Jesus H. Bear, huffing and puffing and ambling home at sunrise like he hasn’t been mysteriously absent for the last day and a half.
Where you been, M.B.? Out partying with your bear pals, I suppose. Didn’t even have the courtesy to phone home while I was up all night worrying about you. Well, why don’t you just fuck off back to wherever you’ve been pleasuring yourself. I have some important neurosurgical business to attend to and I don’t appreciate your snarky back-seat commentary. It takes a light touch, presence of mind, it’s a delicate business and you make me nervous when you stare, so please just give me a half-hour of Marv time. Come back later and I’ll leave you out some breakfast.
Don’t you speak English? Go, A, Way. Shoo! Mush!
Mister Bear, what are you staring at? Nothing to see here, please move along. Sure, I was stare-worthy once, I was something to see, I was Marv Ascendant, not any more. I stink, I’m sick, bloody and bug-bitten. I wouldn’t eat me if I was the last piece of meat on earth. I’m dying, and I hurt like bullets. Satisfied?
Mister Alaskan Black Bear, mister Ursus Americanus, I don’t even get you. You are supposed to be largely herbivorous. You are supposed to prefer nuts, berries and bugs. Is my name Herb? Do I look nutty to you? Why are you doing this to me, Mister Bear? Why do you hate me? What did I ever do to you?
That was your cub I ran over in the Rover, wasn’t it? Can you smell his blood under the front fender? Is that why you’re angry? You can tell me.
I’m sorry. Really, I apologize. But that’s the law of the jungle, isn’t it? Kill and/or be killed, day in, day out. Someone’s always killing your children these days. You can’t let it get you down. All the other animals in the forest have predators, how would you deserve a free pass?
No … no it’s not your forest, you don’t own the forest. We’re all co-owners of This Condo Earth and we’ve got to share. We’re all in this together, am I right? Interconnectedness of all living things, et cetera. I’d expect a bear like you to understand new-age granola concepts like that.
Yes, I know you were here first, but we’re here now, and we’re not going away. People don’t go away. Only Nature goes away.
What do you mean? I have tons of respect. Tons! I love this place. Humans adore nature, that’s why we come out here to hunt. We wouldn’t hunt animals we didn’t respect, would we?
Oh, look who’s calling who stupid. What’s your B.A.T. score anyway?
Smelly? Oh, now the pot of bearshit calls the kettle smelly! Hah! Go sniff yourself in the mirror sometime.
Hey, hey Mister Bear: I think it’s great that you’ve decided, finally, to open up and share your feelings with me but — no, let me finish — but I sure wish you would have brought some of this up before you chewed my fucking legs off. Maybe we could have, you know, torn down the walls between us, had a weep-in, become spirit siblings, all that would be great for a guy who still had some legs. But right now I’m afraid I’m just a little bit low on sympathy for your bear problems. Ow.
Well yeah, I said I was sorry. But imagine how I feel! This sucks, this hurts, this is torture! You’re actually torturing me.
Yes! OK! Sorry! Sorry sorry sorry! Don’t I look sorry? Isn’t that good enough for you? It was an accident! I didn’t park on top of your son and eat his feet, did I?
Oh please. If I taste that bad, why’d you eat so much of me? Hmm? You know, don’t bother to answer. Just forget it. I’m sick of talking to you. You don’t understand what’s going on here. You still think this is the forest primeval and you can slaughter any old hunter who happens along without fear of reprisal. Don’t you realize what you’ve bitten off ?
They’re going to take you down, Mister Bear. When they find my carcass under this Rover and they realize there’s a dangerous man-eater loose out here, a hunt will be called, and the humans will come, hundreds of loud, stinking humans with their guns and