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“On Bein’ Bear” by Sparky (read by Solomon Harries)
Questioning your humanity? Do you like bears? Boy are you in the demographic for this one. Tune in to learn the how of bein’ bear.
Today’s story is “On bein’ bear” by Sparky who’s really bad at the internet, but occasionally writes about bears. He’d like to share some vignettes he wrote about them.
Read by Solomon Harries, a Cuddly Badger Dad.
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https://thevoice.dog/episode/on-bein-bear-by-sparky
Transcript
You’re listening to The Voice of Dog.
Speaker:This is Rob MacWolf, your fellow traveler,
Speaker:and Today’s story is
Speaker:“On bein’ bear” by Sparky
Speaker:who’s really bad at the internet, but occasionally writes about bears.
Speaker:He’d like to share some vignettes
Speaker:he wrote about them.
Speaker:Read by Solomon Harries,
Speaker:a Cuddly Badger Dad.
Speaker:Please enjoy “On bein’ bear”
Speaker:by Sparky On becoming a bear Monday:
Speaker:This time of year
Speaker:The bear forest is beautiful this time of year.
Speaker:I mean sure, it’s beautiful pretty much year round,
Speaker:but now, mid-June,
Speaker:it’s especially beautiful.
Speaker:The urgency of life in spring now barely tempered by the lazy of summer,
Speaker:that vibrancy, everywhere.
Speaker:The sun has yet to sear the landscape with the blistering heat of summer.
Speaker:The ground still smells of water,
Speaker:but footpads no longer squish or shiver.
Speaker:The first taste of dust.
Speaker:The smell of pine needles wafted through the air,
Speaker:the scruffback scratchers bark adding their sweet, pungent note.
Speaker:Flowers still bloomed, pollendusted bees still floated about on sunbeams,
Speaker:the meadow hives were starting to grow fat with honey.
Speaker:Sparky the anthropomorphic half
Speaker:-bear sat cross legged on the stone ledge,
Speaker:naked body sprawled on the sun-warmed rock.
Speaker:He watched the pond ripple gently in the breeze,
Speaker:watched the dragonflies dart to and fro.
Speaker:The bear breathed,
Speaker:lungs filling with the compassion of the sun,
Speaker:the vitality of warm summer’s air.
Speaker:He barely stirred as Ursus plodded in from the forest,
Speaker:every one of his massive steps trembling the rock the hybrid sat on.
Speaker:Ursus moved with a paradoxical grace for a fridge with legs,
Speaker:the massive limbs dancing in liquid synchronization that floated the weight of a small car across the stone.
Speaker:The bear lowered himself to the ground,
Speaker:curling protectively around his half-human friend’s back.
Speaker:Sparky relaxed backwards,
Speaker:legs unfurling to the ponds edge,
Speaker:arms rising from his lap to stretch along the ursine spine,
Speaker:the fingers of his right paw ruffling through the coarse, oily bristlefur of Ursus’ head,
Speaker:claw tips teasing imaginary itches
Speaker:then playfully shredding them into tinglejoy.
Speaker:His head turning to look at his newfound backrest’s head,
Sparky mused:“I think about you a lot.”
Sparky mused:He didn’t expect a response.
Sparky mused:It wasn’t the way of bears to respond to such things.
Sparky mused:Sometimes, Sparky just needed to say things;
Sparky mused:needed to be heard.
Sparky mused:“The way you move.
Sparky mused:The way you are.” His right paw still gently stroking Ursus’ head,
Sparky mused:Sparky twisted slightly,
Sparky mused:lifting his left paw from the bear’s back
Sparky mused:and into his field of view.
Sparky mused:He looked at it, palm faced away,
Sparky mused:then looked down at the bear’s front paw,
Sparky mused:his ursine parallel.
Sparky mused:Sparky moved his thumb in and out, wiggling it, then his brown-furred fingers,
Sparky mused:a wave undulating from his index to his pinky and back.
Sparky mused:The hybrid’s paw was very human,
Sparky mused:at least in form: fingers separated to the third knuckle,
Sparky mused:opposable thumb. Turning his paw he looked at the palm,
Sparky mused:a thick textured black pad,
Sparky mused:with smaller, equally hardened patches scattered down his fingers,
Sparky mused:marking a path to each black clawtip.
Sparky mused:A human hand with a bear's skin stretched over it.
Sparky mused:He thought about what he got from those separated fingers,
Sparky mused:that opposed thumb.
Sparky mused:Ursus lacked both and got along just fine.
Sparky mused:Sure, the bear didn’t make coffee or type on iPads but
Sparky mused:how important were those things, really?
Sparky mused:Sparky sighed, relaxing into the bear’s plush frame,
Sparky mused:gazing at the massive shoulder he rested on.
Sparky mused:His own body plan made standing easy,
Sparky mused:walking on two legs, interacting with the humans in more human ways.
Sparky mused:This too, he envied his friend:
Sparky mused:the raw power, the unwavering stability,
Sparky mused:the intimate connection with the ground walking on all four legs provided.
Sparky mused:He’d tried it, of course.
Sparky mused:Both in his own body,
Sparky mused:and a few times when Ursus had been kind and accommodated him projected into his.
Sparky mused:Results varied,
Sparky mused:but it always felt good,
Sparky mused:felt… right. Every return to his bipedal stride had filled Sparky with a sense of peculiar dissatisfaction,
Sparky mused:the tallness had become one of the random earmarks of his humanity,
Sparky mused:an unshakable reminder haunting his every step.
Sparky mused:Sparky allowed his gaze to wander,
Sparky mused:soaking in the serene surroundings.
Sparky mused:The stillness of the scene was punctuated by the melodies of the wind rustling birdsong through the pine trees
Sparky mused:and the splash of a fish breaking the surface of the pond.
Sparky mused:Sparky gave a contented sigh,
Sparky mused:his breath slowly synchronizing with the rhythmic rise and fall of Ursus’ bulk beneath him.
Sparky mused:Contentment, it seemed,
Sparky mused:was a trait he had inherited from his ursine side.
Tuesday:A rainy day
Tuesday:Warm June days need counterbalance to stave off the heat of July.
Tuesday:This morning that warmth was checked by rain.
Tuesday:It was a nice rain,
Tuesday:somewhere between a drizzle and not,
Tuesday:flurries of tiny droplets falling through the early morning mists.
Tuesday:The moss was fluffy and green,
Tuesday:the smell of water hung in the air,
Tuesday:and the soft patter of raindrops on pine needles gave the forest an otherworldly depth.
Tuesday:Sparky walked through the rain,
Tuesday:letting it take him.
Tuesday:Droplets first beaded up and ran off his thick brown fur.
Tuesday:But then, bit by bit,
Tuesday:they didn’t. First one droplet burst,
Tuesday:surface tension losing the battle to his coarse gritdust hair.
Tuesday:More drops burst, the dampness spreading,
Tuesday:reaching his skin.
Tuesday:Then dampness became wetness,
Tuesday:the half-bear’s coat a greasesoaked sponge.
Tuesday:Humans generally didn’t like this,
Tuesday:being wet, naked, in the elements.
Tuesday:Sparky used to think this way too,
Tuesday:long ago, wearing clothes,
Tuesday:preening himself like they did.
Tuesday:Once he’d found the bear forest though, he’d come around to a different way of thinking:
Tuesday:clothes were silly and water just was.
Tuesday:The rain was part of the forest,
Tuesday:it was life, it brought the green.
Tuesday:Of course he doubted the bears understood this so directly,
Tuesday:but they accepted the water nevertheless.
Tuesday:His walk was circuitous, meandering along the lesser worn trails of the forest.
Tuesday:Ferns brushed against his legs,
Tuesday:footpads sinking in to uneven, sometimes rocky ground.
Tuesday:He knew generally where he was going,
Tuesday:but on mornings like this,
Tuesday:the journey was his real goal.
Tuesday:Sparky thought of his past.
Tuesday:He thought of humanity.
Tuesday:Images of humanity,
Tuesday:with all its glaring faults and breathtaking achievements
Tuesday:danced in the half-bear’s mind.
Tuesday:It was a species marked by stark contradictions:
Tuesday:the same hands that crafted symphonies and wordwrought poetry
Tuesday:also wielded swords in war
Tuesday:and engineered the mechanisms of climate change.
Tuesday:A species with the capacity to foster deep love,
Tuesday:yet invent reasons for baseless hatred,
Tuesday:instill fear of the unborn tomorrows,
Tuesday:and conceive the notion of
Tuesday:‘undeserving’. Sometimes you don’t make decisions so much as discover them,
Tuesday:the ah-ha moment of realizing some deep truth previously unknown.
Tuesday:Sparky had one of these revelations that morning,
Tuesday:walking in the rain.
Tuesday:It didn’t come as a flash,
Tuesday:no dramatic strike of lightning,
Tuesday:he didn’t jump up shouting ‘eureka’,
Tuesday:it was plainer than that:
Tuesday:more just a gradual awareness and acceptance of what was right there in front of him all along.
Tuesday:Decisions are one thing,
Tuesday:action is an entirely different thing altogether.
Tuesday:He’d felt his way onto this path,
Tuesday:and he’d have to feel through how to navigate it.
Tuesday:Such was the way of bears,
Tuesday:less logic, more emotion,
Tuesday:sprinkle of ursine magic.
Wednesday:The drumbeat
Wednesday:As was normal for his morning’s, Sparky walked.
Wednesday:Walking helped him think,
Wednesday:and maybe a walk through the bear forest would help him feel too.
Wednesday:The rain of yesterday was gone,
Wednesday:freshness left in its wake.
Wednesday:His toes sank into damp mossy soil,
Wednesday:the loam felt good on his feet.
Wednesday:Eventually, the path led him where most paths here do:
Wednesday:to bear lake. He was down by the southern shore,
Wednesday:emerging from the forest near the inlet where the salmon ran.
Wednesday:A dozen bears were there already,
Wednesday:spread through the river,
Wednesday:angling for fish.
Wednesday:The hybrid sat by the shore,
Wednesday:resting cross-legged on the pebbled ground,
Wednesday:watching. It was time.
Wednesday:He was resolved. Slowly,
Wednesday:the bear’s breathing became steady,
Wednesday:settling into a resting cadence.
Wednesday:As his breathing stilled,
Wednesday:so did Sparky’s heartbeat,
Wednesday:first barely beating once a second,
Wednesday:then less frequently still.
Wednesday:Not that bears cared for such things
Wednesday:‘seconds’, ‘minutes’, ‘hours’ -
Wednesday:all human constructs aside from the reality of Now.
Wednesday:Sparky came into sync with the place.
Wednesday:There’s a certain rhythm to nature.
Wednesday:The beat of the bear forest.
Wednesday:Like the sympathetic vibration of one tuning fork to another,
Wednesday:something deep within the hybrid vibrated,
Wednesday:chiming with the forest.
Wednesday:He felt the bears around him,
Wednesday:fishing as they do.
Wednesday:He felt their vibration:
Wednesday:lower, more profound,
Wednesday:less hurried. The deep earthen tone of the bear filled him,
Wednesday:reverberating through his marrow.
Wednesday:Have you ever gone to a concert and stood right in front of the speakers,
Wednesday:right in front of the bass bins?
Wednesday:10,000 watts of sound rattling your body? It’s not something
Wednesday:you hear, it’s something you feel.
Wednesday:Your lungs shake,
Wednesday:your bones tremble,
Wednesday:you become the music,
Wednesday:a living instantiation of its vibration.
Wednesday:Sparky felt a little like this,
Wednesday:like he was sitting on the subwoofer of the bear.
Wednesday:It moved him, shook him,
Wednesday:rattled his body.
Wednesday:He let it take him,
Wednesday:feeling every thudding beat of the bear.
Wednesday:And then it happened.
Wednesday:That beat, it started to change him.
Wednesday:Like an ursine blacksmith shaping metal one fierce blow at a time,
Wednesday:the rhythm of the bear molded him.
Wednesday:One tiny plastic deformation after another hammered into his form.
Wednesday:First his paws twitched,
Wednesday:loosely held in his lap.
Wednesday:With each progressive beat they twitched again,
Wednesday:twitched more. Slowly,
Wednesday:they started to change:
Wednesday:the metacarpal palm lengthened beat by beat,
Wednesday:his fingers shortening.
Wednesday:Thumbs snapped into alignment with fingers, losing their opposition.
Wednesday:Another beat, and the flesh between two knuckles fused,
Wednesday:and then another,
Wednesday:fingers joining, their individuality stripped for strength.
Wednesday:Soon his extremity looked far more bear than human,
Wednesday:the wrist sloping backward from a palm dominating the extremity,
Wednesday:now a plantigrade foot in its proportion,
Wednesday:tipped with five black dagger-like claws.
Wednesday:The song of the forest,
Wednesday:slow as it was, had just begun.
Wednesday:The changes became more dramatic,
Wednesday:the rhythm wracking his body.
Wednesday:Sparky’s arms and legs pulled in,
Wednesday:shortening as the tempo added girth where it took length.
Wednesday:With each fierce thump his limbs contorted,
Wednesday:a new form wresting itself out from within.
Wednesday:The Kodiak fell over,
Wednesday:calves no longer long enough to lock with each other
Wednesday:in his normal cross-legged stance.
Wednesday:In his trance, Sparky flopped,
Wednesday:body changing on the pebbled ground.
Wednesday:The sight of the increasingly-bearish form convulsing on the side of the lake seemed like the kind of thing bears might be curious about,
Wednesday:alarmed about, but none of them seemed to care.
Wednesday:The beat of the bear is like this,
Wednesday:invisible, intangible.
Wednesday:It weaves its way through the forest and the bears,
Wednesday:heeded even when unseen.
Wednesday:Such magic wasn’t special to them,
Wednesday:it just was, as was the forest.
Wednesday:As he lay on his side, Sparky’s head was flung back, his neck and spine rearranging with grotesque, visceral pops
Wednesday:under the unrelenting blows of the unseen hammer.
Wednesday:His skull broadened,
Wednesday:his features distorting and morphing as his neck thickened.
Wednesday:The vestiges of his human traits were gradually erased,
Wednesday:subsumed by the relentless tide of his ursine transformation.
Wednesday:His body too changed,
Wednesday:thickening beat by beat.
Wednesday:He stretched in length,
Wednesday:he broadened in width,
Wednesday:every part of him grew.
Wednesday:Fat padded his form,
Wednesday:while coarse bristlefur spread across his skin.
Wednesday:Shoulders and legs realigned subtly,
Wednesday:his limbs pointed down, in front of his torso.
Wednesday:Sparky’s back contorted,
Wednesday:muscles mounding into a powerhouse between his shoulders,
Wednesday:the hump curving up from his neck and down into the small of his back.
Wednesday:Eventually, these changes slowed,
Wednesday:then stopped. A bear lay there on the pebbled ground.
Wednesday:Maybe this bear was a little smaller than the typical Kodiak,
Wednesday:but unmistakably,
Wednesday:Sparky was a bear.
Wednesday:The beat changed for Sparky.
Wednesday:Not that the beat of the bear changed or subsided,
Wednesday:not at all. More it flowed through him now,
Wednesday:was him. His new form didn’t offer the resistance his old had,
Wednesday:didn’t add the turbulence of humanity to the bear flowing through his body.
Wednesday:His new form felt
Wednesday:right. Opening his eyes, Sparky lay there on his side,
Wednesday:breathing. He’d never smelled the world like this before.
Wednesday:Never smelt bear lake,
Wednesday:never sniffed the pebbles.
Wednesday:Laying amongst them,
Wednesday:he felt like he’d never smelled anything before at all.
Wednesday:He could smell the bears that had walked here,
Wednesday:right here, before.
Wednesday:He could smell the bears upwind,
Wednesday:smell the salmon they were eating.
Wednesday:He could smell the wind itself,
Wednesday:each gust carrying stories from far off places,
Wednesday:stories he could suddenly perceive and understand.
Wednesday:He could smell the earth,
Wednesday:the forest. He could smell
Wednesday:everything. After a bear moment,
Wednesday:maybe two, Sparky stirred.
Wednesday:He stood, slowly righting himself to all fours.
Wednesday:He’d projected into Ursus before,
Wednesday:felt palms flat against the ground,
Wednesday:felt the stocky stability of the bear.
Wednesday:This though, this was different.
Wednesday:This was him. The bear swayed almost unsure of his own strength.
Wednesday:He took a step forward,
Wednesday:lowering the heel of his front right palm onto the pebbled ground.
Wednesday:He felt the weight absorb into his now-massive shoulder,
Wednesday:disappear into his spine.
Wednesday:Excitedly, Sparky called out. The ‘hyyynnnnngkkkkkkkkkkk’ that erupted from his chest shocked him.
Wednesday:The size of it, the baritone fierceness.
Wednesday:Several bears looked up,
Wednesday:vocalizing in return.
Wednesday:He tingled, feeling his hair stand on end.
Wednesday:His voice felt beautiful.
Wednesday:He grunted again, this time out of sheer joy.
Wednesday:He took a step, and then another,
Wednesday:then another. Now bounding, Sparky ran, 600 pounds of bear thudding down the shore, a spray of pebbles exploding from each paw’s fall.
Wednesday:Into the water, feeling the cold wetness,
Wednesday:smelling everything about it.
Wednesday:My god, the water smelled of fish and plants and the sea and the sky. “HHHHHHYYYYYnnnnnnnn Hhhhh kkkkk kKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK,”
Wednesday:he almost screamed,
Wednesday:he couldn’t help himself.
Wednesday:He pranced, he danced, he swam around.
Wednesday:Charging into the lake proper,
Wednesday:Sparky swam, massive paws finding traction in the water like mere hands never could.
Wednesday:He dove, amazed by how the water parted.
Wednesday:Something this big shouldn’t feel so weightless,
Wednesday:and yet here in the water,
Wednesday:he was. Emerging from the water,
Wednesday:the bear collapsed onto the beach.
Wednesday:Sparky was exhausted.
Wednesday:The sun warmed his newly massive form;
Wednesday:laying there he was
Wednesday:content. Epilogue of doin’ bear stuff Thursday:
Wednesday:Fishing Morning strolls through the bear forest were often the highlight of Sparky’s day.
Wednesday:Today’s walk felt like a highlight of his life.
Wednesday:In season after season of morning walks amongst the bears,
Wednesday:Sparky had never felt so right as he moved through the woods.
Wednesday:Every stride over the dewdamp ground felt wonderful,
Wednesday:large flat paws connecting with the loamy soil,
Wednesday:absorbing his weight.
Wednesday:His shoulders and hips flexed together, diagonal synchronization across his body propelling him through the misty beams of morninglight cutting through the treetop cover.
Wednesday:Sparky could smell the morning.
Wednesday:The rain of a few days ago still hung in the air in a way the bear had never noticed before.
Wednesday:This new world of smells boggled him,
Wednesday:a universe of hidden stories floating through air;
Wednesday:how had he not noticed any of this before?
Wednesday:How could he have not, so obvious it was now.
Wednesday:The moss, the pine, the bears, flowers, fish,
Wednesday:and birds. Even the rocks had a smell,
Wednesday:that mineral taste,
Wednesday:but without his tongue.
Wednesday:Coming to the river falls just south of Bear Lake, Sparky realized how hungry he was.
Wednesday:Being a bear was a hungry affair,
Wednesday:a powerful body to feed,
Wednesday:fat to store, so many tastes to taste.
Wednesday:Sparky dove over the falls headfirst, forelegs splayed in front of him, rear legs powering his leap from the top.
Wednesday:The landing was a belly flop of the finest execution,
Wednesday:water catching the bear, and vaulting up to either side of him.
Wednesday:The distorted sound of the world underwater,
Wednesday:the freshwater scent,
Wednesday:that blueish murky unreality of the world beneath the water's surface.
Wednesday:Salmon owned the world below,
Wednesday:illusive swarms of them churned,
Wednesday:out of easy reach, and too agile to get.
Wednesday:That was fine, they had to come up to get to the lake.
Wednesday:The bear paddled over to one of the shallower areas,
Wednesday:back legs trailing behind him through the water.
Wednesday:Now standing in belly-depth water, he waited.
Wednesday:One by one the fish braved the final jump.
Wednesday:Most of the salmon made it,
Wednesday:lucky them - may there be more salmon next year.
Wednesday:One of the salmon in particular didn’t make it,
Wednesday:the bears patience paying off with an easy midair grab of a fish all but diving into his outstretched mouth,
Wednesday:teeth sinking into the wriggling snack.
Wednesday:Carrying the salmon he swum to the shallows of the shore and started to eat,
Wednesday:holding the fish down with his right paw,
Wednesday:tearing flesh with his mouth.
Wednesday:He repeated this cycle a few times.
Wednesday:The patient waiting,
Wednesday:the catch (or sometimes, ok, often
Wednesday:the snapping of teeth onto naught but the taste of water),
Wednesday:and then bright pink happiness.
Wednesday:Eventually he tired of this, his belly filling.
Wednesday:One last time he flopped down, and caught,
Wednesday:this time he stood,
Wednesday:forepaws coming to rest on the lip of the falls,
Wednesday:pulling the rest of him up.
Wednesday:He carried his catch north,
Wednesday:back to his cave,
Wednesday:back to his favorite napping ledge.
Friday:The view up here
Friday:This morning was for tree climbing.
Friday:Sparky had realized late at night last night that he needed to try climbing a tree.
Friday:His kind, his body was good at that, right?
Friday:Now picking a suitable tree is pretty easy in the Bear Forest,
Friday:as with all things the bear needs: the forest provides. He had one in mind though, a big old pine tree growing on top of the granite palisade his cave was nestled in, The Tree. Usually,
Friday:before, Sparky would have taken the path to the left, or curved around,
Friday:wending up the hill. Today,
Friday:the spirit of the bear moved him to climb.
Friday:He looked up the bouldered ascent,
Friday:piles of rock with small bits of vegetation eking out a living here or there,
Friday:testament to the tiny pockets loamy soil which had accumulated from the winds.
Friday:In a human body plan,
Friday:this would have been a scramble. In the bear body plan?
Friday:Everything was a scramble
Friday:and this felt wonderful.
Friday:Strong paws wrapped around rocky edges, curling to grip.
Friday:His shoulders and hips lifted him with so much ease he almost overshot himself a few times,
Friday:having to breathe,
Friday:calm down and more carefully pick his way up the jagged precipice,
Friday:defying the relentless pull of gravity,
Friday:navigating the vertical hostility with ease.
Friday:Was this what the mountain goat felt like, he mused.
Friday:Cresting the top,
Friday:the view was amazing and he hadn’t even climbed The Tree yet.
Friday:The outcropping was above the tree line of the forest nearby,
Friday:a tiny peek of Bear Lake was visible,
Friday:along with the breathtaking view of Bear Mountain,
Friday:and the Valley of Bears in the distance.
Friday:The Tree is an imposing old fir tree, old as the forest itself.
Friday:The bark-wrapped tower seemed almost out of place,
Friday:growing on the hill above the forest,
Friday:its top standing higher than the canopy Sparky looked out amongst from the outcropping.
Friday:Sure, the mountains reached higher,
Friday:cupping around the Valley of the Bear,
Friday:but right at the tree line,
Friday:The Tree was grand.
Friday:Almost tentatively he reared up,
Friday:hips pulling his frame up, forepaws spreading to accommodate the trunk,
Friday:to grip around it.
Friday:The bark felt rough,
Friday:a craggy texture distinct and grippy to his paw pads.
Friday:The bear squeezed,
Friday:powerful shoulders hugging the tree.
Friday:He lifted a rear leg,
Friday:gripping at the tree,
Friday:and then lifted the other,
Friday:now fully supporting the bear’s weight on treegripped paws.
Friday:Somehow he’d expected it to be a struggle,
Friday:to have to try hard.
Friday:Sparky’s maw cracked open into the biggest grin;
Friday:holding onto the tree was easy,
Friday:trivial. His right forepaw let go,
Friday:repositioning a foot higher on the tree.
Friday:Then his left, followed one at a time by his legs.
Friday:Holy crap, how could hands have been so bad at this,
Friday:weak and tender. Another round of repositioning his paws,
Friday:faster this time.
Friday:And another, traversing the woody high rise as easily as if it were a staircase.
Friday:Faster and faster, the bear almost ran up the tree,
Friday:paws now gripping the bark and weaving up through the branches with confident abandon.
Friday:Realizing he was near the top,
Friday:Sparky stopped, panting.
Friday:The blood pumped through his body,
Friday:frenetic excitement permeating every fiber of his being.
Friday:Spidering up the tree had felt like a magic trick of impossibility,
Friday:a carnival ride of thrills, a kids birthday party worth of joy.
Friday:The view was stunning.
Friday:Bear Lake in all its glory,
Friday:the river coming and going from it.
Friday:The sun rising over the mountains,
Friday:purple orange streaks piercing the clouds and falling down on the forest.
Friday:The fir trees were but a verdant frostspike texture from up here,
Friday:well all the fir trees but the sappy one he now gripped tightly.
Friday:He could smell the pure air up here,
Friday:even the pungent pine couldn’t overpower the…
Friday:freshness, the clarity of the layer above the forest floor.
Friday:Half-sat on a branch,
Friday:half clinging to the trunk,
Friday:Sparky sat, watching the sun rise,
Friday:taking it all in.
Saturday:Hive heist
Saturday:Putting a hive right there,
Saturday:in the tree stump,
Saturday:right at bear’s eye level?
Saturday:Practically an invitation from the bees, right?
Saturday:Sure seemed that way to him at the moment.
Saturday:Sure, he’d watched bears raid hives before…
Saturday:from a distance. Now?
Saturday:With the thicker skin,
Saturday:Sparky figured he’d give it a shot.
Saturday:It looked easy, right?
Saturday:Even from twenty bear paces, the smell of honey was thick in his nostrils,
Saturday:coating them with promises of the treat on the other side of the retrieval task.
Saturday:He approached carefully,
Saturday:thoughtfully. Leathery footpads gently alighting on the rocky soil,
Saturday:legs sliding between grasses and bending small shrubs.
Saturday:Bees were adrift in the air,
Saturday:suspended as if by magic as they came to and from the orangebrown waxy combs.
Saturday:When he was younger,
Saturday:he’d always thought bears and beehives was about the honey.
Saturday:Ursus had let him in on the secret years back: the bee larvae were just as tasty a treat.
Saturday:Sparky was eager to score some for himself.
Saturday:Outside observers might even say too eager,
Saturday:the bear walking straight up to the hive.
Saturday:Sure, the bee’s weren’t too upset by his mere presence,
Saturday:but the hive certainly was aware of him.
Saturday:More bees flying in the air,
Saturday:noticeably so. OK,
Saturday:maybe they were a little upset.
Saturday:Sparky felt one sting his lip as he stepped to the stump,
Saturday:peering over the rim and down onto his target.
Saturday:That wasn’t so bad he thought to himself,
Saturday:a mere prick in his hide.
Saturday:Another sting. Two more.
Saturday:Sparky realized a moment too late, he’d always seen Ursus hurry a bit more than he was.
Saturday:Fuck, more stings. They weren’t bad individually,
Saturday:but the bear felt an invigorated sense of urgency.
Saturday:He reached into the nest,
Saturday:teeth closing around one of the combs.
Saturday:He pulled it free, bees stinging the inside of his lip,
Saturday:his gums as the wax gave way to his strength.
Saturday:FUCK this wasn’t as easy as Ursus made it look.
Saturday:Prize in mouth, Sparky ran.
Saturday:Running was amazing in this body,
Saturday:but Sparky wasn’t very focused on the thrill of his footpads on the loamy soil.
Saturday:Sparky was focused on- CHRIST that was a lot of bees.
Saturday:The pounding vibration of his paws did dislodge the bees from the comb he carried,
Saturday:and eventually he also lost the aerial pursuit.
Saturday:Sparky didn’t care,
Saturday:he didn’t notice.
Saturday:Pure adrenaline coursed through the bear’s veins as he pounded through the forest with his prize.
Saturday:Out of breath, the bear did finally slow,
Saturday:coming to a stop at his familiar cave to take measure.
Saturday:He could already taste sweet honey dripping onto his tongue.
Saturday:He could also feel dozens of stingers embedded in his lips, gums, face, and neck.
Saturday:He dropped the honeycomb on the rock to prod at his face.
Saturday:Lifting a paw, sliding it over the angry flesh did nothing.
Saturday:Sparky dipped his head in the pond.
Saturday:This also did nothing.
Saturday:OK, but this honeycomb. The bear craned down to get a better look at his prize,
Saturday:plated on the rocky ledge.
Saturday:It was smaller than he’d hoped.
Saturday:Undeterred, he lowered his muzzle,
Saturday:taking a bite proper,
Saturday:feeling the waxy cells give way.
Saturday:Larva and honey, a savory sweet mix,
Saturday:a melange of textures,
Saturday:the thick waxy pieces floating in gooey honey
Saturday:and bursty pops of the buttery larvae.
Saturday:Doing his best to ignore the stings,
Saturday:the bear enjoyed
Saturday:his prize. This was “On bein’ bear”
Saturday:by Sparky, read for you by Solomon Harries, a Cuddly Badger Dad.
Saturday:You can find more stories on the web
Saturday:at thevoice.dog,
Saturday:or find the show wherever you get your podcasts.
Saturday:Thank you for listening
Saturday:to The Voice of Dog.