Weekend with a bear

One fine day my little sis called up and asked me to write a one page essay on 'A weekend with a bear'. I ask her why and she says 'Because I said so'.

So I sit down and write the lamest essay I have ever written. She hated it. But what the heck, I'm gonna post it anyway. Here goes...

Weekend with a Bear

When you spend a weekend with a bear, you always get the weak end of the bargain. But in my case it was different. How? Let me tell you.

I am not much of an outdoors person, but I like going camping and driving around in the countryside once in a while. The ‘once-in-a-while’ probably has come just twice in my life. The first one was a total disaster that ended with water all around and a dead frog. But that is another story. This is the story of my second excursion into the wild.

It wasn’t planned. It was a Saturday and I had set out on my motorbike for a nice ride around the hills near my house. All I wanted was some quiet time to myself. I had a backpack which had a couple of books, a matchbox, some frozen chicken, some canned food, some apples and a bottle of Worcestershire sauce. There were also some other knick-knacks that I will tell you later about. The later is now. The knick knacks were a pocket knife, dental floss, Bandar chaap toothpowder, one extra large pajama, one towel - rather frayed at the edges and my phone plus charger – although I didn’t know where I was gonna plug it in.

So, there I was, driving around on my Harley Davidson, feeling like the wind. I had set out in the morning and had covered a lot of distance by noon. The road was winding up a mountain and it was becoming narrower and narrower. There were huge trees all around. Suddenly I felt a commotion in my stomach which told me that I was hungry. I decided to park the bike behind a small clump of bushes and set out into the jungle to find a place to settle down and eat. After I had walked through the thick undergrowth for a while, I came into a clearing which looked like heaven. The light from the sun was streaming through the large trees but not quite reaching the ground. The leaves cast shadows all around and moved with the wind… as if they were dancing. Right through the center there was a small stream running. It had perfectly clear water and was shallow and narrow enough that I could step on the stones and jump across to the other side.

I did just that because the ground was higher there and so a little more dry. I sat beneath a tree and pulled out an apple from my bag and munched on it. Everything was quiet except for the occasional bird or the rustling of leaves and of course the soft gurgling of the stream nearby. After I had finished the apple, I filled some water into my water bottle from the stream and drank the sweet water to my hearts content. Then I sat down to read a little, but about an hour later I started feeling sleepy. So I curled up, put the bag under my head and dozed off beneath the tree.

I woke up a short while later when I thought that I heard someone. I looked around but could see no one, but I felt like I was being watched. The sun was still up in the sky and I was sweating a little. I pulled off my jacket and shoes and washed up at the stream. When I returned I still couldn’t shake off the feeling of being watched. Then, I saw him. He was larger than me, but not that large for a bear. He had thick brown fur, large brown eyes and a round black nose. He was standing on his hind legs and peeping from behind a tree. He was a young bear probably just recently weaned from his mother and never seen a human before. Bears have a great sense of smell and can smell food from several miles away. It was the smell of the chicken that attracted him I suppose. I was terribly scared, for although this was a young bear, he could still be very dangerous. All the horror stories I had heard of people being mauled came to me all at once and I think I fainted.

When I regained consciousness I felt something wet on my cheek. I opened my eyes and stared into large brown eyes. The bear was had his nose on my cheek. I gave a little shout and that scared him. He quickly ran off into the trees again. That surprised me a bit. I quickly wore my shoes and jacket, gathered up my bag and stood up to leave when I heard a little whimper. It was the bear. He was peeping from the trees again and making sounds as if he wanted to say something.

I turned around and said ‘What?’ He got scared again and hid behind the trees. Then slowly he poked his head out again. Then he said something that sounded like ‘Wua wua wua’. Was he repeating what I said? I don’t know yet. So I said ‘Are you hungry?’ He said ‘Wua wua wuaaaa’. I slowly put my bag down. The bear shifted a bit out in the open. I said, ‘Stay there. I will throw you some chicken and then you can let me go.’ I was opening my bag when I felt that the bear was moving. I looked up and said, ‘I said stay there!’

That’s when I noticed that he was limping a bit. It looked like he had hurt one of his paws. But I was too scared to take a closer look. He took my hesitation as an invitation and started walking towards me… limping rather. I stood rooted and terrified. Then, when he was so close that I could almost smell his breath, I shook myself and started backing off. ‘Wua wua’ he said again. I stopped and looked. He was holding up his right paw. There was a thorn in it. I didn’t know if I could help him, but I felt sorry for him. I thought, ‘Let me at least try’. I put down all my stuff and moved to take a closer look. The thorn was stuck close to one of his enormous nails and cut into his flesh a bit. It must have been really painful.

‘Stay still’ I told him… not that he could understand a word! But he seemed to understand and sat down holding up his paw. I gently took his paw in one hand and touched the thorn with the other…. ‘Wua wua wauaaaa’ he cried, but held still. I closed my eyes, sent up a prayer and pulled out the thorn in one quick jerk. ‘Wuaaaaa’ he cried, but not in pain. He was happy and got up and did a little jig which means he went round and round as if chasing his tail. Then he looked up at me and I could swear that he was smiling. I quickly opened up the pack of chicken and offered it to him. He looked at it suspiciously first, but quickly grabbed it and gobbled it up in an instant. Then he ran off into the trees again. I thought he was gone for good and turned to go my way when I heard a ‘Wua’ again. He returned rolling a large water melon with him. He came and put it near my feet as if offering it to me. I looked up questioningly. He seemed to think I didn’t know what it was, so he took it and plunked it on the ground and it broke into several pieces. Then he took one piece and scraped the tender red flesh off it and offered me one piece saying ‘Wua’. I took it that he wanted me to eat it, so I did. It was the most delicious water melon I had ever tasted. We sat down and polished off the rest of it. By now the shadows were growing longer and I had to leave. I patted the bear on his head and said goodbye. I hurried back to my bike still not believing what just happened.

When I returned and told my friends this story, they didn’t believe me. It seems a bit unreal to me too, but all this really happened. I had the most wonderful weekend with a bear and lived to tell the tale.