ORIGIN: What can we say, it’s all there.
Recycling is a hobby of ours. Those bear heads deserved their own little story, and if you turn that elephant and cat combination upside down, the original bear should still be there, clear as day.
You might be wondering what swans have to do with anything. On the day that bear made its appearance and took center stage, there was no last song. Only a scream, that turned back time. Ugliness still echoes through that boy’s blood. There’s no mute button. Closing his eyes won’t work. Believe me, I would know.
Do you know what cutting an apple in half is called? No? Let me put you out of your misery. The answer is Nightfall, because that’s when the stars appear. But we were talking about beheading a bear, were we not? That boy was probably disappointed. Because remorse is cold comfort, if that. And believe it or not, it’s a human emotion. Something you can’t expect from an animal.
Bear paw prints remind me of candles on a birthday cake. I don’t like myself very much right now. It’s the fifth anniversary of someone’s death. We didn’t share 50% of our DNA, but my heart is full to the brim with her hopes and dreams, and so was hers. It hurts. My wish is to blow out every last candle and watch the smoke clear. I want to forget everything we shared. I need room for something new. I don’t think I am ready for hopes and dreams. Baby steps. I should start with something that doesn’t leave me feeling like I have been mauled by a bear. If only I knew what that looks like.
Dust to dust sounds nice. Someone I loved was dying, and I was told that she would soon become a star. I still had trouble counting beyond 100, but I spent countless sleepless nights getting the numbers right. All I wanted was to treasure her memory, and I was ready to mark her with an X in the star chart. But the night she turned to dust, nothing changed. I was told not to be so impatient. But I was a child. I lived by the words out of sight, out of mind. And I couldn’t keep my heart from moving on to the next shiny thing. Unlike that boy.
I don’t think I have revenge in me. I’ve never had an affinity with numbers. Newton’s third law doesn’t apply to me. I’ve been playing with words since I was a child. I’ve tried on for size countless definitions of love, but my heart isn’t made of paper and I can’t seem to trace that feeling. Who knows, maybe I haven’t applied enough pressure yet. But I am not a bear. I don’t weigh 1200 pounds. My heart has never gone over 100 bpm. And that means that I can’t empathize with that boy.
Little Brother: Why won’t you push me on the swings anymore? It’s not like we live in bear country.
Big Sister: Says the one that still sleeps with a teddy bear in his arms every night.
Little Brother: You might have forgotten because it’s been a while, but you can’t feel pain in a dream.
Big Sister: And you might not know because you have yet to set foot in the real world, but all dreaming does is lower your pain threshold.
Little Brother: Where did the fireworks go? Did father take them with him when he left and all the weight of our home fell on your shoulders?
Big Sister: …
Little Brother: I think I’m ready to forgive and forget him. No more what-ifs. I’m ready to jump from the swing, get on with my life and never look back.
Big Sister: …
Little Brother: What about you?
Big Sister: I missed my chance to run away screaming, so I guess I will just play dead until you come of age.
Little Brother: …
Little Brother: Do you love me?
Big Sister: If I didn’t love you, why would I give you an apple a day?
Little Brother: Is that what you are giving me? I thought it was a dream a night.
Big Sister: They are one and the same.
Little Brother: No, they are not. You are setting me up for disappointment and an early grave.
Big Sister: What gives you that impression?
Little Brother: The fact that the muscles in my feet have wasted away, and thanks to you I won’t be able to get back on them.
Little Brother: Correct me if I am wrong/
Big Sister: That’s what sisters are for.
Little Brother: Did the words I want to be as tall as a tree ever come out of my mouth?
Big Sister: Don’t you remember? You had a bad dream. You told me that your teddy bear tore you to pieces and fed you to some sapling. But you had no talent and it never grew into a tree. You felt like your dream didn’t love you back. Like it never would. And I had to come up with something to make you stop crying.
Little Brother: And this is what you came up with?
Big Sister: Yes.
Little Brother: I don’t like reading books. Papercuts hurt.
Big Sister: And you think dreams don’t have sharp edges because the stars you know and love are dotted on the night sky? A part of me wants you to take a closer look, but you should keep your teddy bear company. I don’t need it quite yet.
Little Brother: I think we are talking at cross purposes. What I meant was that you are an open book and I have already learned the alphabet. I can’t help reading you. I am already familiar with the grudges you bear, and I need you to close that book, before I find myself without a home.
This is what you took away from the story I just told you? Two bear heads? I guess I should give you the benefit of the doubt. You have taken pity on that boy and this is your way of changing the ending of the story. You have taken revenge out of the equation. You have even double-checked it, just to be on the safe side. How nice. Let’s hear a happier ending.
There was still a piece of the little sister he knew and loved left. It was tethered to the swings where she was happiest. So much so that walking on clouds paled in comparison. He took them down, set them ablaze, and scattered the ashes. He set his little sister’s happiness free. That she may be whole. Somewhere far, far away from him and the unrecognizable, hellish thing that would forever live on in his memory.
It wasn’t an act of revenge. Self-preservation, that’s what it was. Heads had to roll that he may fast-forward and forget. Be done with grief before it reduced him to nothing.
He peeled an apple with the skin intact. And another and another and another. He didn’t put the katana down until it had lost its edge. The apples? They were green. Because there’s already enough blood on the horizon, and what he needed was hope. Believing that his little sister was in a better place, and he had had a hand in gift-wrapping it for her.
The boy heard of a hummingbird that can be seen from space. It’s etched deep into some desert, and that’s what he set out to recreate. He sliced and diced the color green. Only particles of sand were allowed in his little corner of the world. His little sister used to look up at the stars. Now she could only look down from them. She needed a different place to dream, and he would give her the mirror image of his barren heart. Countless new constellations for her to connect.
There was so much blood. It kept screaming I miss you, and he finally gave in to its demands. He unraveled his katana and used it to wrap his wounds. He put everything in writing, and when he was done, he thumbed through an address book. Heaven. Heaven. Heaven. There it was, he almost missed it. His little sister needed to know that she was loved. And grief was the only gift he could come up with.
With Bear Boulder: I don’t want a stone sitting in the middle of my heart. This unbearable thing has to go.
With Bear Cupcake: You are braver than I am.
With Bear Boulder: This isn’t bravery. It’s basic survival instinct.
With Bear Cupcake: Mine tells me to swallow my tears and eat cupcakes. Something sprinkled in sweetness. Because those are the flowers my watery grave deserves.
With Bear Boulder: Out with the old. Bears have it right; I will wake up refreshed from this winter sleep.
With Birthday Cake: Is that how you would describe them? The word that comes to my mind is half starved.
With Bear Boulder: That’s because you have regrets. I would never eat my birthday cake on a full stomach. I know a recipe for disaster when I see one.
With Bear Boulder: I wish I were a Mama Bear. I wish I felt the urge to protect something tooth and nail. But I learned by example to give up and throw most everything far, far away from my heart.
With Bonbons: Who cares about your heart? I’ve been eating chocolates all my life. Somebody decided that this is how to say I love you, and I am sick and tired of it. I don’t have anything against unoriginality. With more than 8 billion people in the world, overlap is a given. There is no such thing as a one of a kind. But the least they should have done was put the effort into getting to know me.
With Bear Boulder: I am not afraid of the things that keep me up at night. Apathy is my worst nightmare. The weight that crushes my chest. I dread the winter I sleep like a bear.
With Bear Cupcake: I know how you feel. I don’t want to live to be one hundred. I would never waste my birthday wish on something that won’t even end in tears. Forever isn’t a smile that stretches beyond the horizon. It’s a flatline and its name is Detachment.
With Bear Boulder: I’m tired of being told to just grin and bear it. I feel like smashing something. But I know it would be in vain. Puzzle pieces aren’t meant to be forced together and nothing will ever change.
With Candle: At least they have reasonable expectations for you. Smiling is a science, and I can tell you all the facial muscles involved in it. But they expect me to let my inner light shine, and I have yet to find an anatomy book that shows me what that’s supposed to look like.
Bear: Most birds have already flown the nest, but I know there’s still a thought chirping in your mind. Care to share?
Child: Not really.
Bear: I have honey to bribe you with.
Child: I don’t need help dreaming.
Bear: I know. That’s not what honey is for.
Child: I’m not afraid of falling out of love.
Bear: That’s because you are young and you still think that people, like dreams, are replaceable.
Bear: I like the taste of freedom.
Child: I’m a child. Someone else pays the bills of this nest while I play without a care in the world and dream bigger than the sun. Does that count?
Bear: I don’t see why not. Everyone has their own truth.
Child: I’ve heard that snake tastes of chicken.
Bear: …
Child: I’ve also heard that a long, long time ago we lived in a beautiful garden and a snake is to blame.
Bear: …
Child: You are a dreamer, aren’t you? You should know what I am trying to ask.
Bear: …
Child: Do you think that snake was afraid of ruining perfection by its own hand and that is why it chose the easy way out?
Bear: …
Child: I like your eyes.
Bear: What’s there to like? Stars can’t be touched and dreams don’t come true.
Child: I couldn’t have said it better.
Bear: That’s what you like?
Child: Sure. In this day and age everyone is just a phone call away. But distance makes the heart grow fonder and I wish I hadn’t missed my chance to write letters. I have pretty handwriting and I am a good dreamer. But I know what justice is and, unlike reality, I would never clip the wings of my birds.
Bear: I have feathers stuck in my throat.
Child: I know, freedom is not all it’s made out to be. Winters are cold and stomachs growl.
Bear: But some birds have been known to stay 10 months in the air, and I thought I would have more time before disillusion set in.
Bear on stilts: I’m here to rescue a cat from a tree.
Child: Be my guest.
Bear on stilts: There’s nothing I would like more, but your elephants are giving me the evil eye.
Child: Don’t mind them. My memories are not what they used to be. Soon I will be a grown-up and I won’t have much to live for.
Bear on stilts: I don’t see what that has to do with this cat.
Child: Isn’t it obvious? Hoarders are cat people and my elephants are reluctant to part with one of the few things that are worth remembering in this life.
Bear on stilts: I was striving for a bird’s eye view.
Child: And that’s the best you could come up with? Forget my cat, from that height, even I would land on my feet.
Bear on stilts: …
Child: Don’t sound so heartbroken, I will feel bad for you. Let me think. I know! What do you say I sweep you off your feet and you flap your arms as if they were wings?
Bear on stilts: I’m not interested in those tiny dots called stars. If I were, I would have tilted my head back. All I ever wanted was to grow fonder of the things that are within my reach.
Child: Cats are heartless little things that like to toy with their prey.
Bear on stilts: If you say so.
Child: I do. The kind thing would have been to get my tongue. But that cat has muted all my memories. My happiness. My sadness. My anger. I feel like a puppet whose strings have been torn to shreds. I can’t move because I no longer know where I am coming from.
Bear on stilts: I would give you my condolences, but I can’t put myself in your shoes. I have no use for a life where the past dictates the future. I want to grow up and step out of the shadow of this cub, that had its time and place and shouldn’t keep intruding on mine.
Bear on stilts: I want to have a snowball fight with the moon.
Child: I would rather unravel it like a ball of yarn.
Bear on stilts: Is that your inner cat speaking?
Child: Probably. But it would be doing my memory a favor.
Bear on stilts: You want to forget the moon?
Child: Not really. What I want is to stop seeing the sun everywhere I look. There has to be more to life, but I’m starting to feel codependent, and I know that way lies madness.
Bear on stilts: There was a time when I could climb trees.
Child: Everyone has been a child at some point. Not that long ago, I could smile like a cat that got the cream, but every time someone opens their mouth, a bubble bursts somewhere. Just be thankful that there are no splinters stuck in your heart.
Bear on stilts: I liked being a cub. I cut down that tree and made it into these stilts to try and keep that memory alive.
Child: Don’t worry. You are not a monster. Most people don’t know when to say goodbye. It’s sad, but you are not alone. Just don’t expect too much. Lower the bar, and that thing on your face should still pass for a smile.