Tag Archives: bears

Moulting Bear-Horses

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I am on a rural property. There is a gentle slope to the property, I’m near the bottom of the slope. As I stand and look up the slope, there is a dilapidated building to my left. I’m standing in one of several raised planting beds. It’s been raining, the ground I’m standing on is soggy. About 10 feet in front of me, just up the slope, a wooden fence runs horizontally across the property. On the other side of the fence, again on the right, there is a partially enclosed greenhouse. Beyond that, leading up the slope, is a grassy pasture.

I’m choosing a spot in the planter boxes to sleep. I have a sleeping bag and I’m trying to find the best angle to settle in. It’s daylight, and I can see the sleeping bag is in a muddy puddle. I’m not concerned about this. As I continue to fuss with the sleeping bag, a motion catches my eye across the fence in the greenhouse. I approach the fence to get a better look. There is a large shape moving around in the greenhouse. It’s up off the ground, I think maybe it’s a large monkey. I keep watching it and I realize it’s a bear. I don’t feel any fear, the bear is clambering around less than 20 feet from me.

Suddenly the bear makes a quick move and bolts out of the greenhouse. I wonder which direction it’s going to go. It comes toward the fence but then veers away and heads up the slope. As it runs it transforms into a very shaggy palomino horse.

As soon as it is transformed it turns toward me and gallops hard down the hill. There is no way it is going to stop, so I duck down as close to the fence as I can. The horse jumps the fence, right over top of me. I can smell it. I can also see large tufts of hair flying off the horse as it runs.

The horse skids to a halt, turns, and runs back at me. Again I duck down, pressing hard against the fence. The horse jumps back over the fence, mud and hair flying everywhere. He gallops hard back up the hill. From a distance he is beautiful, but as he turns and comes at me again, he is even more patchy and sick looking.

I wake up.

Compliant Bears, LPs and Xylophones

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A female coworker an I have been dropped off at the bottom of a gravel driveway in a rural area. The driveway is narrow and about 150 meters long, fairly steep, and veers off to the right at the top so we can’t quite see the house it leads to.

We are nearing the top when my colleague notices a large bear heading our direction. The bear is closing in on us, and there is nowhere to go, there is a bank and dense trees on either side of the driveway. We press ourselves against the bank and hope the bear will just pass. That’s when we notice there are actually several bears, many of them look like cubs and juveniles.

I step away from the bank and start directing the bears past us, starting with the mother bear. I’m waving them down the driveway as though I’m a deckhand on a ferry, or at least a traffic control person. The bears one by one pass us by and amble down the driveway. We carry on to the house.

I never arrive at the house, instead I arrive at a little shed. Inside I find my parents and my uncle sitting around a large old looking device. I ask what they are doing, and without looking up from their task they tell me they are recording jazz.

I inspect the machine they are working on more closely. It is cream coloured, sort of resembling a really large, old amplifier. On top is a record player of sorts, and there are slots for two cassettes on the front. There are records lying around everywhere, they are all different sizes and shapes, ranging from small and round to larger and more oval. Everything on the machine seems to be moving, but no sound is coming out. I watch for a while.

We are all around a large “L” shaped dinner table.  There is a small toy xylophone at each end of the table and several people, including myself, have small mallets. We randomly reach out and strike the xylophones with the mallets. As I watch, the xylophone nearest me changes from it’s rectangular shape, and the colorful keys shrink and warp into the shape of potato chips, freeing themselves from the body of the xylophone. People begin molding the newly shaped keys into the piles of silly putty that are on the table, and wondering aloud why the keys no longer make music.