Seeing a Man about a Bear

By Harry Hext

Alpine Fellowship 2022 – Writing Prize Honourable Mention

Next door owns a bear. I’ve heard it almost every night for a week. It’s amazing that he actually got it through the door, pets aren’t allowed, and having been inside that apartment, it really isn’t that much bigger than mine, definitely not enough room for a bear.

James and I aren’t close. In fact, I can count the number of times I’ve seen him on one hand. The most interesting was when my girlfriend and I went over to introduce ourselves. We took wine and chocolates, when he told us quite frankly that he couldn’t drink wine, he wasn’t an alcoholic, he was quick to tell us, wine just made him different. Neither I nor Charlotte went further than that, and the bottle is still sat in my cupboard today.

There isn’t anything different about him, aside from the bear. Lonely, he seemed perfectly normal on every occasion. Cooking for us and offering his opinions on my work. From someone who’s most interesting read was The Times on Sunday, I didn’t take his advice, but was glad he gave it all the same. He even said he’d pass my work on, but I never got an email or anything back, I think the bear took up too much of his time after the last time we met.

The mid-April sun woke me up a little later than I would have liked, I made coffee, sat down at my desk and attempted to write.

Charlotte and I chose the place we live based on how quiet it is. There’s a good amount of light coming in through the windows in the morning through to late afternoon, and it wasn’t one of those apartment blocks we had heard lots of misfortune the things about. Plus, there wasn’t going to be roaring waking me up or disrupting my writing, then I heard it.

It was like a gruff yawn at first. Unlike any scream or cry I had heard before, unlike any scene from a movie, unlike anything real. I startled up from my chair and rushed to the back window; the sun echoed around the shade of the trees as they rustled in the wind. The earth yawned again, pulling me to the other side of the block.

A huge block of grey matter stood in the hallway. On four legs, it was proud as it scouted around its surroundings, each fibre of the carpet looked terrified, as if it were about to be crushed under the weight of our new resident. The round ball of its behind hid James in deep cover, as he was fiddling with the door, struggling to get his keys to work (he often had a problem with that, the bear would tell me later) before the door cracked open and he and the bear subtracted behind it.

 I called Charlotte on my phone instantly.

She refused to believe I had seen a bear in our building. I’m writing too much, she said, or reading too much Stephen King. She was away on a trip, I missed her, but more wished that she was there to see James’s new companion. It’s not every day you get to meet an animal like that.

I thought the best way to confirm the bear’s existence was to make better friends with our neighbour. Charlotte and I never really tried with people. We had friends that we saw, and relatives that we visited when she wasn’t away for work. There never really seemed like much point in making the effort with people who we didn’t think would be around for long between moving, but I was looking to begin settling, and figure out just how James escaped the no pet rule.

'Well, it’s not every day you get to live with a bear’

He had invited me over first, as if he wanted to show off his new toy for the world. The bear sat in its cage, watching nature shows on TV, while we talked. James had taken to drinking a beer with the bear in the evenings while they watched National Geographic. It seemed like a lovely existence.

Despite the bear keeping me up at strange hours of the night because of its painful yawning, James and I became friends over the experience. With Charlotte still away, and calling me less and less, I started to spend more time with him and the bear. James insisted that he couldn’t come up with a name for the animal, which Bear looked sad about when James said it too loud.

I decided to call it simply Bear when it was just us. James had also left for the weekend, and asked me to bear sit. With my writing dried up, I thought it would be a good chance to reset for a couple of days.

Bear made a good companion whilst Charlotte was gone. We had found that the sea life National Geographic’s were our favourites, tuning in at 6pm each day to see the schools of fish swim around. I had got Bear into some of my favourite meals, it felt nice to cook for someone again, seeing him rip apart cuisines from Spanish to Korean, each time his paws tearing through the plates.

Bear’s cage took up most of the room, it was placed perfectly in the living room allowing Bear to catch up on his fishing shows, but it left no room for much else to happen. Despite its relative size, the cage still allowed little more room for much else than Bear’s grey coat. James told me he had to get rid of most of his stuff to house the bear, becoming a minimalist was something he wanted anyway, so it was the perfect time. As a result, the place felt cold. Bear’s hairs shivered in the climate, the cool white walls gave us some space, but it still wasn’t enough.

Bear looked sad, not because he missed his owner, I changed the channel for him, something more exciting than nature, made him dinner, as well as pasta for myself, and sat next to him for a while. We were hopping through channels. Both Bear and I sat in cold silence. A family of bears crept around on the screen, the biggest one, a tall figure, double the size of Bear looked lost. Somebody was reading a poem by Shelly over a somber beat, it was one of the most abstract advertisements I’d ever seen, but I felt so moved. I wondered how it felt to be the bear on TV, trapped by life as a Bear and yet, the endless wild. I wondered if Bear thought the same. Pathetically, I noticed it was raining outside, the patter against the windows echoed around the room as their faces moved across the screen, Shelly faded into the background. Somehow, Bear and I concluded similar things about our lives.

The rain picked up. She picked up her bags anyway, saying it was exactly what she needed to do, give her the meaning she’s always wanted. Charlotte was always more empathetic than me, it’s why I love her.

Bear reached a paw out as the rain tumbled down.

My writing dried up over the days, so I hung out with Bear more and more. It was incredible what you could learn from a Bear. His movements were peaceful and extreme simultaneously, his yawns continued throughout our time together, but he felt sympathetic to me. James was still gone, and it was just us two. James told me to never let him out of the cage, as though he was terrified it would have anywhere to run in his matchbox of an apartment. Yet, the more time we spent seeing the ad of animals run free on TV, the worse I felt for him.

Charlotte told me once about how she used to have puppies at her parent's house. They acted as her distraction from law school as she retreated to her family home in the summer. She loved animals, another contrast between us, and every day she leaped at the chance to take her families pets on their walk. The endless countryside in the summer, her face lit with the sunshine, the dogs running free, animals should always be free I remember her telling me over a documentary one evening.

I awoke to find Bear sleeping. His grey fur was beginning to look unkept, and marks appeared along the floor of his cage from the grasps of his nails. His peaceful sleep was briefly interrupted by the disturbing noises he made, but the room lay still while he laid down. Life without Charlotte had failed to sink in, she was coming back but when? I sat up and took stock of my situation. Taking over from James, looking after Bear had brought me a companion, yet I felt exhausted.

At my apartment, I struggled. The thoughts I had of Charlotte and Bear collided. Images of the cage repeated and merged with the sunlight before there was a voicemail. Charlotte spoke calmly and explained. It cut off her voice early, and left me even more confused. I couldn’t focus, Bear howled from across the hall as the door rattled.

James had returned from his trip, further distracting me. I thanked him as he pointed out the wine I had on the side, ‘no man should drink alone’ he said. And then again I found myself in the company of him and Bear.

It took a few glasses to realise that he had drunk with me.

'Nothing else in the house’ he told me with a wry smile.

Despite not making much of the man, I think Charlotte would have liked him in this moment. James seemed to come to life with the alcohol. He was animated, those dull opinions I had known him for before came out in force, and he recommended me dozens of books. Knowing I was struggling to write anything, he promised me that we would go on retreat, then I could see the collection of animals, he said.

'Collection?’

It seemed Bear was no pet. As he told me what he did truly for a living, I thought of Charlotte, our partnership, the bear’s running wild, Bear and I clinking beer cups. I thought of being together.

He continued to stab at me, knowing the closeness of Bear and I. It’s like he enjoyed tormenting me, that leaving me without anyone in the world apart from him and my failing writing career. The anger welled inside, not only would he kill the bear, against any wishes, but he would reduce me to nothing. I looked at my only friend I had in Bear; who now seemed aware of his fate as he lied down in pity. The wine in my glass grew warm, my thoughts jumbled, a final yawn cracked around the apartment block.

I hit James once. Then again. Then a third time, so hard that there was no blood left in his face. It pooled around him as the ground shuddered. Bear conflictingly cried as the grey began to mix with the maroon of his owner's blood.

As I released Bear from his cage, he hugged me, neither him nor I had an idea of where to go, but we’ would find it. The hug was long and warming; and for the first time since I had met him, I found myself able to think.

About the author:

Harry Hext

Harry Hext works in marketing, using his spare time to write both non-fiction and fiction. He is currently working on his debut collection of short stories.