Bears. They are quite nice you might think but think again, they are just balls of teeth and big claws. Danger. That is the word that should immediately pounce into your mind when you think of bears. Scientists have recently discovered a worrying trend among young bears that has shocked them to the core of their scientificness.
Young bears, mostly teenagers, are starting to carry knives. If it’s not bad enough that testosterone filled packages of teeth and big claws are roaming the forest they are now tooled up. Imagine if you were a young boy called Timmy who was around twelve years old and you go into the forest to pick some berries for your Mum who is going to make some kind of berry based pie or edible product. As Timmy innocently and gently meanders his way through the sun-dappled Eden there is a bear on an intercept course. The bear is curious to the noises of berries being plucked from their little branches and wants to have a little look, as this is his neighbourhood and he is quite territorial. And he has a knife. So, there’s Timmy, head down totally absorbed in his task of worship to his Mother, tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth with concentration, when all of a sudden there is a bear in front of him. Standing right there, right in front of him. Well, Timmy quite understandably gets a surprise. Although he knows that bears live in this forest he also knows that the bears usually keep to themselves and don’t bother anyone. This bear it seems has something to prove, some unquenchable thirst to cause harm and pain. It’s the knife. The knife gives the bear a cocky attitude and makes him feel hard. The bear likes to turn the knife around in his pocket all the time. The knife becomes a part of the bear, an extension of his paw, his blood pulses through it, flesh and steel merge to become one. Timmy, employing the technique of scaring away bears that he has seen on many nature programs that he likes to watch, is slightly bemused when the bear simply stands up on his hind legs and stares at him for an uncomfortably long moment. Timmy’s jaw drops open however when he sees a flash of steel and his basket of lovingly gathered forest fruits lands on the ground spilling its contents around his feet. The bear is twitching the knife so that light dances along the razor edge and Timmy is mesmerized by it, all the nature programs in the world can’t help him now. The bear has a knife. If the bear was not already a dangerous animal it is now pure anger and unpredictable and don’t forget, it still has teeth and big claws if by chance it happened to drop the knife. A swish, a flash of metal, all the forest birds rise up in unison trying desperately to escape the horror beneath them, eyes wide with fear. As a ray of cold light holds Timmy to the ground the bear simply sheathes the knife and walks away acting all hard, swinging his shoulders thinking he is tough. Without the blade he would be nothing, just a stupid bear with an attitude problem. Just a bear. But with a knife he is a bear with undefeatable courage, a bomb with a hair trigger just waiting to go off at the slightest provocation, a meteor about to collide with your world, an upturned rusty nail at the beach, an unwatched pot of water about to come to the boil with no-one to turn the cooker off. In short; a nasty piece of work, a runaway train with no breaks, an unbroken horse trying to throw a rider, a rattlesnake coiled up in a bush waiting for your hand to reach in to pick something up that you dropped, the slippery wet area around a swimming pool.
Dragging himself home through the mud and unable to see through tears Timmy collapses at the edge of the forest where a farmer or some other simple villager type person sees him and runs away to Timmy’s house to tell his Mum that Timmy has been the target of a bear's hatred. Timmy recovers eventually but the mental damage is unstoppable, as every time he looks in the mirror there is the mark left by the bear that had the knife, a mark that runs across his face in an ugly white line. The mark of a bear with a knife. Timmy has become another victim of a bear with a knife.
So let Timmy’s story be a lesson to you; don’t sell knifes to bears. If a young bear stops you outside a hardware store and asks you to buy a knife for him just say no and quickly walk away. If you hear about a store that is selling knifes to bears inform your local scientist immediately. And most importantly: if you are called Timmy, don’t go gathering berries in the forest.
/Ginger Snap.
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