Gallows Humour | Watty's 2023

The Consequences of Punching a Bear

Seven days in, travel was simultaneously much faster than their usual pace, since they weren't stopping to harvest, and agonizingly slow. It got a little less mind numbing when they made it out of the plains, but navigating the mountains slowed their progress. And it rained. A lot. A mist of grey rain stuck to their skin and turned the terrain slick, running in little rivers down their legs and filling up their heavy boots.

They were off the highways, on a stretch of the highlighter trail between the roads and a town that marked the halfway point. Kiari's mother had added a tiny handwritten note that read 'take the deer paths'. Of which there were about five thousand. Winding through the trees, breaking apart in clearings and re-forming as three new paths on the other side. But the trails were easier to traverse than the rest of the untamed landscape and they all ran the same general direction.

True craned their neck to squint at the clouded sky. Thin, sprinkly rain caught on their eyelashes, forcing them to blink. It was hard to tell what time it was with the sun behind a curtain of gauze, but their stomach said noon.

They stopped, threw their pack under the tree with the widest dry circle around the trunk, and scooted under with it. Pulling out their dried meat, they skimmed the surroundings for Radio. They hadn't figured out if it was intentionally creepy all the time, or if it was just preternaturally eerie. At any rate, it drifted in and out of perception in fields of tall grass and the woods. They were making a game out of how long it took to spot it. Zero points if it made it to the fireside first.

Scan left, nothing. Scan right, nothing. Not unusual. They tried again, slower, more attentively. Still nothing to the left, but there, to the right of a fat oak. Or maple, or whatever the hell. Gotcha. They flicked a pine needle at it.

The mass shifted. Huge, black... huger, way too huge. Damn, the bridge of their nose scrunched, not Radio after all.

They watched the bear's rump wobble over the bush, a hint of apprehension curdling in their stomach. Setting their lunch to the side, they leaned forward to get a better eye on the surroundings. The image of Radio getting turned into a bear snack making an entrance stage right of their brain. How would they know, it didn't scream. Did it?

Plastic rustling sent goosebump thrilling up their arm.

Zero points, they thought, relaxing back into their shelter. Their fingers brushed fur. They yanked their hand back and bopped the snoopy wild animal without looking. Without thinking. The plaintive yowl of a miffed bear cub right beside their ear shot ice through their veins.

It seemed almost impossible how fast mama bear wheeled around, a snarl curling on her muzzle, fangs bared and dripping. True didn't stick around to contemplate the physics of it.

"Why couldn't you have been a bunny?" they hissed as they scrambled out from under the tree. Boot slipping. Rain in their eyes. Adrenaline spiked every sense at the rumble of mama bear's bellow and her steps thundering towards them.

Of all the stupid things. They cursed themself out, hurtling fallen trees and dodging upright ones at a dead sprint. Twigs gouged their clothes and bark scraped their skin. Hot breath rolled down their neck. Never in a million lifetimes could they outrun a bear. They couldn't stop running either. Stop running, die. Keep running, die anyways. Why were those always the choices they got dealt?

Their heavy boots fought for traction on the wet forest floor until, abruptly, it wasn't there.

The forest hadn't thinned out or stopped a significant warning distance from the edge of the cliff. Instead, the stubborn fir trees had dug their roots down into rocky earth and left nothing but a sharp drop to certain death disguised beyond their branches. True plummeted.