Vaguely, it could recall a time when the sun glossed it's sleek charcoal fur. When the moon's luminous glow sent it off to the peaceful darkness. When some days it rained and when it snowed. When the trees lent their branches to them. When it felt the shifting winds of freedom.
But only vaguely it could.
The days grow longer and longer each month. In turn, months become years and years become decades.
The dull feeling in it's contorted limbs is ever present. It's sore gums still bleed sometimes. The amount of teeth left resting on it's withering jaws are less than a tiny tot's. No amount of chewing on old metal bars can free it from their now eternal prison. The bear lay crushed in the claustrophobic cage same as always; same as all the others.
The smell of iron and blood and waste would surely cause any sane human to double over. Yet they were used to it. The bears were accustomed to the farm's odors. They were familiar with the pained cries and growls of their fellow ursidae. The bears were used to getting no food for weeks, no water for days. They understood each other's pain, when the two-legged demons shoved sacrificial bark into their bodies only to yank it out and let their desired fluids "drip".
But most of all, the bears were used to death. Rotten flesh of those they may had once called a part of the pack in the farm. The stench and the sight; the glistening red of blood and white and black and blue and green of the infections. Ragged black fur turning grey.
Surely one day they'd be able to clearly recall what it was like to be free; to have time fly right past you. To mate and pass on the blessing of life.
But for now all the bears can accomplish is waiting for the inevitable. The slow death stretched across what may feel like centuries.
Some of the bears have never seen light.
Most of them never will.
