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Can bears talk ...?
Is not a question I had contemplated before today. Not a question, believe it or not, that had even tickled my consciousness prior to this evening’s trip home. Instead, at the time of boarding this train, there is another query percolating in my brain. Why was Mandy so affronted by the state in which I’d shown up for our first date?
Marketing Executive Mandy. From Kingston-Upon-Hull. And who, according to her Insta profile, is a “Techno Queen” who loves nothing more than to “let loose after a week of working hard to be able to play even harder. Painting nails emoji. Devil emoji. Pill emoji (times three). Wink emoji (times two). Sloshed face emoji. XOXO.”
This thought frazzles my mind as I slump into the corner seat, a musty scent puffing out from its cushioning and into the stale air. The train is packed with the odd vacant seat here and there and feels excessively well lit. I find myself squinting and wishing I had some light-blocking curtains I could drape around me.
The seat in which I find myself is one of those priority ones. The kind designated for the elderly, the disabled and the pregnant. None of which is a group to which I can lay claim. Although, my nipples definitely feel rather tender at the moment, so actually, who is to say?
In front of me is a bear. Not an actual bear, I don’t think. I say this with some trepidation because I’ve gummed a bit of mandy. Nope, not that Mandy (chance would be a fine thing!).
No, the actual Mandy made quite clear that she felt dabbling in disco biscuits to be not an appropriate 6pm afternoon activity. Particularly on a Tuesday, and on a first date where one could expect the consumption of a two-, maybe three-course meal to be accompanied by some flirty, possibly, but certainly by some coherent conversation. Something which Mandy felt, on first impression, might well be beyond my capabilities.
Bit harsh.
And so no sooner had I sat down than I was coming up, and she was standing up and storming out. Mandy, very much sober, and myself, as high as a brash billionaire orbiting the earth.
So no, nothing much really happened between myself and Mandy tonight. Much to my dismay. And instead I now find myself here, sat opposite a bear on the evening commute home.
Or what I think is a bear. But that in reality might well be nothing more than a ginormous man who’s all hair and little eyes.
But he also might be a bear.
A bear in Whitechapel, on the Hammersmith and City line, also in a priority seat. I know it’s unlikely but …
Unless it’s a pregnant bear? Or maybe bears are just entitled to priority seats? Even ones who read the Daily Telegraph and wear tartan turtleneck jumpers.
I feel a sudden urge to engage with the giant furry mammal. This might well be my first and only chance to speak to a bear. I stagger to my feet, my legs unsteady. I wrap my hand around the cold mustard-coloured handrail and just about manage to remain upright. My jaw’s on a bit of an adventure, jutting in and out like a hungry hippo.
I find myself getting lost in the simile. Harking back to the days when my sister, Tabbatha, and I would smash away at those hippos in a competitive frenzy. I wonder what links a psychologist might draw from those childhood chompathons and the adults we are today, given that Tabby now works in a zoo, and I remain partial to the gobbling of the occasional white pill?
“The next station is closed due a passenger incident. This train will not be stopping at the next station.”
The announcement jolts me back to the beast. I realise that in the time I’ve been lost in thought, I have also been gurning and making the occasional guttural sound as big old Baloo watches on perplexed, melting into his seat. Perhaps he’s just as surprised as me? I didn’t see anyone else approach him. Maybe he’s just taken aback by the fact that there is someone ballsy enough to approach a bear on the evening train.
Fuck yeah, I’m ballsy. I’m big balls McGee! I am the biggest baddest balled motherfucker in town!
“Balls!” I say.
He glances at me oddly. A peculiar opening gambit, granted, but still. First contact with a bear, on the Hammersmith and City line, at Whitechapel, in the priority seats. They don’t write self-help books for this shit.
“Big balls,” I expand.
Second stab at communicating with the wild beast, I tell myself in my best mental Attenborough impression. Yeah, you’re a real explorer, not like Ben Fogle and those other wanky presenters.
I digress. The bear is looking at me. He’s got Tom Ford glasses on. Leopard print. I wonder how his family feel about that. He’s peering at me over their spherical rim. Lowering my gaze, I observe that he’s reading an article on the Bank of England’s effectiveness at curbing inflation. Who’d have thought bears would be into that? I guess the calamitous claws of Trussonomics reached out further than one might imagine!
Either that or it’s an article on the erosion of Christian values in Middle England. Interesting. Or… hold on, is that a piece on deforestation? Huh. Predictable. You can take the bear out of the woods...
He’s still looking at me. Ok, think Zak, you’ve got one chance at conversing with a bear. What do you say?
“You from the woods?” are the words that emanate, finally, from my mouth. Gurning, and biting and licking my lips like they’ve been lathered in chocolate truffles. However, I’m not sure it comes out the way I intend. A strip of saliva makes its way down my chin. I attempt to scoop it up with my tongue.
Unsuccessfully.
The long, dangling strain of spittle continues its downwards trajectory, until it makes landfall on the knee of his crisp, khaki-coloured chinos. A small foamy wet patch forms as the strain splits, leaving a little dangler swinging from my stubbly chin.
I smile. A big, wide and open-mouthed smile – teeth, tongue and tonsils all on full display and accompanied with a sound that feels to me like an entirely appropriate accompaniment to this friendly greeting.
“Haaaaaaaaaaarghhh.”
His mouth too is open, but he isn’t smiling. And he’s still not responded to my question.
Of course he’s not responded... he’s a fucking bear! He can’t speak. I need to show him.
So I point to him as if to say ‘you!’ And then actually say “YOU!” Just in case. Then I make a gesture. I form a circle with both hands and make as if stroking it upwards and downwards. A tree gesture, you see. You. Trees. Woods. He looks confused. I point back at him. ‘You!’ I stroke up and down my imaginary tree. High and low. High and low. I’m looking at him. Into his little black bear eyes. Smiling at him as if to say ‘Hey, I like trees too. I’m into biodiversity and shit.’ I begin stroking slowly at first, to aid comprehension, but am soon stroking fast and vigorously, and smiling and staring at him.
He looks displeased. Am I being patronising?
Yep, he seems to have taken offence at this. Either he’s a city bear or I’m being patronising. I’ve been told I can be patronising.
The interconnected extra-long train swivels around a corner, the rubber carriage connectors crinkle. My head rotates. It feels nice. So I do it again. I stroke my hair like I’m Bradley Cooper in a Vidal Sassoon advert whilst chuckling like a little child. Yeah baby, I’m worth it. I’m worth every fucking penny. It feels like the world’s greatest massage. Maybe I should be a masseuse? A hair masseuse. Maybe the bear could be my first client? He’s got more hair than a Dothraki warlord.
I need to reach out to this wild creature. Show him that even though he reads the Daily Telegraph and wears tartan turtlenecks and leopard print glasses, that he too is worth it and that we – me and him, we could be friends. I am willing to be that man in his life. I offer him my olive branch.
No ... no, that is not where this story is going. Take your mind out of the gutter!
I reach out my hands – both hands – and work my way into his bristly hair.
I remember seeing, hearing and feeling one further thing apiece before reawakening to the world on the floor.
The folding of the right-wing broadsheet and the whooshing sound it made en route to connecting with a violent clap on the left side of my jowl.
As I come back to, I see the bear standing above me, looking bigger and more imposing than ever. The ferocity of both the hit and the fall have only further roused the euphoria pumping through my veins. As I attempt to focus my wayward eyes on his, I run my fingers through my tingly scalp.
This is it. Connection made. He’s here. Standing before me in all his glory.
“Hello bear.”
This is the moment, Zak. You have his attention.
“Can we …”
Carpe fucking diem.
“Can I …”
Seize the moment!
“Give you a … cuddle?”
“No you most certainly can not!” he bellows, before storming off down the carriage.
And so goes the tale of how on one night, this night, I find myself rejected for both love and for friendship. By both beauty and by beast.
But still, I am doped up deep on dopamine, have just discovered the answer to my question – yes, bears can indeed talk – and have instead found solace on this floor cuddling onto an elderly man’s slightly urine-scented, but very much soft and stationary leg.
So, every cloud, eh?
(c) Ricardo Visinho, 2023
Ricardo Visinho is a fiction and features writer whose work has been published in The Piker Press, Liars’ League, Wonkhe and Times Higher Education (THE). You can follow Ricardo on X/Twitter at @RicardoVisinho.
Paul Clarke is a full-time photographer and occasional actor. He trained at Central and loves storytelling, whether with words or pictures.
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