понедельник, октября 31, 2005

yea max!

because of the cd
max gave to me
i want to be free
like people in america are free
i want american freedom

do you mind having three legs
instead of two maids?
do you mind having forty days
instead thirty rays(of the sun - sun rays)
can i say it? - max, if you ever need someones firstborn
you know where to go

воскресенье, октября 30, 2005

mmaa~!

In university girls didn’t take to me immediately so I started using the pages I had written my stories on to either roll cigarettes or for toilet paper. I felt that smoking them did me more honour than using them to wipe my ass but I did both. It didn’t change the way girls acted towards me right away. But I would say that in the end it did. It definitely did.
I wanted to eat every day, but only once a day. Sometimes I didn’t eat at all. I was busy smoking my stories. I spent all my money on tobacco and sometimes people bought me lunch. Lunch is the meal you need if you plan to eat only once a day, because, obviously, it is strategically located. Though, of course, it’s even better if it’s a late lunch.
So what else does a person need besides a late lunch, tobacco, and stories to smoke the tobacco in?
Not a lot, really, though a beautiful true love affair would have been nice. But not vital.
Life is possible without love. Life is infinitely more complicated without tobacco.
For a while I wore a beard. One day as I was walking to the school I attempted to light one of my stories, which I had rolled very poorly, and the flame went running up the paper and onto my beard. I was mostly displeased because I was closer to the school than home and I didn’t feel like walking all the way home. When I finally made it to class that day, with my beard shaved away, the girls all started noticing me. (That is a horrible lie, it’s very untrue, I just wanted to say it because it seemed so clever to me, because I had already said that the stories would help me get their attention, and this seemed so really hilarious – that they had helped me by burning my beard off! But it’s a lie, it’s not true, and what’s even worse it’s so obvious you probably guessed right away and it’s not that clever after all.)
Anyway,

среда, октября 26, 2005

What Collar and Jonesy Wanted, and What It Means

Collar had invited Jonesy around for a drink, and what the hell’s wrong with that, by God? I don’t often take the Lord’s name in vain, but too often these days people run about with their whatting and whying and whereforing. A man can hardly think for all the blasted jiggerypokery purveyed by people with too much time on their hands. Back in my day, when photographs were sepia and all, there was no time, and so there were no damned questions. If the world was sepia, we’d be better off for it, I tell you, and do you know, I’ve even heard of a place, up near Norway or thereabouts, where the world is cast in tones of grey. Actually, I heard it makes people depressed, and they invite each other around for a drink to discuss whether there is any point in carrying on or whether they should just end it all now and be done with it, but that’s all Collar and Jonesy wanted anyway, wasn’t it?

She didn't know what i meant

‘I can stop the whirlwind,’ she said, ‘before it destroys us all.’
‘Haw!’ I replied. ‘Woah up there, mama princess. You’re speaking to a past-master of fast-blasting disasters. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Why do you speak like such a fool?’ she asked. ‘Nothing’s easy with you. Why do you have to make life so hard all the time?’
And she turned away, and I still thought I was in love with her – and maybe, you know, maybe I still am – so I said:
‘Well, some say that’s just the way it is, but me, I’m a little peculiar. I dig self-vexation. Big time. Life doesn’t have to be easy, little one.’
She yawned and said:
‘I think I might talk to that one over there.’
And she tilted her drink in the direction of a production line coolsy chat who was sitting further down the bar and preening his moustache.
‘Don’t do that,’ I told her. ‘At the very least, stay here with me forever. I’ll buy you another drink – this time made out of peacock’s eggs. I’ll be ever so good, and I’ll even shut up from time to time.’
Her face turned scornful.
‘Snapcat! You offer nothing he doesn’t except gobbledegook about melancholy angels. Always with the angels. What is it about you and angels?’
And I felt a tear trickle down my cheek.
‘I was one once,’ I told her. ‘But that was long ago.’

вторник, октября 25, 2005

Of Dead Greeks and Profundity

I suspect it was one of those insanely intelligent Greek pricks who once said something like: ‘man is by nature a social animal’. Firstly, I think it behooves the progressively-minded and disconsolately-single young man to point out that in this particular day and age, we feel obliged to include women in the broad generalisations which diminish us all. So, at risk of offending the gnashing spirits of Greek pricks, let us reconstruct the statement, and say that ‘humans are by nature social animals’. Even still, I feel this does not get to the nub of the matter. In making such a claim, I boldly defy the wrath of every Greek who ever lived. After all, if the silly bastards couldn’t keep their civilisation ticking over until today, they must have been positively incompetent: just look at the misery perpetuated by our own yet-extant culture. If the Greeks were worse than us, their devotion to self-indulgence most have been fanatical. Perhaps we should all take a moment to be thankful we are not Greek, then leave the matter.

It is true enough to say that we humans are social animals, insofar as we feel the need to interact with one another. Yet why should this be? What vital resource is it that we are all so ravenously harvesting from one another? Why can a person not simply arise in the morning, stand naked before an assembled crowd, and shout: ‘I spurn you all! I shall walk this earth alone and be content!’ and then, by God, do so? The intent is one thing – any of us, when in the throes of a casual fit of pique, can reject the human race, but to actually carry out the threat, and to do so without a single regret for the rest of our bedamned lives – well, I think we can all agree that this is impossible. And I also think we all know why. Old Man Hermit can spend a night successfully ignoring those little red or blue demons – the type with pointy ears and forked-tongues – who pop up and cavort about when no one else is around, chanting: ‘Your life means nothing, your life means nothing!’ Old Man Hermit, should he be strong and determined and in possession of a hefty stick, can probably fend off the dancing demons for some time, but ultimately they will prevail: he will go mad; his body will shut down; and he will die lonely and sorrowful. What Old Man Hermit really needs is another Old Man Hermit living in the cave just up the hill, upon whom he can pop in now and then to share a cup of yak’s blood and reassure himself just how right he was to spurn everyone in the first place.

It is, you see, all about overcoming self-doubt: perhaps the most difficult task to confront us all. Imagine standing on the tundra in a ragged wolf-skin cloak, armed with nought but a fishing spear, and confronting the cackling shadow of Self-Doubt in mortal combat: it would eat your lungs and smear your brain into paste.

Clearly, the purpose in life is to strive, to struggle, to thrash about in a fit if need be: anything to distract ourselves from the awful realisation that there is no purpose in life. And, in one of those delightful ironies which punctuate our brief and tragic lives, in doing so we create our own purpose. We will do anything so long as we are not asked to consider the emptiness of our existence. We will associate with anyone so long as we are not asked to walk alone through the fields at night.
So, with due respect to dead Greeks, let us once more rewrite that which they so woefully messed up in the first place, and state: ‘humans are by nature animals so tormented by self-doubt, they will do anything to pass the time until they die, so long as they do not have to do it alone’. Me? I see nothing wrong with such a purpose in life. Who said it has to be profound?

Probably some dead Greek prick.

seth dont go, by john trubee

seth dont go
seth dont leave
blowfish blow
because they want to
and because they are blind

seth dont go
seth dont leave
whats your damn problem
dont be an asshole
dont be a jerk

1

‘Does anything exist with no purpose, just because?’
‘Yeah. There was this mythological creature, it had a lion head and an ant body, cause its father was a lion and mother an ant, and the lion part wanted meat and the ant part wanted grain, and because it couldn’t decide it died from starvation. Actually, it died because it couldn’t eat either, because its two parts contradicted each other, but I like it when I think it was indecision too.’
‘So basically it exists just to die for lack of sustenance?’
‘Yes, exactly. And also for indecision.’
‘I’ve just been drinking some wine. My new roommate is coming over tonight so I should be plastered by the time I get home and meet him.’

понедельник, октября 24, 2005

and the real star is...

I’d been bitten by the dogs before so I already didn’t like them a whole lot. They didn’t scare me so much when I was already home inside looking down at them from my window on the top floor. But on the street Todd always said, ‘here they are little buddy,’ when one would go strolling by looking for garbage or another ass to sniff with the stray dog look. ‘They’re coming for you. They must’ve heard you were here.’ And he would laugh and giggle.
To tell you the truth for a while I absolutely hated them, no two ways about it. And I can honestly say that one day I even wondered, with that creeping feeling inside that comes at very serious grave revelation, if I was a bad person. Only bad people could hate stray dogs.
When we walked to the metro there was a drunk out cold on the grass and a few steps farther on a stray. It was the stray that got me. ‘That must be a sign,’ Todd said. ‘Stay far away from that grass. I bet there’s a bird up here too.’ He wasn’t so far off though. In the winter the snow on this grass always melted even in thirty below. But that wasn’t what got me, it was the dog. I really hated them. And then further on there was a dead bird…
Later I was cutting through the park to Ben’s and in the centre two strays were up on the flower beds. One of them was eating the yellow pansies that had just been planted that morning and the other was pissing on the blue ones. That made me really angry. Cheeky bastards. Even angrier than when they barked at me for no reason, but just because they were assholes. I looked around and there was no one on the benches that were usually surrounded by people drinking and no empties on the ground. And I got the feeling of foreboding. But I started to run too late. And that’s when they bit me the first time. And I had to get the forty shots in the stomach, though I knew they weren’t rabid, they were just assholes. I swear to God, the next time I walked by they were laughing at me because I swear they understood the forty shots, and they also understood, just as well, that in this city stray dogs are protected by law and can’t be destroyed. If they could have smoked they would have been leaning against the flowerbed smoking and laughing their stray asses off.
So I never laughed when Todd said, ‘ooppah, here they come little buddy.’ Though it really was funny. I just ran. But they didn’t bother him. I guess there was some truth in what he said, ‘animals and humans respect strength and not you.’ Then he giggled and pointed at a pigeon that was all scraggly and limping and ostracized by the other pigeons and said, ‘look little buddy, it’s you! It’s pigeon you! Jesus Christ!’ And he just about exploded with the laughter.
Winter rolled around, the snow by the metro didn’t melt, the news reported that a pack of wild dogs had attacked an old women who died on the scene, and a middle aged man who managed to fight them off but was then taken to hospital with some pretty serious wounds, and as usual I had to walk home from work every night.
Sometimes I saw Todd.
He was happy. He laughed. We stood in the snow and drank beer and I always caught colds after though he never did. And this made him laugh too.
After one such incident, on the day before catching the corresponding cold, I was walking home, towards my house, towards the window where I could look out at the dogs and listen to them howl and be hungry; it was about eleven o’clock at night.
There was a lot of snow, and under the snow it was icy. Anyone who has lived in Russia will know how it works. The temperature rises, the snow starts to melt, then the temperature drops and freezes, and nobody does anything with the ice, just like nobody did anything with the snow. Walking down the sidewalk is carnage, like Vietnam, Grannies go down left and right, and your occasional Brit.
As I was saying it was about eleven, or later, and I was walking down the sidewalk, sliding down, breathing in deeply while I could, before the cold came tomorrow with the cough and the ticklishness in the lungs, and I heard the howls. Big empty things that said, ‘here we come little buddy,’ and I looked up and there they were. There were about thirty of them. All different sizes. And that was all I could see before the first one, a little black mutt, came whipping towards me like he’d been shot out of a mean shotgun with his teeth bared and the thrill of the hunt on him.
I never would have noticed how close I was to the really slippery ice if he hadn’t gone flying past me on it, making a last ditch attempt to close his jaws on the sleeve of my coat, but understanding as well as I that he had failed. Then I turned and looked at the rest, who were just behind him. Though the first three or four followed in his footsteps, they couldn’t all miss me, and in the end they would come up from behind, sobered by defeat, and more vindictive for it, planting big vindictive bites in my luck. But it was funny. They all went flying by. Whoosh. I thought of Todd and I laughed. I felt bad for him because he would feel really bad when he found out the dogs had done me in. ‘Don’t worry about it, buddy,’ I said out loud, ‘it’s even funnier that way. You’re prophetic, that’s all. Nothing shameful in the truth.’
And as I was preparing to cross myself and cry and lose my cool I heard something and looked up. There was a granny out and she had a stick and a three legged dog on a leash. She lifted her stick in the air, the dog lifted its one foreleg in the air, and they both shouted together, and the effect was the same as “by the castle greyskull,” or whatever it is he-man says, and the most important thing – the dogs were gone. I looked and they were gone. Not by magic, there was no magic, they just ran away so fast it seemed like magic, and they all went in different directions, every man for himself.
I stood there and the old woman came walking towards me, and when she got close the three legged dog started to growl and wanted to jump all over me. I tried to thank her, but the three legged dog drowned out my words and she just scowled and walked past, yanking the leash and pulling the three legged dog with her. He wasn’t happy, he wanted a piece of me, but he went anyway.
I was afraid on the way home that the dogs would come back, so I hurried through the snow, but they never came.
That night I couldn’t even hear them howling in the street. They didn’t wake me up in the middle of the night, and I didn’t hear anybody screaming as if they were being attacked. They seemed to have left the area.
Todd didn’t believe me about the three legged dog, he didn’t believe any of the story but he said the three legged dog part was just stupid.
‘It’s not stupid,’ I said, ‘how can you call anything that’s true stupid?’
He thought that was stupid too.
For the summer I went away and rented out my apartment to a friend. In September I came back and my friend met me at the airport with a car and took me home. We were standing on the balcony talking about the summer and way down below the old woman was walking by with the three legged dog. I pointed at her excitedly. I could hardly speak.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I know her.’
‘What do you mean? She saved my life. I owe her my life, she saved me.’
‘Yeah, well, she came after mine. I was walking home one night from the bar, not really sober, and I passed her and the next thing I know I’m lying on the ground and the three legged dog is jumping all over me snarling and she’s shaking her stick. She knocked me out with her stick. She’s crazy. I’m serious.’
‘I’m not sure that really fit’s her character…maybe you did something to make her believe the three legged dog was at risk? Perhaps you were swaying all over the place and accidentally swayed into her?’
‘The three legged dog can take care of itself. Sure I was swaying, that’s what I do, but I don’t think that gives someone the right to try and crack me on the noggin with a stick. That’s a big stick. And as for her character…’
‘Okay.’
I told that story to Todd and he said it was much better than my story and that now he liked the three legged dog. He didn’t really like my friend.
‘Lets go walk around your area and see if we can find the three legged dog,’ he would say every time I saw him, ‘I want to meet him.’ And he would start to crack up laughing. But we could never find him when we went looking for him and after a few months we gave up.

A mi chemin

Aujourd'hui, a mi chemin entre hier et demain, que reste t-il ?
Assez de place pour suffoquer, maugreer, tempeter et subir les outrages, les injustices, les petites faiblesses du destin. J'ai passe mon week-end a souffrir, a me triturer, a ne pas me distancier, a coller de pres aux pulsations morbides qui bon an mal an irriguaient de sang ma machine infernale. J'ai aussi pense, a coller un pistolet sur ma tempe, et d'appuyer, pour disparaitre, pour faire taire cette voix qui me suppliait de l'apaiser, de lui montrer autre chose que ces murs vides et cette grisaille. Pour liberer cette masse pesante, pour avancer, pour marcher, pour respirer, pour avertir machinalement les muscles engourdis des actions a venir, je me suis leve et je suis parti bosser car maintenant est aussitot passe que dit et que dans l'immense malheur de ma jeunesse estropiee par l'amour, je suis encore capable de voler, de me separer des contingences, de rever et de me surpasser, pour faire de moi ce que d'autres ne seront plus jamais; un etre vivant.

пятница, октября 21, 2005

Inheritance

Strange to say, but walls trembled and concrete heaved from the force of billions of little legs. Swarming from under wreckage, climbing on rubble, higher and higher, until a sea of antennae fluttered in poisoned wind.

They can’t weep, but they can sing, and sing they did, in joy and lamentation.

среда, октября 19, 2005

max

max is back back is max
give me facts! give me facts!
if max is back and i am black
does that mean max has got my back?
max is back!

The First Deal

He’s sharp now, oh yes. I found him in the old woodshed, among spongy fragments of wounded trees. And he was wounded too, he was dying, but slowly. He was too sad to see, all covered in slime and black, so I tenderly raised him up, all the way up, until I could smell base, certain, fucking metal. We made a deal: I’d bring him back to life if he’d join me. So I scraped the muck away and brushed his head, dried him down, sanded and polished while the rain dripped through jagged gaps in corrugated iron. I ground his rough patches away til he glimmered and sang. Now he’s sharp. It took me hours, I feel so terribly exhausted but we made a deal, didn’t we? It’s time to go back to the house.

воскресенье, октября 16, 2005

i dont know what she meant

'thats a nice colour,' she said, 'it goes with your face.'
'hows that?' i said. 'egg shell? is my face colourful enough to tell a thousand stories? if it tells you anything its just this - what its like to sleep beside my wife, but thats it.'
'forget about it,' she said, 'just forget about it.'
'naw,' i said, 'i wish i could say something about yours but im afraid the only thing that comes to mind is cruel and defeatist. i wish your face was more melodious, we could think about it and feel musical.'
'whatever,' she said. 'a melody is cheap. im glad my face is too angular, a melody is the cheapest.'
'whatever,' i said in turn, 'lets get past that, shall we? a face is a face, melody or not, i was just saying i wish your face had better taste in music, as it is i could care less what music people think of when they look at your face even if it is choppy and lacking rhythym. dance. if thats what you like just do it, who cares what other people think...'

пятница, октября 14, 2005

ICI PARIS

Paris

Regardez les accents, bande de malandrins

hahahaha

ohohohoh


éééééé


èèèèèè


ààààààà


ùùùùùùù





voilà, c'est beau, comme le Bordeaux, les amis, je vous raconte pas, le Rocher de Cancale, tout ça, cela serait trop long, je vous dis juste; un demi -pichet, c'est bien peu mais quelquefois c'est suffisant.

четверг, октября 13, 2005

please dont pass me by(a disgrace) by L.C.

I was walking in New York City and I brushed up against the man in front of me.I felt a cardboard placard on his back. And when we passed a streetlight,I could read it, it said "Please don't pass me by - I am blind, but you cansee - I've been blinded totally - Please don't pass me by."I was walking along 7th Avenue, when I came to 14th Street I saw on the corner curiousmutilations of the human form; It was a school for handicapped people.And there were cripples, and people in wheelchairs and crutches and it was snowing,and I got this sense that the whole city wasAsinging this: A E AOh please don't pass me by, A E AOh please don't pass me by, D AFor I am blind, but you can see,D AYes, I've been blinded totally, A E AOh please don't pass me by.And you know as I was walking I thought it was them who were singing it,I thought it was they who were singing it,I thought it was the other who was singing it,I thought it was someone else.But as I moved along I knew it was me,and that I was singing it to myself. It went: A E AOh please don't pass me by, A E AOh please don't pass me by, D AFor I am blind, but you can see,D AYes, I've been blinded totally, A E AOh please don't pass me by. A E AOh please don't pass me byNow I know that you're sitting theredeep in your velvet seatsand you're thinking"Uh, he's up there saying something that he thinks about,but I'll never have to sing that song."But I promise you friends, that you're going to be singing this song:it may not be tonight,it may not be tomorrow,but one dayyou'll be on your kneesand I want you to know the wordswhen the time comes.Because you're going to have to sing itto yourself,or to another,or to your brother.You're going to have to learnhow to sing this song, it goes: A E AOh please don't pass me by, oh you don't have to sing this, not for you A E A A7Oh please don't pass me by, D AFor I am blind, but you can see, D AYes, I've been blinded oh totally, A E AOh please don't pass me by.Well I sing this for the Jews and the Gypsiesand the smoke that they made.And I sing this for the children of England,their faces so grave.And I sing this for a saviour with no one to save.Hey, won't you be naked for me?Hey, won't you be naked for me?It goes: A E APlease don't pass me by, A E A A7Oh please don't pass me by, D AFor I am blind, oh but you can see, D AYes, I've been blinded oh totally, A E AOh now please don't pass me by.Now there's nothing that I tell you that willhelp you connectthe blood tortured nightwith the day that comes next.But I want it to hurt you,I want it to end.Oh, won't you be naked for me?Oh now: A E APlease don't pass me by, A E A A7Oh please don't pass me by, D AFor I am blind, oh but you , you can see, D AOh yes, I, I've been blinded oh totally, A E AOh please don't pass me by.Well I sing this song for you Blonde Beasts,I sing this song for you Venusesupon your shells on the foam of the sea.And I sing this for the freaksand the cripples,and the hunchback,and the burned,and the burning,and the maimed,and the broken,and the torn,and all of thosethat you talk aboutat the coffee tables,at the meetings,at the demonstrations,on the streets,in your music,in my songs.I mean the real ones that are burning,I mean the real ones that are burning, I say: A E APlease don't pass me by, A E A A7Oh now please don't pass me by, D AFor I am blind, yeah, but you, you can see, D ABut now, I've been blinded oh totally, A E AOh now please don't pass me by.I know that you still think its me.I know that you think that there's somebody else.I know that these words aren't yours.But I tell you friends one dayyou're gonna get down on your knees,you're gonna get down on your knees,you're gonna get down on your knees,you're gonna get down on your knees,you're gonna get down on your knees,you're gonna get down on your knees,you're gonna get down on your knees,you're gonna get down on your knees,you're gonna get down A E AOh please don't pass me by, A E A A7Oh please don't pass me by, D AFor I am blind, yeah but you, you can see, D AYes, I've been blinded oh totally, A E AOh please don't pass me by.Well you know I have my songsand I have my poems.I have my book andI have the Army,and sometimes I have your applause.I make some money,but you know what my friends,I'm still out there on the corner.I'm with the freaks,I'm with the hunted,I'm with the maimed, yes,I'm with the torn,I'm with the down,I'm with the poor.Come on now, oh A E AOh please don't pass me by, I've got to go now friends A E A A7But please don't pass me by, D AFor I am blind, yeah but you, you can see, D AOh, I've been blinded, I've been blinded to-, totally, A E AOh now please don't pass me by.Now I want to take away my dignity,yes take my dignity, my friends.Take my dignity,take my form,take my style,take my honour,take my courage,take my time,take my time,take my time.Cause you know I'm with you singing this song.And I wish you would,I wish you would,I wish you would go home with someone else.Wish you'd go home with someone else.I wish you'd go home with someone else.Don't be the person that you came with.Oh, don't be the person that you came with,Oh don't be the person that you came with.Ah, I'm not gonna be, I can't stand him.I can't stand who I am.That's why I've got to get down on my knees.Because I can't make it by myself.I'm not by myself anymore because...the man I was before...he was a tyrant,he was a slave,he was in chains,he was brokenand then he sang: A E AOh please don't pass me by, A E A A7Oh please don't pass me by, D AFor I am blind, but you can see, D AYes, I've been blinded totally, A E AOh please don't pass me by.Well I hope I see you up there on the corner.Yeah I hope as I go by that I hear you whispering with the breeze.Because I'm going to leave you now,I'm gonna find me someone new.Find someone new. A E A E AAnd please don't pass me by.

четверг, октября 06, 2005

Chet and Christmas

Someone once said to me: ‘That Chet – he’s a moody fucker’. Well, and I disagreed then and thought no more of it. But I remembered the comment just now, cos I was thinking about Christmas this year and I suppose I hate Christmas. All the family gathered around in some bullshit display of false congeniality, jittering and jumping, desperate for harmony. I think it’s pathetic. I said so, too, to someone once, and they told me I was a moody fucker. Maybe it was the same person, come to think of it.
I went to the family Christmas two years ago, cos my brother was going. He’s not around much, but he’s alright, and I thought we could catch up. Once I arrived though, all my good intentions just drained away. One moment I was thinking about nothing very important, and the next – well, I just had to leave. My brother never even showed up anyway.
Yeah, me and Chet – we go way back.

вторник, октября 04, 2005

The Second Time

Yesterday I killed a man for the second time, just to see if I could. I mean, I'm not fucking sick or anything like that - I don't go round killing people just to see if I can, it was just this once. The first time, hell, I suppose it was in anger or something like that, and afterwards I found the nearest kiosk and bought a beer and a pack of Belomore - cos I needed to think a bit - and tried to figure out if I meant to kill Vova or not. And, of course, I couldn't work it out, so I had to kill someone else. Well, and I did it, you know? I mean, I'm not bragging or anything, I won't be going round telling people or writing 'can kill on request' on my CV or anything like that, but you learn a lot about yourself when you do this shit. 'I know what I intend to do, I know what I am doing, I know what I have done.'
So, I caved the poor fucker's head in. Hell, there was a handy slab of broken concrete nearby, and it was dark, and he was so drunk he would never've known a thing, poor sunovabitch. I wasn't sure he was dead at first - I mean, heads bleed a lot, you know? I whacked him a couple of times, and the next morning he was still there, and I felt good on the metro on the way to work. It feels good to learn things about yourself.

Fall

soon it will snow
and then we could take a walk
and laugh
and print our faces on snow
again

понедельник, октября 03, 2005

A perfect fish

Once upon a time, there were two polar bears. They were good friends. They lived together, alone. They searched for food together and shared it. But food was becoming more and more difficult to find. One day, out the blue, they found a fish. But not just any fish. A perfect fish. The first bear couldn’t wait to eat it. The second bear thought about it and suggested that it would have been wiser for them to find another great fish to mate it with so that they would have more then enough food for the future. They would have to be patient but the idea was very good. The first bear agreed.
After much searching, they found it. Another perfect fish. While waiting for them to make many baby fish, they kept feeding off smaller fish they found, knowing that soon they wouldn’t have to worry about food any longer.
One day, the second bear had to leave his friend for a while. He had to go see his sick mother. He had to take care of her. He was sad to leave his friend but had no choice. He was away for a few weeks.
When his mother had recovered, he was very happy to be able to go back to his friend. He was impatient to see him and to enjoy with him a perfect meal. The result of their patience and their efforts. But when he arrived, only one fish was left. The first bear had eaten everything that they had worked for together. And he gave no explanation. He simply said “I’m sorry”, shrugged, and went to sleep.
The next morning, when the first bear woke up, his good friend was gone. The last fish had been eaten. Its carcass was lying next to him.