The bear that never was, but was there for real.

The story of how we came up with the idea of creating epic stories should be epic, yet it should be imaginary and also real, hence the imaginary story of how we got to be imaginary... for real.

A and P were strolling along the city streets, it was 4 in the afternoon and the employees from the nearby factory had all reached their homes after toiling hard at work. It was summer and it was still hot, hence at that time the streets were deserted and it looked as if the city was abandoned completely. A and P liked this, the complete isolation and the freedom that it gave to them. It was their world, all of the barren land and they were its kings. They walked till the Bear Hill which was at the edge of the city just a few distance away from their school. The Bear Hill as its name suggests was named because it housed bears and several other wild animals. Parents prohibited their children to go near it and hence it was even more delicious for the young and curious mind of the few rebel children of that place. However on that day the streets saw only the presence of this two, not even the mythical bears which some people said they saw and told tales about, which was no where to be seen. A and P walked slowly, the shade of the surrounding trees on both side of the road and sweet wind flowing was a respite in the hot day, not that they ever complained about it. It is strange how no matter how hot the days were in those days it never stopped kids from going out in the sun and now in the adulthood one would think twice before going out.

"You know what my elder brother said the other day." P said

"You have an elder brother?" A asked, genuinely surprised at the revelation.

"Yes, I do. I told you the other day." P said casually, "You just never remember what I say."

"I certainly do and I am one hundred and one percent sure I would have remembered if you would had said about it." A countered, moving his hands and animating his movements.

"I have an elder brother, two elder sisters and I am the youngest." P replied counting with his fingers, striking his right hands fingers against his left palm.

"I am the youngest too in my family." A said with a smile on his face. His face showing that expression of clearly being the youngest having its privileges.

"I know and you have an elder brother and a sister who is married and has a daughter." P continued. He liked to show off his skills of remembering things most times, telling about the things from his childhood bragging about it. Those memories were real or just imagined, no one knew.

"Man, you never tell me about yourself. I have told you everything but you don't." A said frowning.

"C'mon man its not important, how many sisters or brother I have, what will you do knowing how many siblings I have huh, or what will I do knowing how many siblings you have. We are not throwing a party inviting all those people." P retorted, trying to bring back the conversation.

"And where were we? Yeah so my brother who I didn't tell you about, he told me about this place." P continued, broadening his eyes, raising his eye brows so A would let him speak.

"Uh hmm" A grunted. "What did he say?" 

"He said" P took a deep breathe, eager to start, " that once he was walking here, with his friends. Just like us when he saw a bear with her cubs. The bear was huge and had 2 cubs who followed her as she ran across the road. My brother and his two friends were standing just a few meters away." 

"How did they know it was a she?"A interrupted P in the middle as he abruptly broke into a question.

"I don't know, he told me the bear was a she." P replied to the query.

"Yeah, but how must he had known, that it was a she?" A asked.

"I didn't ask that to him?" P said a little impatient, he wanted to complete his story.

"He must not have seen the peepee." A said, the word peepee making him burst into a fit of giggles. P too started giggling at the awesome joke his friend had cracked up. A was always witty with his comebacks and this made the two boys laugh for sometime. When they stopped giggling after sometime. P continued.

"It must be hidden within those hairs. Bears are so hairy. You know." P said and this made them giggle even more harder, they started laughing, holding their stomachs.

"Hmm, so the Mama bear with the kids crossed the road, then, then what happened?" A asked now curious to know what had happened after that.

"What then? Then it crossed the road and they walked after seeing this." P said, concluding his story, trying to control his giggle.

"That was it??" A asked a little irritated and continued after a little pause "I thought that something exciting was going to happen. I was waiting for maybe the bear would stop at the middle of the road."

"And then what?" it was P now and he looked at A thinking what he was going to say.

"And then, like it would stare at the three of them and they would all be standing still, because if they move the bear will be able to notice them." A continued standing motionless as if acting out the situation that could had happened, according to him.

"Is that a bear or a T-Rex? Bear can see you, even if you don't move." P chided A.

"Shut up" A said, "It's my story and the bear cant see if you don't move."

"But can it see me when I bust my moves." P said as he started clumsily dancing in the middle of the street.

"Ohh yes it will." A said laughing. "And so, the bear is standing just a few feet away from us and we are standing here, Come here." He ordered P to come and stand by his side motionless as if the bear was standing right in-front of them. The story had now shifted from P's brother to themselves in the imaginary situation of a bear standing just a few meters away.

P took a quick jog and came and stood beside his friend. "OK, now what?" he asked.

"So, we are just standing here and the bear is standing in-front of us. It is looking at us intently. We are both scared because this is the first time that we are seeing a bear and it is large."

"How large?" P asked

"Twice as large as the buffaloes we see in-front of our school everyday." A continued unperturbed, he had committed himself entirely into the story, so much that he was getting goosebumps. Even P was slowly visualizing the bear in-front of them.

"OK, the bear is very big, twice as big as the buffalo, then what happens, it is looking at us." P summarized as he was also eager to find out what would happen next.

 

"So, we are standing motionless, but the bear can smell us. Its nose is sharp at detecting that humans scent, but it can't see us, so it has started a low growling." 

"Ohh!! and is it walking slowly towards us?" P asked.

"Yes, it is slowly walking towards us." A continued waving his hands slowly in air as if they were the bear's paws and it was walking right towards them.

"Now we both know, that there is no way out and the bear is nearing towards us, so we both start thinking what to do." A said, his voice filled with dread and confusion as if he was really trapped and didn't know what to do next.

"What do we do? What do we do?" P asked as the bear was now barely a few hands distance from them, if they didn't do anything, the bear would maul them. It would gauge out their eyes or maybe it would fling them around the road like rag dolls, maybe it would bite their heads right off their shoulders. A's heart was beating fast, what could they do? Would this be the end to the story, is this how they would meet their end?

"I don't know, let me think, what to do? Be quiet." A said, gesturing P to be quiet and not attract the bears attention, the bear which was not there, the beast that was totally the product of their rich imagination. So A and P stood in the middle of the road, unflinching and awaiting a plan to save them from their destruction. Then P had an idea.

"Hey A"  he whispered and the bear which was very close now, jerked a little, sensing the sound.

"What P?"

"I have an idea" he whispered breathily, trying to be as quiet as possible. A slowly moved his eyes without moving his head and looked at P, careful enough to not let his attention divert from the bear.

"We are standing over a bridge." He said pointing to the small bridge over which they were standing, the bridge not as much a bridge was just a small connection over a ridge which acted as drainage when there was too much rain but now in the summer it was dry and peppered with dry leaves and dirt.

"Yeah what of it?" A asked, again careful enough not to startle the bear into attacking them.

"We make a run for it." P said, "On the count of three, I will run towards right, you towards left, jump down from the bridge and crawl into the small drain so the bear will not be able to reach us. OK" he said.

"Sounds good," A had an almost victorious smile on his face. They had to do this, they had to get away from the bear and live for another day to tell the tale. This wasn't the end, he had to have even more epic adventures with his friend. He now had hope that there was indeed an escape from the bear. So they started the count down.

"Three" A started.

"Two" P continued the countdown.

"One" both cried together as loud as they could and made a run for it. The bear was startled and took a few steps back and this gave them enough time to escape, but then the bear quickly recovered and started chasing A.

"Its coming for me." A cried running towards the edge of the bridge.

"Juuuuuuuump" P shouted as he jumped off that small bridge, landing on the soft patch of ground covered by decaying leaves. He turned around and saw the drain, it was dark and smelled of earth, without wasting a moment, he crawled into the drain, it was small and if he was any more bigger he would had never fit inside it. 

A too jumped off the bridge and as if in that moment everything slowed down, A could see from the corner of his eye as the bear's claw came almost close to his face to take away a chunk of his face with a swipe of its paw. He tilted his head to the front and ducked the bear. He landed on all his fours and by the time he turned, the bear had also jumped behind him, he could see the bear as it blotted out the sun above the canopy of the trees, a darkness which was slowly getting larger and would engulf him and take him to hell, he was scared, more than scared, he was terrified, when his eyes caught the sight of P, crawling desperately into drain from the opposite end. He thought to himself P is in, as a surge of energy passed through him.

"I got to get in too." he said to himself and dived towards the little drain, if he wouldn't had dived, the bear would had landed above him and A would had been history. He crawled as fast as he could and entered the drain, the end of his shirts sleeve was caught on a little hook but that wasn't going to stop him today because if he stopped he would be dead meat, so he crawled with all the life he had in him and was inside the drain. The bear saw A crawling inside and pounced towards it, but it was a tad bit too late as both A and P were in safely. It growled so loudly now that the whole Bear Hill might have felt the intensity of that roar. The two boys closed their ears as the sound echoed even louder inside that small murky, dark drain, both their eyes closed as they lay on their stomach clutching each others hands. The sound ringed their ears for sometime and then there was complete silence. Finally P asked to A.

"Is it gone?"

"Yes." A said. "We are safe now." and as he said it, he broke into laughter. P joined him too and they laughed loudly, carelessly, the thing that they had dirtied all of their clothes and A might have even torn his sleeve didn't matter now, they didn't think about it. The only thing in their mind was that they had an amazing adventure, an epic tale worthy of being etched in books and read by others even hundreds of years later. The story of how A and P evaded the bear that never was, but was there... for real.

Author's Note

The ending is hurried and may be I will come again to edit it some day.

Reviews

[Miles W.]

A very interesting read. For me, the ending wasn't the big thing as much as the characters. Having the characters be single letters is fine, but having one of them being named A sometimes threw me for a loop while reading, especially if A was the first piece of the sentence. But other then that, an interesting read and a good idea of how imagination can sometimes consume the person! Well done sir!

[New Theory]

Thanks Miles, I didnt want to give the characters names as single letter but I had written this for a friend and then I didnt edit this for a long time. But there can be no excuses, I will edit it again someday, thanks for reading it and pointing out the improvements.