Sing for the Bear

Kagoatweed’s Rant: R&R, please, but don’t steal ideas!

Lying in bed, unable to lie on his right side, his friends kiss his cheek. Each kiss makes the bruise feel a little better.

The mammoth stomps into the room, and his friends hide under his bed. It's muffled, but they're giggling.

"He's got biiiig feet." One comments.

"All the better to step on you with, my dear!" A chorus of giggles explodes from the darkness under the bed.

Still under the scrutinizing glare of the mammoth, the little boy tugs his blankets up under his eyes. He is hiding his amusement.

Blurry-eyed, the mammoth takes another swig from his bottle, and sways as he exits the room. The frail form of the boy begins to shake beneath the covers as he laughs. Small noises from his own vocal cords let him realize that he's actually audibly laughing. Even with those big ears, the mammoth would never be able to discern his laughter from that of his friends. The boy laughed quietly, yet fearlessly.

Splintering the worn floorboards, the mammoth whips back into the room. He’s agile. In one swift motion, he lifts the boy from his bed and holds him up. The boy’s shirt is stretching, trying to support his weight. The boy throws his gaze off to the side of his father.

The elephant doesn’t use the boy’s name. He prefers to call him just that. Boy. It’s what he’s screaming when the scent of liquor overwhelms the boy.

“Do something,” his friends encourage him from their safe house. “Kick him!” Their voices are always synchronized.

Hoping his shirt will hold, the boy closes his eyes. He swings his legs up, heels together, toes pointed. His feet become lost in his father’s stomach. As he hits the bed and repels into the wall, his friends cheer for him.

“You did it! Way to go!”

The mammoth begins to change. He becomes taller, his trunk pulls back and his tusks dissolve. He has become a bear, fast like a horse, yet dim-witted. The bear swipes at the first thing he can find. It flies and misses the boy by only a few feet. It knocks a photo frame off of his drawers.

His mother. When the boy was very young. When he still had a name. Before his friends found him. Fingers stroke the picture. They’re young fingers, thin, inevitably clumsy. They stroke the curve of the woman’s face, trace her features. She is a nymph. She opens her mouth and sings.

He watches her, and a crimson droplet splashes into her mouth. She sings through it as it chokes her. The boy wipes his mouth, staining his sleeve and smearing blood across his cheek. He pushes off the wall and stands. He looks into the bear’s eyes.

His friends began to sing with the nymph. An eerie chord rings out, but the bear is deaf. He snarls and lumbers out of the room, satisfied with the level of destruction in this particular area.

The boy crawls back into bed. His friends huddle around him. The nymph is among them, but she is only a shadow. Still, she smiles. The boy smiles back.

“Let’s get hiiiim,” the friends say.

“Let us get him.” The nymph almost sings the words.

“Let’s get him.” The boy smiles. He’s not alone, even though his voice echoes in his room.