The Shadow of the Bear

Every once in a while you just have to decide to do something very crazy and very right--just to dare yourself to live. I don't mean doing something stupid and destructive--just something fun and good and beautiful.

The boys at school are so degenerate that it makes one feel pessimistic about the future of the male gender in general.

She remembered that once, when she was a little girl, she had seen a pretty young woman with golden hair down to her knees in a long flowered dress, and had said to her, without thinking, "Are you a princess?" The girl had laughed very kindly at her and asked her what her name was. Blanche remembered going away from her, led by her mother's hand, thinking to herself that the girl really was a princess, but in disguise. And she had resolved that someday, she would dress as though she were a princess in disguise.

Have you ever felt that there was something going on in life that not everyone was aware of?

Can you imagine anything more tragic?' Rose asked. 'To be born a princess --native and to the manor born-- and then to forget who you are and settle for being something horrible like an--an accountant!

Evil isn't beautiful on its own. You know?' 'Well, good people are sometimes ugly-' Blanche said at last. 'I don't know about that. Not really,' Bear shook his head. 'If the good's there, and you look for it, you'll see it in some way.' 'I think Bear is right,' Rose said decidedly. 'Fairy tales teach you that. No one who's really good ever stays ugly. It's always a disguise.

I think that if a real princess was lost in this modern world and she could be whatever she wanted, she would be a musician,' Blanche said slowly. 'A violinist, or a harpist. That would be the only place where she could find solace for her lost kingdom.

Hello again, violinist,' he said in a hoarse voice. 'Fancy meeting you here.

Blanche, prosaic in a pale yellow sweater and blue jeans, was wondering again if anything mattered—-life, faith--specifically, finishing homework assignments.

His eyes gravitated towards the wall-to-wall bookshelf at one end of the room. 'You folks like books, I see.

There's something strange about you-" she started to say. Oh, well, thanks!" he chuckled, his brown eyes twinkling at her.

Have you ever felt that there was something going on in life that not everyone was aware of?' Rose asked, turning her mug around in her hands. Bear relaxed a bit more deeply into the couch, and put on a mock-solemn look. 'Explain thyself.' 'As though there's a story going on that everyone is a part of, but not everybody knows about? Maybe 'story' isn't the right word- a sort of drama, a battle between what's peripheral and whats really important. As though the people you meet aren't just their plain, prosaic selves but are actually princes and princesses, gods and goddesses, fairies, shepherds, all sorts of fantastic creatures who've chosen to hide their real shapes for some reason or another. Have you ever thought that?

The sense of danger made her lift up her head higher. There were battles coming. But life was meant to be a battle, wasn't it? There was nothing to fear.

You're drinking in the joy of life,' Bear told her when she tried to explain why she was laughing. 'There's so much opportunity for drinking deeply of it, and we very rarely do it. When you do, it makes you feel alive all over.

Some of them are okay, but the popular girls like to pick on my sister, and almost all the guys are gross. I don't know why guys are like that. Do you?

Standing in the back of the dark opera house and gazing at the huge stage before them, gay with gold-scrolled scenery and sumptuously costumed singers, the air vivid with bright music, was one of the most enthralling experiences of Blanche's life. For a time, she forgot her doubts about reality in the sheer delight of illusion. But, as Rose reminded her during the intermission, perhaps it wasn't illusion. Perhaps it was a glimpse of what reality was really like.

Can you imagine a princess who works as a counter girl in a fast-food restaurant? I'm sure there's one somewhere. Imagine if all the people who came in to place orders were to realize that their meal was served by a princess! I don't think most people could handle it.' 'I think it would be hard for a real princess to have to do menial work like that,' Blanche reflected. 'She might think it was beneath her.' 'Oh, but a real princess would know that hard work ennobles the soul,' Rose objected. 'That would be one of the signs.

Every once in awhile you just have to go out and do something, very crazy and very right, just to dare yourself to live. I don't mean something stupid and destructive, just something fun and good and beautiful.

Blanche reached out and clung to her sister's hand. Rose felt her thin mittened fingers clutching her own. She knew her sister was beginning to be frightened. But Rose was too caught up in the mystery to be afraid. She strained to hear the enchanted song Bear was listening to. Her heart was pounding, but to the rhythm of a marching drum, not fear. There was a sense of purpose here, and although she did not understand it, she rejoiced to be a part of it.

She hurried off, leaving Rose feeling like the tiny soap suds left over from a burst bubble.

Every once in a while you just have to decide to something very crazy and very right-- just dare yourself to live. I don't mean doing something stupid and destructive-- just something fun and good and beautiful.