Bear. Bear with Coats.

Bear - 423 words
Lindsey Thompson


Almost all of my life, I wanted to be a bear. Not the type of bear that wanders in the wild, scratching at trees and roaring and sniffing and stuff. I wanted to be a sophisticated bear. I wanted to be a bear in a suit coat, with a monocle and a bow tie. I adored the thought of being a strong omnivore with fur and claws, able to sniff and hear from miles away people or parties I’d want to attend, but able to sit down and have a persuasive argument about William Shakespeare and his inability to actually have written the plays that bear his name……no pun intended. To be an animal that could shed the trappings of man and race across plains while maintaining the sense of propriety to hang his hat at the door and wash his paws before sitting down to dinner. A bear with a coat.

But, since bears have a coat already, I suppose it would be a bear with coats. Plural.

This dream buried its hooks into my brain after my friend Lisa doodled a bear cub in 5th grade. We were supposed to be working on math problems, and since neither of us understood or enjoyed math, she drew frequently. That day, she created a cute grizzly cub chewing on some paper with a speech bubble exclaiming, “Bears don’t need to do math.”

We both giggled to ourselves, making our teacher spin on her heels and glare us down for interrupting her tirade against the lost art of check writing. Why 5th graders needed to learn to write checks, I’ll never know. Turning back to my sheet of loose leaf, I began to doodle my response. Lisa was a great artist, but sketching was my passion. I released this haughty, proud-standing polar bear wearing a suit jacket over a smart vest and a paw on his chest, retorting, “SOME bears need math, and do it quite well.”

For whatever reason, that polar bear remained with me. Perhaps it’s my size, or lack thereof. Not only am I occasionally teased when I ask my fiancé for assistance reaching the top shelf, but I fear I am also not taken seriously when my passion surges to fill my tiny body and bubble over. I also wish I were better able to protect the things I love: my art from the thieves that came last August or my little brother from the bullies at school. No one would challenge a giant bear that spoke Latin. No one.