A Bear for All Seasons
Chapter Five Hundred Seventy Two
Hannah couldn’t remember the last time she had been this happy. How could this man… this Bear… have awoken such contentment inside of her? Perhaps, she thought, it had always been there. It just took a British adventure survivalist to bring it out of her.
Hannah started thinking about Brian.
Sure, he had cheated on her when she least expected it – while she was taking a shower - but she still cared for him. She hoped he was okay and not too upset about the fact that she had run off with Bear to this secluded private island where they had spent their days making love under the sun and their nights also making love under the stars.
There was one maneuver called The Passenger where he paraglided into the boudoir from the sea and then immediately jumped out the window of their hut and would disappear for hours and then come back with organic pancakes. Such bliss.
She also hoped he wouldn’t mind that Bear used a lot of heavy machinery when they made love – ropes and pulleys and the like, so as to achieve better angles and viewpoints. There was one maneuver called The Passenger where he paraglided into the boudoir from the sea and then immediately jumped out the window of their hut and would disappear for hours and then come back with organic pancakes. Such bliss.
Suddenly, a coconut flew by her head, almost hitting her and surely doing some serious, potentially permanent damage.
“Heads up!” shouted Bear from way up in a coconut tree.
She smiled and bit her lower lip, which, as mentioned earlier, was a thing she liked to do that made her seem likable and sensual.
Bear picked up on her vibe. They had spent mere hours together but they already knew each other so intimately. They finished each other’s sentences and said “we” when talking about movies or TV shows.
They even did uncanny impressions of each other. “Hi I’m Hannah and I bite my lip,” Bear would say.
“Oh hey I’m Bear and I climb mountains with special equipment.”
They would entertain each other for hours with these impressions while fishing and fighting enormous spiders and eating even bigger snakes.
It was the perfect life, Hannah thought, but could it last?
One morning, after yet another all night love making session, Hannah noticed an alert on her phone:
Tomorrow was her best friend Bunny’s wedding! She started to cry.
Bear immediately noticed her tears. He instinctively grabbed her phone and threw it into the sea.
“There,” he said. “Problem solved.”
“I wish it was that easy, Bear,” Hannah said. “But I have to leave you. My best friend is getting married.”
“Shazza’s getting married? Good for her.”
“No. Not Shaz.”
“Ah, then it must be Gerty. Ol’ Gerty’s finally settled down.”
“No. It’s Bunny.”
“I’m sorry, no. Bunny is not your best friend.”
“Excuse me?”
“No one has a best friend named Bunny. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I happen to love Bunny like a sister!”
“No human being has been named Bunny in 75 years! Is your best friend 90? No, you’re making this up so you don’t have the face your real feelings – that deep down, you’re a thrill seeking adventure-making survivalist. Like me. You’re wild, babe. I don’t know if this Bunny person is real or if she’s just some rabbit you know, but don’t let her tell you how to live. Just because she lives in a cage doesn’t mean you have to.”
“She’s not a rabbit!”
Hannah stormed out of the tree house she and Bear had built together with their love.
“Neither are you,” Bear said as a single tear streamed down his face. “Neither are you.”
Hannah stormed out of the tree house she and Bear had built together with their love.
Bunny’s wedding was typical for Sydney – the overly posed photos on the harbour, the bad 90s music, the sexually explicit cake. It reminded Hannah of everything she didn’t want out of life. She was happy for Bunny, but as she watched her best friend dance with her new husband to the third Vanilla Ice song of the evening, she thought she was going to explode.
“I can’t think with all this Vanilla Ice music!” she suddenly found herself shouting. “Seriously, three songs?! Are we listening to it ironically?! How can you people live like this?!?!”
Hannah scanned the tent and found the bar. She ran toward it, but Bunny hopped in front of her.
“Hannah, are you okay?” Bunny asked, twitching her nose.
Hannah noticed, for the first time really, that Bunny had extremely long ears.
“Seriously, I’m worried about you,” Bunny said and started furiously chomping on a carrot, Bugs Bunny-style. Little pieces of carrot were going everywhere.
“I’ve made the worst mistake of my life, Bunny,” Hannah said. “We’re all just rabbits.”
Hannah pushed Bunny out of the way, grabbed a bottle from the bar and ran out of the tent.
She didn’t stop running until she was at the top of the Harbour Bridge. Her time with Bear had taught her how to camouflage herself, even in a formal dress and heels, so she wasn’t spotted by security as she climbed past the hordes of tourists clinging for dear life to their ropes and each other.
But Hannah had nothing to hold on to. Certainly not love. Oh, she had held it, but then she let it go so she could attend the wedding of her best friend who may or may not be some sort of human/rabbit hybrid.
What kind of Island of Dr Moreau life had she returned to?
She looked at the bottle. Vermouth. Wouldn’t have been her first choice, but this is what her life had come to.
“Cheers, Sydney,” she said, holding up the bottle.
“Cheers right back to you,” responded a voice.
Hannah turned to see Brian, in a tuxedo, looking handsome – well, as handsome as someone with a big pancake face and two chins jutting out from opposite sides of his face could look.
“Hannah, I’ve changed,” Brian said, pleading with his eyes. “I’ve changed into a better person and I’m ready to love you the way you deserve to be loved. No more drinking, no more cheating, no more chicken-chasing.”
The chicken-chasing had been a serious problem throughout their relationship. And if Brian was willing to give it up, maybe they had a chance…
The chicken-chasing had been a serious problem throughout their relationship. And if Brian was willing to give it up, maybe they had a chance…
Brian reached for Hannah’s hand.
“Brian, I…”
By this point all the tourists on the bridge climb were staring at Brian and Hannah, stunned by the drama unfolding in front of them and whispering to each other…
“What is she going to do?”
“He’s got a weird chin thing going on, but this is a sweet gesture.”
“Whatever happens I wish they’d hurry up I’m freezing.”
Hannah looked at Brian’s hand, then looked at her hand, then looked at the vermouth, then looked at the tourists, who were making the “wrap it up” motion, then looked back at the vermouth, then back at Brian’s hand.
She lifted her hand towards his…
“Is that Batman?” Brian said.
Hannah looked up. A winged figure was soaring towards them. The tourists screamed.
“Batman’s coming to get us!!”
But Hannah knew it wasn’t Batman. It was Bear. He had rigged himself a large pair of wings from leaves, mud and discarded CD cases.
Hannah bit her lower lip.
“I’m not going to let Batman take my girlfriend!” Brian said, grabbing the bottle of vermouth and hurling it at Bear.
Forced into an evasive maneuver, Bear was sent into a nosedive.
She held him tightly as he pressed his face up against hers and shook it around, very romantically.
Hannah screamed. “No! I love him!”
The night sky was empty.
Brian looked at Hannah. “You love Batman?”
“That wasn’t Batman!” Hannah yelled.
“Then who was it, smart guy?” Brian said.
"It was me. Bear Grylls."
Suddenly, Bear swooped up and snatched Hannah off the bridge. She held him tightly as he pressed his face up against hers and shook it around, very romantically.
“You smell incredible,” Bear said. “What is that scent?”
“Vermouth,” Hannah said. She looked down. “Don’t let me go.”
Bear smiled. “I’ll never let you go again. You don’t have any more weddings to go to, do you?”
“Just one friend.”
“What’s her name?”
“Hamster.”
And then they laughed and laughed and laughed.
