Twelve Bears

There were twelve brown bears standing around a large pine tree in the green forest. Each bear had an individually wrapped sandwich in its pocket. None of the bears knew that they had pockets in their fur which could hold things like sandwiches. But they did. Each bear had a pocket in the right hand side of its fur but none of the bears had found their pocket yet. The sandwiches were fresh, and would remain that way, because the sandwiches were wrapped in an amazing new blend of plastic wrap which freezes your sandwich in time until you see fit unwrap it.

The twelve brown bears, each with a sandwich in its pocket, stood around the large pine tree because there was a bunch of pizzas up in the branches of the tree on account of an airplane which crash-landed nearby. The airplane was a pizza delivery airplane, and just before the plane crashed into the ground and exploded, it had abandoned its cargo of twelve extra-large pizzas with many delicious toppings on them.

So the twelve brown bears were standing beneath the tree with the pizzas in it and each was trying to figure out how to get the pizzas down. Unfortunately, the bears couldn't communicate with one another because bears have no real language or any other means by which to communicate with one another. For this reason, each bear was in its own universe trying to solve the problem for itself.

The twelve bears were not just a little bit hungry. They were a large bit hungry. The green forest used to be filled with berries and honey and all of the bears sat around inside their caves and played video games and got high and ate the berries and honey all the time. Then one day the berries just ran out. The twelve bears all emerged from their caves having not eaten in three days and were in a great deal of pain. The nearby crashing of the pizza plane and its dumping of twelve extra large pizzas into a the large pine tree was nothing short of a miracle.

The bears were standing beneath the tree looking at the pizza up in its branches. The pizzas smelled delicious. Suddenly, one of the bears realized it had a pocket in its fur and that its pocket had a sandwich inside it and that the sandwich was still fresh. The lucky bear took the sandwich from its pocket. It then unwrapped the sandwich and immediately began eating it, but when the other bears saw him eating the sandwich they became furious and attacked him.

The bear which ate the sandwich tried to communicate that its fur had a pocket with a sandwich inside it and that maybe the other bears also had pockets with sandwiches inside them, but it had no way to communicate this and was beaten to death by the rest of the bears. After beating the bear with the sandwich to death, the rest of the bears went back to sitting around beneath the tree staring up at the pizza in its branches. Eventually a strong breeze picked up and all twelve large pizzas fell out of the tree.

The bears could not believe their good fortune and immediately began to eat the pizzas, except for one bear who was out taking a leak when the pizzas fell out of the tree. When the bear taking a leak came back all twelve extra-large pizzas had already been consumed. He tried to tell the other bears how selfish they were. There had been plenty of pizza for everyone to eat and there was no reason that he should be left to starve. But even if he had had a way to communicate any of this, none of the other bears would have cared very much anyway.

The ten well-fed bears went back to their caves to play videogames and get high while the eleventh bear, which had been taking a leak and got nothing to eat, licked empty pizza boxes and searched in the green grass for pizza crumbs and cheese drippings using its twitching starving paws. Eventually the pain of hunger became too much for the bear so later that night the bear drowned itself in a brook to end the constant pain it was forced to endure.

Several days after the bear drowned itself, the other ten bears were just starting to get hungry again, but fortunately the berry bushes in their forest were again beginning to sprout berries and the honeycombs were once again filled with honey. The ten bears ate from the berry bushes and got high and played video games – life was once again peaches and cream. The other two dead bears decayed and were eaten by rodents and bugs. The rodents and bugs rejoiced and thanked the heavens for their good fortune.

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LYNCH 2009