Fun fact: At the Berlin Zoo, a cat named Muschi voluntarily shares a cage with his best friend, a black bear.
My full name is Richard the Lionhearted but, for their ease and convenience, I grant my staff permission to call me Lion most of the time. If any soul troubled itself enough to inquire, my staff would readily concur that I have full membership status in the Association known to you as Very Good Cat.
Although it pains me to admit this, it hasn’t always been so. Allow me, if I may, to elucidate for you my proof of this somewhat disagreeable truth.
I was born to a charming and respectable family, but as is the wont of foolhardy and recalcitrant youths, I found that way of life much too staid and circumspect for an intrepid and adventurous swashbuckler such as I. One day, I gathered my inner fortitude around me and escaped the confines of family and friends to courageously make my own way in the world.
The Montana mountains are a treacherous place for an unsophisticated and untried young cat such as myself, and I rapidly blew through several of my allotted lifetimes. One day, cold and weak with hunger, I came upon an old truck bed filled to overflowing with kitchen refuse Oh my… Oh my… Oh my. This was going to be a heavenly treat.
Soon, I was industriously consuming the most delectable comestibles I could ever recall devouring. Indeed, I was so preoccupied with enjoying this fine repast that I neither saw nor heard The Bear.
You, dear readers, may not be aware that the Yellowstone National Park officials had recently decided that there was a superfluity of bears in the Park, nor that they devised some nonsensical plan to capture said bears and relocate them to the wilds of Canada. I must say, to this day I consider that to have been quite rude and presumptuous on the part of the officials. It was disrespectful to the bears and, more importantly, nearly cost me… well, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Now, this truck filled with a garbage buffet and the house it belonged to, lay directly in the path the deported bears had to take as they made their laborious journey home from Canada to the Park, where they preferred living. This fine morning, as the sun rose over the mountains and warmed my happy little back, I filled my happy little stomach.
But not for long.
Suddenly, sensing that the feaster was about to become the feast, I whirled around and came nose to snout with an excessively ill-humored bear. He was, no doubt, as tired and hungry as I was. Unlike me, though, it was through no choice of his own that he now found himself in this sad situation. I’m ashamed to admit that his feelings, however, never entered my mind at the time. Like any callow youth, I thought only of myself.
Quite naturally, I yowled my protests and leaped out of the truck-bed, forgetting entirely about my half-finished breakfast. I saw that the back door of the house was open and, at a loss for a better plan, I took a chance that I could find a hiding place before that uncouth and pestilential bear could make use of my skinny body to break his fast.
Good lord, that bear was fast! There was no time to make the hard right turn into the kitchen, so I plunged down the stairs into the dirt basement instead, with the bear, as they say, hot on my tail. Round and round we went in that tiny dirt room. I could feel his noxious breath and the whoosh of air as his great claws slashed the air by my rump.
Somewhere above us, I heard the welcome screeching and roaring of agitated human creatures. I sincerely hoped they would get to me in time. I was fast losing steam. The Bear apparently registered human activity, too, because he seemed instantly to lose interest in me as he skidded to a halt and gazed around wildly for the exit. Indeed, I managed to make two more laps around the room before I realized he was no longer paying the least attention to me. Instead, up the stairs he charged, quite possibly even faster than he had come down. Moments later, I heard a gunshot.
Wisely, I remained concealed in that dark hole under the house till evening. Nothing and no one could convince me to emerge any sooner. Finally, I stealthily tiptoed, in slow motion, up the stairs and out into the woods, peering warily in all directions as I went. There was no bear to be found, and I must admit I was glad, since it was my own guidance that led him into that basement. The old chap must’ve got away after all. He likely even told his grandcubs the story of how he almost had fresh young cat for breakfast one morning on his Long Journey Home.
~Loral Lee Portenier
