Once upon a time there lived a very handsome bear, who lived with his loving bear girlfriend, who fed him honey all day long. The two bears lived in a den full of cushions, overlooking a leafy rainforest.
One day, the lady bear went out to pick some berries so she could make all manner of tasty baked goods, such as pies and cupcakes. She took her basket and was gone for about one hour, selecting the juiciest, purplest berries she could find.
While the lady bear was out, the handsome bear stayed at home and did other important things. He had little to no inkling of the tragedy that would soon befall him. Unbeknownst to him, a scorpion slid into the den, through the crack under the door, and stealthily made its way to the bear's foot.
When the lady bear was back from her berry-gathering expedition, she found the den empty! Her handsome bear was nowhere to be seen. She stored the berries in their refrigerator and set off to look for him, for although they had only been separated for a short while, she already missed him dearly.
The lady bear noticed how a path in the forest showed signs of a struggle, such as claw marks in tree trunks, and broken branches and the like. She followed this path until she came to the lair of the scorpion.
The scorpion hissed (or rattled, or whatever sound scorpions make) at the lady bear, and said "I bit the handsome bear, he is mine now!" But the lady bear would obviously not have any of this, and since she was considerably larger than the scorpion, she simply lifted her foot up and squashed the scorpion. It helped that she had been wearing sensible shoes with thick soles.
One the way home from the scorpion's lair, the two bears came across a dying dog. The lady bear told her handsome bear partner of how she had seen an episode of Bear Grylls, and learnt that if you had sustained a scorpion sting, you only had to insert the stung limb into the stomach of a dying dog, so the stomach acids could neutralise the harmful alkilinity in the scorpion venom.
The handsome bear did as the lady bear suggested, for he knew she was always right about such things, even if she had initially not recognised the scorpion in the first place as she had a slightly misguided belief in how scorpions looked. (She had assumed the scorpion would have a pincer on it's tail, which is an understandable enough error to make.)
Once the handsome bear had been relieved of the burdensome scorpion venom, the two bears headed home, arm in arm. The handsome bear expressed much admiration for how the lady bear squashed the scorpion so efficiently.
When they arrived home, the lady bear baked all the berries she had collected into tasty desserts. She baked a batch of blueberry cupcakes, a blueberry pie, and a blueberry cheesecake, and served these tasty deserts with lots of custard and cream.
The handsome bear partook in these delicacies heartily, and then took a nap. He awoke from the nap an hour later, in a happy mood.
You have an uncanny ability to make me hungry...
ReplyDeleteAnd is there a pokemon reference in there, about the appearance of a scorpion?
However, I must say, the bears were inconsiderate of not at least applying basic first aid to the dog to ensure it's comfort in death, if not help it recover :P
Still.. Nice valentine touch. Could see a bit of you and dave in your story I think :P
LOL, interesting you should think there is a pokemon reference, seeing as Dave and I spent much of this weekend watching rented pokemon DVDs! I didn't intend to allude to pokemon but perhaps they were on my subconscious mind as I wrote this!
ReplyDeleteOh the dog was beyond repair! (And just a plot device to ensure the handsome bear did not die from the scorpion sting)
Firstly, pokemon reference due to the scorpion with a pincer on it's tail.. I'm pretty sure that's a pokemon, therefore the female bear may have developed this misconception by only ever seeing a scorpion-type-thing playing the game..
ReplyDeleteAnd also, were these bears sufficiently medically trained? Because if you've ever done your first aid training you'd know that no-one but a medically-trained professional can determin the well-being and likelyhood-of-continuing-to-live of anyone!
So nyer :P
So see, as a plot device it does have a lot of holes. But i guess it works :P
Oh! I was not aware of there being a pokemon that looked like that - what's it's name? I will look it up in my 'pokedex'! oh man... I am quite the nerd!
ReplyDeleteAnd maybe the bears were not medically trained but the dog's innards were spilling out and everything, and it's stomach was slit open, so the stomach acid would have been irreversibly poisoning the dog's bloodstream. So nyeh.
And besides, what are plot devices but implausible scenarios which require a significant degree of suspension of disbelief, all to carry the main message of the story through :)
I don't remember it's name, if it does exist.. I may just be completely wrong and made it up :P
ReplyDeleteAnd ok, you win. I bow down to your superior writing skills :P
Its name is Skorupi..
ReplyDeleteYour use of the word tragedy saddens me. I love tragedy, it's pretty much my favourite word in the English language.
How exactly did the events that befell the bear tragic or in any way a form of tragedy?
I know I'm being an ass and a little nitpicky after all, 'twas a good story, its just that everything these days is considered to be "tragic" and yet none of it actually is. :(
Seriously, if I hear one more news report about a "tragic" car crash I'm going to start sending in complaints about how their incessant and insipid hyperbole is raping my beloved English language.
The English language morphs, and words change meaning over time, all the time, Thomas! Did you know the word "nice" used to be derogatory, before becoming more complimentary? And vice versa with the word "gaudy", while we now equate gaudy with tacky, a few centuries ago, it was the height of fashion to be gaudy! If the English language never changed it would become a dead language, like Latin! Used only in medicine, law, and university mottos. So to me, the word 'tragedy' can mean any story involving suffering and hardship!
ReplyDeleteBut morphology of language aside, these events were indeed tragic in the classical sense; the handsome bear is the epitome of the classical tragic hero. His one fatal flaw brought him dangerously close to his downfall! This fatal flaw was his incompetence in guarding his house against scorpions. Or perhaps it was his inability to resist the lure of the scorpion (who must have lured him into it's den somehow, I very much doubt a scorpion can physically transport a bear anywhere). Perhaps the bear is like Othello, too trusting and suggestible!
But that incompetence isn't a personality flaw in itself, rather one of laziness. However being too trusting and gullible are personality flaws, they cannot be changed. Or at least what would make them tragic is that if they led to the death of the bear. Seeing as the bear was saved from the tragedy, it ceases to exist as a tragedy. Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, yet if they have lived at the end, would it still be the tragic tale? You see what I trying to get at here, I've had this sort of pedantic argument my entire life. I remember an epic one that lasted for months over electrocution.
ReplyDeleteTo be electrocuted is to recieve a current strong enough to result in death. Therefore you cannot be electrocuted and survive. Then it's just being shocked. I argued this until I was blue in the face!
Oh and Latin is so not dead. I love latin and want to learn it (I slowly am), so many of the philosophers I read use it still and if/when I ever write philosophy professionally, I'll definitely be using it.
I've always considered "nice" to be a derogatory word. Being called a "nice" guy by my friends makes me very uncomfortable and you are right about "gaudy" changing, but the context of the word has changed, not the actual meaning, which really pertains to the society and customs of the period it was used in.
I'm thinking of starting a movie section in Adventures in advertising, just to spice it up a little. I've just forced myself to sit through twilight and have a bundle of rage to unleash over the retarded shit-pile that it is. Stephanie Meyer should be burned alive for that atrocity against literature. Even Stephen King despises her writing.
Oh Thomas, why why why have you read/watched Twilight? I can't even begin to think of a reason why one would do that. Speaking of movies I want to see, I want to see Valentine's Day!
ReplyDeleteI see your point, what with the word "tragedy" connotating a tragic end, as opposed to something involving an amount of suffering and pain, that then has a happy or neutral ending. But is death necessarily the most tragic outcome? What if the story hadn't ended there... what if we discovered that the scorpion wasn't dead, just a little squashed, recovered from her injuries, lured the bear back into her den, thus separating the two bears forever? There has been no death, but to me this is quite a tragic story.
And I didn't know that to be electrocuted necessarily ended in death! I suppose you learn something new each day. So the word electrocution describes a form of dying, as opposed to just any injury involving electric shock? I'll be sure to pull that one out at my next dinner party.