Grizzly morning

I was outside on a windless winter morning. The sun was not in the treetops yet, but the sky was already a beautiful blue. I crossed the street from the house where I was staying, to a park that surrounds or intertwines the parking lot and grounds of a small apartment complex. The park is mostly in between two sections of parking lot. Bushes and shrubs create ground cover, while a few large maple combine with the backside of the carports to provide shade.

For some reason, I was carrying minature tokens of summer which I had made from plastic clay: a melting pop-cicle, a couple of chocolate shakes in their cups, with straws, and a hand-fan – things like that. They all fit into one hand, and I think my intention was to find some table in the park, and set them up just for novelty.

As I stepped up onto the sidewalk that parallels the street, I saw the new snow on the walk had already been churned by animals, especially where the walk passed between a row of short shrub. Looking ahead and around me on this quiet, clear morning, I saw animals stirring still. A white rabbit skittered for cover as I passed, two squirrels chased ahead of me, through the canyon of shrub, and then off to the side of a tree.

As I was about to enter the park, I was stopped by the presence of a bear cub. He played about 15 feet from me, oblivious. He was busy stalking a fieldmouse, briefly stirring up clouds of snow, then pausing to see where it popped up next. The cub made those cute little bear growls.

I decided I would continue walking past him into the park, and just maintain the 15 foot perimeter. I did not tarry nor look back – if I crossed at any time between the cub and its mother, she would be less forgiving if I made eye contact or paused. Shortly I was moving quietly in the space between carports, looking for the perfect spot to display my wares.

I was nearly in the center of the park when I chilled to the bone by a sound that made me white as the winter itself. I looked back towards where I entered the park, and saw the source of the roar which surpassed the sum of my fears for the morning. A great grizzly-looking bear was looking around the corner of the short shrub. She had obviously followed my scent where I turned, and was now eyeing me – as her cub had taken to following my scent too, and was now scant yards from me.

As she had not moved, and I was too terrified to move, I took the moment to evaluate my options. A ridge of dense brush ran from the bear past me to the other end of the park, dividing it roughly in half. The brush had narrow breaks, walkways, every 10 yards or so, one of which I was standing near. If I turned and walked backwards, I could walk easily and slowly into a breezeway of the carport, carrying me out of site of the bear. But it took me closer to her cub, and if she should charge, there was nothing to slow her down…

My choice was made for me as she grew impatient, let out another horrendous bellow, and began to run. A deer bolted from the brush nearby and ran towards the breezeway as I began moving in slow motion towards the carport in front of me. As luck would have it, the section I was running towards was a kind of drainage area. The ground began sloping downward under the shade of the carport until it met the foundation wall, a full 10 feet below the handrailing that bordered the parking surface.

The valley was probably 20 to 30 yards wide, but on either end was a section of railing running at right angle to the valley, running straight out towards me, along the top edge of the side walls of the drainage valley, towards the main columns of the carport. I ran toward the furthest one, knowing that the bear had the advantage of speed, but it was better than running toward her!

The bottom edge of the rail was still 3 or 4 feet off the ground as the valley was deep and still not up to level of the rest of the park at that point. But I knew that I had a climbing advantage over the bear, and if I could just get to the other side of the rails, and scoot as far over the valley as I could, I will have gained enough time to maybe yell for help. It was my only hope.

Each footfall from the bear was a bass drum beat on the ground with a light cymbol brush of snow scattering under each grip. Every cycle of her legs brought a sublime grunt of her breathing, a promise of death. Everything was in slow motion and I could feel her breath across the park like inevitability as she closed the distance across the park.

I caught the bottom of the railing in my hands and pulled. I lifted myself off the ground, but could not adjust my grip as the vertical bracing of the fencing was lightly iced, and became slippery in my grip. I tried frantically to instead pull myself tight and walk up the wall. A bolting roar like a fanfare or the blast from a locomotive before it crushes your vehicle at the crossing came up behind me and I knew it was too late.

Automatically I opened my eyes, awake, and my heart was beating as loud as the bear’s footfalls and just as fast. I could feel the pressure of my pulse in my eyes, and now I was afraid I was going to have a heart attack. I knew that if I didn’t resolve the dream, if I didn’t do something to relax right away, I was in trouble. So I half closed my eyes, and began rescripting the final seconds of the dream. I was able to get traction with my shoes against the brick of the wal, of the nearby column. I was able to get my body on the other side of the railing, in time to see the bear – NO in time to slip my feet in and out of the rungs and scootch myself toward the far railing. In time to yell for help.

These are the fragments I showed myself, to slow my heart down. Now suddenly it seemed, my heart was running on half its cylinders. The thumping was much weaker, and the timing was slower, and it felt as if I blew out an aorta. I sat up in bed. I unplugged my cell phone (my only home phone) and headed to the bathroom. If I was going to call an ambulance, if I was going to be unconscious, I wanted to have an empty bladder.

A warm sensation passed down through my chest as I walked. In the bathroom, I looked myself over in the mirror for any signs that I might be losing blood. I couldn’t tell if my drowsiness was lack of consciousness or the fact that it was 2:45 am.