How the Bear Fell in Love

I must preface this post by saying I just had an AHA! moment. I love to write and so why not post my stories?! So viola...there will be a ton today and when I write new ones I'll post them! Enjoy!

How the Bear Fell in Love

Once upon a time in a place where thousands of people went to everyday to take a break from reality, history was made. There they sat, two very different and unique people who had never met. One, a woman in her fifties with short cropped grey hair, wearing the outfit that she had carefully selected as she did every morning. Her eyes were a bright, almost fluorescent blue. The other, a short and plump man also in his fifties, who had prepossessing features about him that left anyone who saw him wondering a plethora of questions. They sat there, strapped tightly into a seat that was about to take them for the ride of their lives. They had both been in the single rider lane and had ended up sitting next to each other not knowing that these next few moments would make history.

As they were beginning to move backwards up a steep slope, Veronica recalled to herself exactly how the ride should go. Once they had been pulled backwards up and intimidatingly steep slant, they would have thirteen seconds before they would hear and whooshing sound, and they would fall quickly down the tracks while having the breath taken out of them. The only part of the ride that concerned her was reaching the top, because she had a terrible fear of heights which she usually didn't share with people. Each moment passed as they climbed higher, and each moment, she became increasingly more terrified. Time seemed to be standing still as she felt cool beads of sweat rolling down her face at a hurried pace. Finally they reached the top and she began counting. Her heart pounded as beads of sweat turned into a waterfall of salty perspiration falling off of every surface of her body. It took her a moment to remember what number came first. Then it came to her. One. Each number she silently breathed became easier to remember. After what seemed life forever and a day, she reacher 13. Nothing. No whoosh. No jolt. No breathtaking drop. Nothing. Each millisecond that passed, she began to panic a little bit more. When she saw the specks of people below putting on reflective yellow vests and climbing up the emergency access stairs, it hit her. She was stuck. A thousand thoughts ran through her head. But most importantly, if she died, she hadn't fulfilled her life goal: to fall in love. To fall farther than she had ever fallen, and have the time of her life doing it. And she began to cry.

As she began to look at the situation she was in from an outside perspective, she realized that the poor person next to her probably thought she was crazy. They had gotten stuck at the top of a relatively small roller coaster and she was bawling like a two year old. She decided that she should at least try to make the situation less awkward than it already was. So she resolved to say hi to him.

“Hi.” she said trying to sound sane, but coming off more as socially awkward.

“Hi.” the man replied politely.

Her attempt at a conversation wasn't playing out the way she had expected so she tried a new approach.

“My name is Veronica! Most people call me Ronie but ya know...yeah.....ahem...” she fell into an intensely awkward silence.

“Uh...hi. My name is Joseph but most people call me Joe.”

“So Joe, do you like roller coasters?” she was desperately attempting to hold a decent conversation.

“Yeah I guess they are pretty cool. You?”

“Oh I love them! I just hate heights.”

“Yeah I could tell!” he said knowingly, “I know something that could take your mind off of the height!”

“And what is that?”

“I'm going to call my mom! She'll never believe it and It's her birthday so what better thing to do?!”

“Uh...okay I guess” she said rather hesitantly. He fiddle with his pocket and eventually reached his phone. When he dialed the number, a picture of a large bear showed on his phone. Ronie wondered why the photo ID for his mother was a bear. That seemed almost rude she thought to herself. And then she noticed something she hadn't taken note of before. Joe was hairy. Very, very hairy! She almost gawked when she put all of the pieces together. Joe was a bear! She had been sitting with and talking with a BEAR! She had spoken with a bear! But more surprisingly, a bear had spoken to her! This was absolutely the most preposterous situation she had EVER been in!

She tried very hard not to make a scene, but with the question she couldn't resist asking, it would be hard. “I...uh...” she stuttered, “Um...I guess I was just noticing you are...um...a bear.”

“Wow! Took you long enough! That is usually the first thing people notice about me!” he hung up and decided that the conversation he was about to have was more important than singing some dumb over-sung birthday song to his mother. He was simply astonished that she hadn't noticed that right off the bat! Usually when you first meet a person, you notice some distinguishing characteristic about them immediately. However this woman seemed to be very different in that it had taken her at least ten minutes to notice that he was a bear! This woman who seemed to act and dress too professional for being at an amusement park, had taken ten whole minutes to notice that he was a bear! He eventually concluded that she must just be a little slow in the head.

Their conversation had taken a sharp left turn into oncoming traffic and reached a dead halt. He decided to change the course of the shattered remains of the conversation they once had.

“So what do you do for a living?” he asked casually.

She rehearsed the lie she had told an infinite number of time in her life.

“I'm the CEO of a small start up in Imperial Missouri. We work with fixing computer viruses.” He bought into her lie perfectly.

“Interesting! I find myself to be very 'computer capable'”

“Thats useful in these times.”

“Yeah it is.”

For a few minutes they sat in silence as they came back to the reality of the situation they were in. About fifteen minutes had passed since they had become stuck, and a ride operator came onto a loudspeaker somewhere near by.

“Okay ladies and gentlemen, we have fixed the problem and we are going to run the ride now!” this announcement was followed by several cheers and a lot of clapping.

The ride ran normally from a somewhat delayed beginning to a fantastic end. When Ronie got off the ride, she didn't bother saying anything to Joe but rather sprinted as fast as she could. She wasn't really sure where she was going but all she knew was she had had an adrenaline rush and was shaking uncontrollably. She didn't want anyone to see her like this so she hurried to a bathroom. After spending several minutes in the restroom, the shaking had reduced enough that she felt comfortable going back out into the public. She walked aimlessly around the park trying to get the leftover adrenaline out of her system and her mind wondered. She remembered the reason she had come to this park. She was stuck.

Veronica Nancy Parks. She was the Queen of the United States of America. Yes, she was the QUEEN of the U.S.A. Very few people in the world knew who she was. And even fewer knew why. Anyone who knew her and knew what she did would classify her as an evil queen, but she didn't like to think so. Her job was simply to tell the American government what to do. She could change the course of the country, and essentially, the world almost instantaneously. The American government had to do what she said. Like it or not. If she said, “Drop all of the nukes we have.” they did it. The average person wouldn't understand the leverage she had over them. And even the President didn't, but he knew it was powerful whatever it was. In the past, the government had tried to disobey the Queen, and it never ended well. It always resulted in either death, or catastrophe. She had been on a good streak. The wizard who told her what to do, who no one knew including her, hadn't asked much of her since she came to power. Until recently. The wizard, had asked something difficult of her. The wizard asked her to have the government begin a war with Canada. Not only must she start a war with no reason, she had to start it by dropping a hydrogen bomb in Newfoundland. When she heard this, she seriously considered simply saying no. But she knew that such a reply would result in her immediate death. So she was torn about whether or not to send out the command to the government. And that is why she had taken a vacation. She just needed something different to think about for a while. And as she found herself remembering her dilemma, she decided to think about something different yet again.

So she thought about two things. First, she thought of her life goal. She had come so close several times, but had never actually made it. Or at least she didn't think so. Her life goal was to find a man, and fall in love with him. She did eventually want to get married, and if thats what the result of her falling in love was, then great. But all she really wanted at the time was to fall in love in a way she could never imagine. And the second thing she thought of was Joe. This mysterious talking bear she met on a roller coaster. He seemed like a nice enough guy. And she felt awful for walking off on him. Before she had realized that he was a bear, she had been thinking that maybe he was the one. She hadn't held a meaningful conversation with any male since her last talk with the president. And that was years ago. So this bear was the first one who came to mind when she thought of someone she could potentially fall for. So she decided to try to find him.

Finding Joe completely possessed her mind. Any and every thought always came back to Joe. Joe and all he could be to her and for her. Her mind was all about the future. The “what ifs” and the “maybe someday” thoughts were exhilarating. She began to come up with scenarios that were preposterous for how little she actually knew about him. She imagined them sitting on a bench in a park holding hands and watching the clouds role by. She imagined them ice skating. And she imagined them being married. She suddenly popped back into reality for a moment and realized that she had been nearly sprinting around the park looking for Joe. So she slowed a little and began to look closer. After about five more minutes of searching, she found him.

When she saw him, there was practically a halo around him.

“Joe! Joe! JOE!!!!! OVER HERE JOE!!!!” she exclaimed waving her arms around frantically. Noticing himself being summoned and also being stared at by several bystanders, he responded,

“Oh! Hey Ronie!” he walked briskly to her and escorted her to a less public area to see what the cause for her making such a scene was.

“What on earth was that about?!” he exclaimed

“I...um...” she couldn't think of what to say. She had been overly eager to find him and never came up with an idea of what to say when she found him. She came to a conclusion.

“I just felt bad for walking off on you and figured I should apologize before I never saw you again.” she breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn't made herself look like a complete fool...at least she hoped she hadn't.

“It's fine don't worry about it! You looked a little shaken anyways!”

“Yeah heights aren't really my thing. Look, I know I just met you and maybe this is crazy, but I was thinking you seem really nice and maybe you would want to meet up sometime for dinner or something?”

“Uh...yeah sure! Why not!”

So Joe and Ronie spent the rest of their day at the amusement park together and afterwards they went to dinner. They learned many interesting things about each other over that dinner. As they sat across the booth from each other, they had no problem keeping a real conversation going.

“So were you ever married or anything?” asked Ronie.

“No. But I had a girlfriend once. We probably would have gotten married, except she was a panda and I was a grizzly so we couldn't decide on a place to live. Also, she gave me no space at all. Everywhere I was she was. I was never alone. Ever. It was a frustrating and difficult situation so I ended it.”

“Oh. I'm sorry. That's sad.”

“It's okay. Really. I got over it.”

“Well thats good. What was her name?”

“Malery. It's spelled differently than most people would think...I never found out why though. Did you ever have a husband or boyfriend or anything?”

“I almost dated a man once. His name was George. He was amazing. But then I found out he was married.”

Their evening continued and they both enjoyed it very much. So they set up another date. And another, and another, and an endless number of dates. Eventually, they got married. They lived a long and happy life together in Imperial Missouri where Ronie went to work at her start up company everyday. She had the government wage war on Canada and a hydrogen bomb was dropped in Newfoundland. The war lasted for several years and the United States finally won and made peace with Canada. She never told him that she had been going down eight floors to a secret office from which she ruled the United States everyday of their 36 year marriage, until one day.

One day in the beginning of spring, Joe fell ill. He had a heart attack and had survived it but in his old age deteriorated quickly. Ronie knew he would die soon, and made one of the most difficult decisions in her life. She decided to tell him that she had lied to him everyday of their marriage. She walked into the hospital room one afternoon after the doctor had called her. He had said that it was time to say goodbye to Joe. So she went.

As she entered the room, it was silent. Joe was staring blankly at the ceiling. She decided that it was now or never. She finally mustered up the courage to say it.

“Joe, I have something to tell you.” she said solemnly.

“Yes darling?” he replied weakly.

“Joe, I am the Queen of the United States government. I tell them what to do and they obey me. Because if they don't obey me, then bad things happen. I am the reason the war on Canada started. I told the government to drop that bomb. I didn't want to but I did, only because I had to. I had to do it because there's this wizard who tells me what to do and if I don't do it, then I end up dead. I never see him and I don't know who he is but I obey him. And if I hadn't, I never would have married you because I wouldn't be here.” she said quickly.

There was a long pause and a placid look washed over Joe's face. He replied, “I know. I'm the wizard.” and slipped peacefully off into an eternal sleep.