Fourth

There once was a very dark night. Darker than all the rest of the nights that have been before.

Nothing significant happened that night, to my knowledge. There were the normal births and deaths, with no great historical figure making an appearance.

You know how dark nights go though, I’m sure. They have a certain feel to them, they feel as if there is more depth and silence than there should be. It’s eerie, and odd. It is welcome by some and feared by others.

Why am I talking about this very dark night?

While no great historical figure was birthed or died…there was a very average birth (there were plenty of those, I said that not too long ago). This one though, this one was the birth of Ghastly. Ghastly was a bear. A black bear. Black as the night he was born, but beyond his color nothing else resembled that night. He was not silent or particularly deep. Poor Ghastly was bit clumsy and quite loud when the occasion called for it.

Ghastly grew, as most animals do. He grew tall and rather portly, in the most adorable of ways. He was a bear of simple needs, he loved fish and nice patch of berries. He bothered no one, and no one bothered him. One day though, his mother came to visit. She only ever and always wanted the best for her son. She worried about him, as mothers are so commonly caught doing, and she worried in particular that Ghastly was missing out on life. She felt that he should go out and make his fortune far from his comfortable little forest. Ghastly was in total disagreement, but being a good and obedient son his entire life, he didn’t really relish the thought of breaking that trend. So, he went off one day, to seek his life’s adventure.

Now I don’t know if this has ever happened to you, but in my very limited experience, when one seeks an adventure one usually finds utter boredom and solace in the worst of ways. This is just what happened to Ghastly for what seemed like months of his journey. It turns out that it was only a couple of hours, but Ghastly was never good at time estimations or patience. As he was ambling along, thinking about his cozy bed and hot tea he happened upon a long rail. It stretched as far as he could see in either direction. It was cold to touch and vibrated just a little. No, that’s not right…it wasn’t just a small vibration…no, it began shake rather violently. So Ghastly stepped back and plopped himself down to see what would happen to this odd bit of rail. Would it shake to pieces? It was acting rather ridiculous for next to no reason. It didn’t shake to pieces (I’m sure you’re far ahead of me on this one, but Ghastly wasn’t, he was a bear of very little adventure and rarely made it past his fishing hole…). Up rumbles a boxy, rectangular thing on some wheels.

“Well that seems like it could carry adventure”, thought Ghastly – he was correct, it would. The train (that, Ghastly found out is the name of the boxy, rectangular thing on wheels) came around a bend and started screeching to a halt almost as soon as Ghastly had spotted it. “Why?”, he thought. “That’s terrifying, why would anyone be interested in  such very loud modes of transportation?”.

As the train found it’s full stop, a man in a red coat jumped from one of the train cars and marched right up to Ghastly. He stopped about 3 feet from Ghastly’s face (still much to close for ol’ Ghastly’s sake, but he allowed it). “HELLO, BEAR. HELLO, CHAP. HELLO”, shouted the newcomer. “I hope that you find this morning glorious, and yesterdays sunset beautiful. I hope that you are capturing the loveliness of every experience and I do hope your allergies are not acting up due to all of this pollen.” Ghastly of course had very little idea of what the man was saying because Ghastly (as I mentioned before) was a bear. He understood bits and pieces, including the fact that it must be a common rumor going around about how bears are deaf, and he most definitely was tempted to swat the silly voice box right out of his throat…

TO BE CONTINUED (maybe, I don’t know if that is even worth finishing, or if it’s too cliche or if it’s interesting at all….feedback would be nice)

Forgive the errors, I’m too sleepy all of a sudden to proof it.