Bottle, Part III

"What a fucking headache," groaned the grizzly bear, "I feel like shit." he said once more, stating the obvious consequences of having a headache.

The miserable fucking cur didn't realize his lungs had burst with so much wine in them. He had, in fact, drowned. His lungs burst with such ferocity. His ribcage exploded and pierced his body from the inside out. He looked so much like a dirty pin cushion with those jagged pieces of bone sticking out everywhere. This was all really unknown to him and had no idea of what had happened. Even the scars didn't tip him off. He shrugged off the excruciating pain he felt all over him. Rather miraculously he was able to do something like that.

"Just a headache." he said to himself, "that's all. It'll pass soon." But there was in reality much more than he could fathom.

He was unaware that he had died and had immediately gone to Hell. Or his version of hell: sharing a room with a raging alcoholic falcon. And given that he drowned, it all took place underwater, for the most part.

He was such a downer that they kicked him out and sent him back to the living world. Still stuck in his bottle. They gave him a powerful set of lungs and internal organs. Their intentions were to keep him from dying for as long as possible (without resorting to immortality) and thereby keep him out of Hell. Of course, he didn't get a clean break: once his organs started failing, they'd fail and really make him suffer slowly.

So the bear wallowed in his kingdom of wine, loneliness, and pathetic sulking. His majestic crown simply the matted down fur of the top of his head. His scepter... nothing really. His throne... none. There was nothing regal about him in this state, or even prior when he lived with his family. The very people who applauded his decision to leave. They now spoke with gruff and sore voices.

They cheered so loudly and so often they blew out their voices. They didn't care, they were glad to be rid of "2000 lbs of pathetic bitching." They were cruel in this regard but they felt justified and satisfied. He was drunk and depressed all the time and did nothing to help the situation. His employment, if any, was temporary and sporadic: he quit or got fired far too often. His education was lacking, as well. He dropped out during his last year of his post-secondary education. Never made any effort to explain his actions or return. He was absolutely fine with having everyone support him, though they couldn't support him anymore so it was a stroke of luck handed down by g-d in a neat fresh-smelling hand-basket that he climbed into that bottle.

The miserable cur was gone. The skies that day were a shade of blue previously unknown to any stretch of imagination. The wind carried a sweet scent of victory, joy, and love that day. Witnesses reported the clouds shaping themselves into smiley faces.

There was more breathing space and the family cherished that fact.

In some kind of desperation to rid themselves of his memory and presence, they took all his belongings and tossed them out. They figured the bear was never coming back, and if he did come back they figured if he had nothing there, he'd leave. "Call it insurance," said the sloth who lived across the street.

"If he does come back," chimed his brother- the one with a bad mohawk, "can I shoot him?" He continued to sharpen his fork. He was out of a job and had sold his knife to pay the rent.

The family pondered this on their comfortable leather chairs, eating the grizzly's cake and pastries. The only thing they liked about him was his ability to choose delicious cake and pastries without trying.

"He wouldn't come home every night raving about falcons and screaming 'what do American beer and sex in a canoe have in common?!' and all that nonsense." the fox said, his head in his hands. He was remembering the night the grizzly bear took a swing at him. He wanted him to go away forever but at the same time could not bear to imagine life without that fool. He provided them with fun with his misery. Nevertheless, he began to take a long hard look at their history. Especially "that one night."
-
It was a very warm night, the moon was relatively full for it had just come home from a cosmic buffet and had to be thrown out after finishing all the shrimp, twice. The bear had gone drinking, as was his hypocritical way. Sometimes, the fox would join in drinking but that night he refused to go. He wanted to sleep. The bear was enraged by the fact that the fox was missing when he started a fight and found absolutely nobody to back him up.

Prior to actually going to the local watering hole, the grizzly bear sauntered over to the fox' shack, wearing a hat (as was his custom). The fox tried ignoring the knocking at the door but the grizzly's attempts at rhythm were making his ears bleed. He shot up out of bed and ran to the door, opened it and yelled, "The motherfucking lights are out, you miserable fucking piece of shit! I'm trying to get some fucking sleep, god-fucking-damn it! What the fuck do you want, you stupid lumbering bastard?!" which was out of his nature.

He tried his hardest never to swear, save for "damn." Prior to that night, it had been 4 years since he had last told his ex wife to fuck off. The grizzly stood stunned for a minute, while the fox seethed. He grew angrier and angrier knowing he had broken his record; he was not a fan of swearing.

"Do you see what you made me do?" the fox snarled.
"I'm sorry." the grizzly said softly, with a shame that would vanish quickly.
"Yeah, you're sorry. What the fuck do you want?"
"I wanted to know if you wanted to go drinking tonight."
"I haven't been home in 3 days, I'm bloody fucking exhausted, and you want me to babysit you?"
"We-"
"No! Fuck off and don't come back!"
With those words, the fox slammed the door in the grizzly's face (hurting his nose), and went back to bed.

The grizzly wrote off that burst of anger as dark humor and expected that night to be normal. He reassured himself with memories of fox playing cruel pranks on people (mostly him). What he failed to realize is that the fox had come back a different creature after divorcing his wife those four years ago. Nobody spoke about it and nobody dared ask fox. Whenever she was mentioned in his presence, even in passing, he would glare for hours at whoever mentioned her. It was truly a scary thing to see that sight. Not necessarily for the fact that he was angry but because he missed her terribly. Tears would sometimes well up in his eyes while his hellish glare tried its hardest to keep anyone from seeing a wounded and vulnerable fox.

The grizzly didn't care. And it was evidenced by his behavior at the bar.

There was an air of betrayal mixing with cigarette smoke and vomit. Made only worse as the muskrat and kangaroo stomped the hell out of him. The rest of the patrons willfully ignored what was happening. They were glad somebody was doing what others had only dreamt of doing. Not that the bear was a force to be reckoned with but he presented a strange dilemma.

He truly was such a disagreeable fellow that neighbors and family members dreamt of cutting off his eyelids and covering him in barbecue sauce in the middle of the desert while hungry rabid dogs feasted on him. And they also held the belief that he was so pathetic that punching him would be sad and a waste of time and energy.

Unfortunately for him, this apathy had made him believe himself to be untouchable. This could only go wrong when he decided to slap the muskrat repeatedly because of the obvious size difference. "You're shorter than me, shorty!" And use the kangaroo's pouch to store his alcohol, "Keep my drink ice cold, Bruce, and throw another shrimp on the barbie." These two, being strangers to those parts, were unaware that people put up with his idiocy because they didn't care anymore. So they did what sane beings do- beat some sense into him. He grew angrier not because of the beating he was taking but because nobody helped him.

How much sense was beat into him varies with witnesses. A barrage of punches to the ribs, repeated kicks to the head, lead pipes to the face, tied up in a chair and having his balls struck with a carpet beater, and so many more reports. The only absolute truth lay in the fact that everyone drank to celebrate somebody putting the grizzly bear in his place. He drank, too. Drank "being" a euphemism for "dove to the bottom of the whiskey sea. And then dove deeper."

While in his drunken haze, he stumbled back to the fox' shack and tore the door down.

The fox was sleeping until he heard violent vomiting and knew exactly who it was.

"There you are! You fucking traitor!" the bear snarled.
"Come back when you're sober." the fox yawned, walking to his closet to get his crowbar.
"I just got my ass handed to me by a fucking kangaroo! A fucking rodent!"
"I missed the part where that was my problem."
"And a fucking muskrat, man."
"Again, I don't care."
"Thought we were fr-"
"Don't you dare say that word."

The fox paused, not even grabbing his crowbar. If there was one thing he never wanted the grizzly to even hint at, it was any form of relationship between them- namely, friendship. The fox didn't care for the grizzly that much. He only stopped fights because he didn't want blood on his hands, or paws. And because he knew that he would be hurt financially from property damage by the bear. He owned a portion of the local watering hole.

The fox marched steadily towards the bear who was having a hard time keeping his balance. With each step the fox took, the more the bear sank into a combination of fear and rage.

"We are not friends, you miserable sack of shit. If I ever defended you, it was to keep me from getting blamed for your death. Nobody likes you. Nobody even wants you around. Hell, I want to bash your fucking brains in, to be honest. Get lost, you miserable bastard."

That last line snapped the bear into this alert murderous machine mode. He threw a left punch which the fox dodged, just barely. The bear kept swinging and swinging. Missing each time. The fox ran for his crowbar. As soon as he grabbed it, the bear picked him up and threw him clear across the room and out of his shack.

The bear charged with all his might which didn't faze the fox. He simply rolled out of the way, picked up his crowbar and snuck up to the bear.

As soon as he turned around, his face met with solid metal. Repeatedly. Finally, the bear collapsed to the floor with a heavy thud. The fox rolled the bear off his property and left him by the side of the road. A driver saw the scene and pulled over, only to congratulate the fox. And kick the grizzly.

The fox returned home and fell asleep, ignoring the damage the bear had caused to his home. Nobody would ignore the scars left by the bear anymore.

After "that night" which would be known as "Bashing Day" among the townsfolk, the bear had truly become a pariah. He was immediately ejected from all establishments. When asked why, they gave him a very long list of reasons.

"I'm sorry." he would offer.
"Yeah, you are sorry." they responded with an air of scorn and smugness.
-
The fox pondered this and decided he would destroy the drunkard if he ever chose to return.