Bottle, Part IV

In the inky black silent corners of a hushed and drunken universe, the bear gurgled and vomited. To the uninitiated, he was simply vomiting for he had been drinking too much wine, as he was wont to do as of late. But to others (read: the bear himself), he was asking: "What does it mean to be isolated? Is there a difference between loneliness and isolation?" In all earnest honesty, he was losing his mind.

If there was any difference between isolation and loneliness, the meanings were all lost on the grizzly. There wasn't a real point in asking himself these questions because he'd just tell himself what he wanted to hear. Maybe, that's what he needed because nobody would go out of their way to console him, even in the slightest. That said more about them than him. Yes, he was a vile creature to be around but if nobody is willing to help him out even when he was dying, well that says everything. This was probably what was killing him further. He was already dying, again, and this didn't help. The self-inflicted torture of pondering the nature of ideas was killing him on the metaphorical inside- the mind and soul and all that stuff. The outside world was killing him, leaving him a soul-less shell. He had a warped and cracked soul, which the Devil himself appraised during his stay in hell.

"Isn't not worth much now but later on..." he coughed, stifling laughter. He was playing a cruel prank on the bear. He was a notorious prankster, or so said the prisoners.
"Really?!" the bear, beamed as he found a slice of hope in the least likely of places. Imagine the satisfaction of actually finding a needle in a haystack, and multiply that by at least 100. Add the fact that it's hell (or multiply that by 4 billion), now divide that by 8. And you're still not that close.
"Yes. Definitely. Now, run along, I just thought of something funny, and my laughter would make your ears bleed, go. Now!" but he couldn't hold the laughter back. He thought it was just too damn funny. The bear inched away slowly; a part of him felt his sliver of hope wither away.

The devil's words were used to torture the bear further; he knew the bear's soul wouldn't be worth anything different after its appraisal. What a prick.

What continued to prick and butcher the bear were the ideas of loneliness that he could not distinguish. Catsup vs Ketchup. Any clear-cut lines keeping the two ideas (not the ketchup/catsup thing) apart were now horribly mangled and blurred. Recording a car wreck through lenses covered with vaseline while the one recording has astigmatism.

Everything was ruined for the stupid bear now. Everything! The sky was a continuation of the sea which frightened not only the sailors who slowly crawled into the sky, but the birds who had spent eons flying above the clouds. Now, the birds found themselves struggling to flee from the Kraken as it made its way slowly, as if mocking the flightless creatures in their new plight. Sailors rained from the heavens day and night. Each one cursing the sky they were falling from. Each one bracing themselves for their plunge into the cold eternal wet grave filled with hungry mouths, and jagged daggers of white stained with red.

Though the bear had no sailing experience or skydiving experience, he had been bitten by a shark once. As such, he felt every set of jaws dig into him. And the memories of that ill-fated 8th birthday came roaring back. His mind knew that what he was feeling, at the moment, wasn't real but he couldn't convince his body otherwise. Horrible pain embraced him roughly, and thoroughly. So much that he somehow convinced himself to further destroy himself. He was, indeed, inching towards insanity.

Frantically, he clawed away at himself, confusing everything he ever knew, or thought he knew, with every drop of blood and bit of torn flesh. He hadn't a slight idea of what damage he was doing to himself. His thoughts were so twisted he thought he was digging himself out of some small confined space. He was killing himself slowly. He excelled at destruction. Self-destruction was his speciality, or specialty. His expertise. His strong suit. "Yes," said the writer reiterating a point, "self-destruction was something he was an expert at. Not that he was particularly bright about it, he just knew how to make things worse for himself."

And in that moment of searing pain, the bear saw something. Something inside his screwed up, jagged, blistered mind woke up. The light poured into the gash and it revealed to him his greatest mistake. He thought he had banished it to oblivion, as he did with almost everything he did. But it came roaring back with the fury of a thousand angry gods.

His biggest mistake, or the one that he could remember, had to do with a crane that had tried to befriend him. This mistake killed him more effectively that being bludgeoned in the face with a thousand lead pipes. He pushed away the closest thing he ever had to a friend. No, not pushed because that implies that things aren't beyond repair. He threw her away.

-
She was like other cranes, delicate (in comparison), and intelligent. But unlike them, she was merciful and kind. Towards the grizzly bear, at least. It remains a mystery how he got into her good graces. Some say it was because he was so pathetic that while everyone despised him for it, she took pity on him. Some say that somewhere someone had placed a curse of some sort upon her and her punishment was to be nice to the embodiment of everyone's bane. Anybody else, she would ignore or treat with horrible disdain. This was a custom the cranes had: to treat non-cranes with unbridled contempt. There would be a shred of mercy given to certain creatures, or those who were well off. Birds were acceptable in their book, for the most part. Some say because of the beak and feathers. Others say because of their ability to fly, which would explain why penguins were mocked and ridiculed. The latter theory makes the most sense.

The grizzly was a different case altogether. He was a vile bastard but she treated him with respect. He was his usual stupid miserable self but it didn't matter to her, she kept treating him with respect. Even after accidentally breaking her arm in 4 places, she came back.

On a bright green day, the bear sat in a cave, doing nothing. He sat on an enormous, cold, and gray rock staring at the gaping hole above him as it covered him in a soft blue light. The crane wanted to study the drawings in the cave and exclaimed a cheery "Hello!" when she saw him. She tried to hug him, as a friendly gesture but he stepped back and shook her hand, instead. His grip was too much for her and somehow the pressure forced a crack in four different parts of her arm. "A medical mystery," said the incompetent doctor (or duck-tor, get it? Incompetent doctor? Duck? Incompetent doctor? Quack? Duck? Get it!?) who had paid for his degree online, "this shall put me in the books for sure!" he added as he waddled to a phone book.

The bear stood silently, analyzing the situation. He had broken her arm because she tried to hug him. "And choke the life out of me! That bitch! I better finish the job..." and the other half of him said similar... in a less vicious fashion.

She stared at him. Not with content but with curiosity. She knew it was strange that anyone would show him any respect or treat him with any shred of decency. But she did not fight it, she went along with it. She was not in love with him, she was just friendly. Even if she had been, it wouldn't have mattered because the bear was so thick, he wouldn't know it even if she carried a bright neon sign that said so.

The two stared at each other while the quack quacked about quackery to himself. There was a bizarre silence between the two as their eyes met in confusion and awe. He was confused as to why she wasn't blasting him with every swear she had ever heard. She was in awe at how little he cared, and how she could still not look away in disgust. Every now and then they blinked but continued their staring contest of some sort.

"Why isn't she threatening to rip out my insides?"
"Why isn't he apologizing? Why do I care?"
"I should rip out her insides- no, I should. Fuck. What do I do?"
"I should be furious that my arm is broken... but I'm not. I should say something. But what if he rips off my jaw?"

Unable to take the silence and background quack-babbling, the grizzly stormed out, shedding silent tears. I mean, the grizzly stormed out. The crane was left shedding silent tears that only she could see and feel. The quack was busy praising himself.

Her family came for her, concerned and confused and telling her to stay the hell away from the bear lest he go feral and dismember her. She listened to them but could not bring herself to care about them. She was fixated on her inexplicable goal of staying the course and being consistent. She was going to keep being nice to him.

So she did so, as much as she could. She would frequent places the bear frequented, each time running into him; and confusing the fuck out of him. She would bring him food, keep him company and never insult him. He on the other hand would defy common sense and reason. It was baffling. Spitting out large chunks of food, and (among other things) spouting inflammatory anti-crane rhetoric which came from his anti-falcon talk. Still, she brought with her fried ham sandwiches, or anything meaty and disgusting she could obtain. Never did he say thanks. Though one could argue that his thanks was in the way he wolfed down the food she brought him.

The grizzly's family could not wrap their minds around this phenomena. For as long as he had been alive, everything he touched, he destroyed. They couldn't understand how she could continue to keep coming back to him. Injury after injury, she returned. They were afraid of offending her, so they never bothered asking what everyone was thinking. That and her family were very influential people, more so than their neighbors and the fox. They had their theories and even had a betting pool of when and how badly the bear would derail his gravy train.

If they had placed a substantial amount of money on this betting pool, they'd be in debt beyond the grave because nobody could predict what happened.

She was recovering from her latest injury- food poisoning. The tortoise at the shop deliberately gave her spoiled meat with the hopes that she would give it to the bear and he'd die. Unfortunately, she got curious and ate some of the meat. Violent illness ensued. The bear though not guilty by any means really got reamed by the family as he went to her home.

He was broken. Nothing could repair him. As he walked away and let it sink in, something clicked inside, for the worse. Hearing how she was sick triggered a horrible deviation. Rather than feel guilt, or remorse, he drowned in rage. Stopping in his tracks, he took a deep breath, turned around and charged at full speed. Tearing the door down he made his way to the crane. He didn't care if he destroyed anything, he was bent on doing whatever the fuck it was he was bent on doing. He tore the place apart, nothing was left unshredded by his furious claws and teeth. The bottom floor looked like a thousand war zones- devastated, crumbling, hanging on by a thread, air of hope gone.

Upstairs he crept- one shred of himself trying to keep him sane and calm. But it was no use when he got to the coughing and vomiting crane.

He stared at her with the evilest look she had ever seen. For the first time, she was truly terrified. Not solely because of his immense power compared to hers, but because she was confused and had no idea why he was suddenly turning into the embodiment of hopelessness and absolute evil. She had done nothing to infuriate him, or encourage any form of violence against her. She had been the closest thing he had to a friend.

"I brought you food." she pleaded, but he roared and charged toward her. She thought she was done for but thankfully, he slipped and cracked his jaw on the bedpost. She took this opportunity to hobble away, feeling the nausea and vomit brew inside her. Infuriated, he picked himself up and marched toward her.

"I never hurt you." she whimpered. The bear followed her, slowly. Quietly snarling with the tears swelling in her eyes.

"Please, talk to me. What did I ever do? All I've ever done was be kind to you." She was right and he knew it. He knew it but couldn't summon any shred of humanity or reason to make him see her point, or the fact that she was scared beyond description.

She fell as she tripped over the remains of some paintings' frames. She resigned herself to her fate.

The grizzly bear towered over her, glaring at her. She could not see reason in his actions and as she tried for one final act of kindness, hoping to mollify the maniac, she knew it was hopeless. For the first time, she stopped herself from doing anything. She was raised high above the ground and immediately felt his claws sinking into her, piercing not only her body but her mind. She winced and let out cries of pain intermittent with sobs, drowned out by ferocious snarls and growls. His primal side took too much control and she was paying for it. She bled, cried, and wished for death. But she never wished him harm even when he was destroying her, stretching her tender body to its breaking points, painting the ground with drops of her blood and demolishing her faith in everything she believed in.

"This is it." she thought to herself, writhing in pain. Every bone in her body was snapping, slowly and quite painfully. And loudly, but not loud enough to distract from the bear's snarling and growling, and stifled sobs. She felt herself come close to having her spine snapped when he set her down, and he began crying. He tore away at himself. When she tried to comfort him, he backhanded her; he retracted his enormous paw, now drenched in her blood and tears. He sat silent as he absorbed the sound of her faint breathing and coughing.

The air remained silent until he picked himself up and with the dulled rage in his eyes made his way to her. He lifted her into his arms and cradled her for a moment. The air remained silent but the moonlight bathed them both. Every bloodied detail on her face sank in and made him tremble with self-loathing and things he could not understand. So he did the only thing he was good at: destroy.

The crane is a creature of flight. She knew this and figured she could escape her fate but she also knew she was far too weak to do anything and it killed her to know this. She flew through glass, plastic, and wood at a speed she never pushed herself to reach. She almost blacked out from how fast and how far she was thrown and hit the wall of her neighbors house and then the ground with a heavy thud. No. In addition to the heavy thud was a symphony of shattered bones and dreams and a quick sob before she blacked out.

He, however, ran off into the moonlight and wasn't heard from in weeks. The crane's family didn't offer a reward for his capture because they wanted to handle things personally though their crushed daughter refused to let them do so. Even when she went into panic attacks at remembering how she almost died. When she calmed down a bit, all she could do was sob.
-
Remembering his mistake, all he could do was pray for death's bitter kiss but death would refuse. It was more fun to torture him especially for what he did.

The crane swore that if it ever became necessary to do so, she would come to his rescue, or kill him. Anything to save him.