A Story for a Bad Day

So, this is just a story I put together (mostly) before NaNoWriMo last year to test how many words I could get out in ten or fifteen minutes. Anyway, I picked it up tonight and finished it.

If you just had a bad day, then this one's for you.

If you just had a good day, then remember this post for when you have a bad one, and come read the story again.

I don't think there's any deeper meaning to it, but whoever comes up with the cleverest moral to this story, or allegorical interpretation, or other hermeneutic for it and leaves it in the comments wins some sort of prize.

Everyone plays!

1 - N/A: Hungry cold and lonely (0 words) DRAFT

Early one morning, Harvey the Bear arose to eat a meal, as was his custom. Every morning, it seemed, he would rise with the sun and venture out of his sleeping cave and look left, then--if there was nothing left--right, then--if again no food was found--left, repeating until he found something to eat or fell over from dizziness. On one summer morning of the latter variety, Harvey the Bear spent the first hour of the day merely looking about his cave, back and forth, forth and back for a solid hour. Just as the combination of cranial motion and hunger and dehydration were about to cause him to faint, Herb the Deer sprang forth quite quickly from the brush, shouting behind him, "Y'all are hosers!!!! I'm going somewhere cool."

Looking over his shoulder as he was, Herb did not even see Harvey standing, mouth agape at the mouth of his cave, salivating over the prospect of this nice venison steak that was just walking up to him, rather blindly. (This did not trouble Harvey the Bear as it may have you or I; you see, it really is true that you are what you eat, and Harvey had eaten much dumber and more oblivious creatures even than Herb the Deer in his days, and so, despite the fact that we now have an herbivore--and a delicious one at that--walking quite blindly into the trap of a carnivore--and a quite hungry one at that--it is important that we do not leap to the conclusion that Harvey is smarter than Herb; of course, all of this will become clear in due time, so let us now return to the story at hand) Just as Harvey was raising his meaty right paw (known to him only as Elthazar the Mighty), Herb turned to see just whose clearing he was now meandering through, and--in a move all will admit was quite deft--immediately crouched on his hooves, ducked his head (towards which Elthazar the Mighty was quite quickly en route), and pushed with all his might away from the raging bear he had now spotted before him.

Harvey, then, having missed the first meal of his day by mere inches, let out a mighty, bellowing, and truly foul-smelling roar. It is important for the reader to note at this point in the story that Herb was a rather brave deer, voted "Most Likely to Shoot Back" in his graduating class, and was not as stupid as his most recent actions may make him appear to be. You see, Herb, having just heard the terrifying groan of a hungry--and stupid--predatory giant, laid down in the grass not two yards from his attacker, and calmly said, "Good morning, my good sir, I was quite afraid that I was to find nothing but savages out here in this part of the forest. But as I see that we are both civil and honorable creatures, I must admit my mistaken assumption, and it is with great relief that I inquire if we might sit together and enjoy ourselves a picnic lunch, since it is almost the noon hour and I, if I may be so honest, am quite famished."

The Bear let out a slight gasp (as he was most certainly astonished to have been recognized as a cultured member of the Upper Forest Community--he was an avid reader of Kafka and Beckett) before he responded, in his most genteel tone: "Why, indeed, I do belief that amongst this see of savages it is in deed most fortitudinous that we more revolved specious should enjoin the company of one another for a meal. What, though," (his voice betrayed his concern here) "shall we eat?"

"Eat?" laughed Herb the Deer. "Well..." Herb had failed to plan this plan properly, it seemed, and with each ever quickening heartbeat he sensed the approach of his imminent demise in the mouth of the massive menace before him. "A supremely civilized creature such as yourself certainly would not find it meet to eat meat, would you?"

"Never!" lied Harvey, desperate to maintain this portrait of cultured credulity which Herb had so kindly painted, framed, and hung around the Bear's neck. "Why, only the most chaste among the woodland creatures would!"

Herb was confused by the use of the word "chaste" in the current context of conversation. Harvey also was confused by the use of the word "chaste," but he had hoped that since he had no idea what the word meant, perhaps his new friend would not either.

"Indeed..." came the cautious and polite response of the Deer. And they sat together, Bear and Deer much like Lion and Lamb, and ate Tofu steaks and Portobello Mushroom Burgers and sipped organic black tea while talking about the meaning of Metamorphosis and the wait for Godot. To Harvey, the vegan lifestyle was worth the acceptance of his peer the Deer, and Herb preferred to be a friend to an unnatural herbivore than a meal to a quite capable carnivore.

And so the two determined that this ought to be there custom on every Tuesday morning at about this time, and they remained friends from then on, until they both were very old and tired.

The End.

Peace, love, and joy, even on a day like today.