— a bear's month —
A bear does not know how many days are in a month, but the bear has guessed. Sometimes it is alright to guess.
Twenty-three small days in the life of a bear who loves things. Cheese and onion sandwiches. The neighbour's fire. The friend's boat. The unfinished sentence.
a page from the book
The bear loved to throw stones in the pond, and watch the ripples. The bear had no idea where the ripples ended up. Somewhere. Somewhere the bear would never go.
Free. Read it slowly. There is room between the pages.
The bear keeps a notebook. Every day, the bear writes down something the bear loves. Cheese and onion sandwiches, white bread, onion chopped small. A warm bed in preference to the idea of the sunrise. Coffee, although the bear has begun to suspect that it is not the coffee but the stopping that the bear loves.
The bear loves trains, balloons, the neighbour's fire, the friend's boat. The bear loves football, and the cycle of bears talking about bears playing football, through the telly. The bear leaves the famous unfinished sentence unfinished, the way the famous bear left it, because the unfinished bit is where the loving happens.
The bear thought a month had twenty-three days, and could not be persuaded otherwise.
The Bear Loved is the small companion to The Bear Was Right, and to the trilogy If This Road, orphans.ai, and theheld.ai — about what the machines cannot reach, and what the bears, the small ones with the cheese and onion sandwiches, have known all along.