What's the plan here?

What happened next surprised both Benjamin and the bees. They flew at the bear. The noise level of the swarm sounded like a scream. Foolishly, though, they attacked only his hair. Everywhere. In no time at all were absorbed, captured rather, in the lengthy hairs of Benjamin. The further they burrowed to get to his skin, the more trapped they were. The noise abated as their wings could no longer move. Benjamin stood up on his hind legs and remarked to God in bear cursing noises that if a plan was forming could he please explain it to him.

“Water!” is what Benjamin heard.

The Bear and the Goat


http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/070517.cfm
Genesis 21:5, 8-20
Matthew 8:28-34

Benjamin, the bear, sat on Rampart Ridge, his favorite spot. He planted his enormous backside upon a gnarly bare uplifted portion of a still live, but fallen Ponderosa Pine trunk. Both he and the tree were darkened in the evening shade as the sun set to the bear’s right. 

In the settling day’s quiet, Benjamin listened for words from God. Yes, bears like any other animal can hear God’s voice. Didn’t you know that? God speaks bear language along with deer, coyote, hawk and lion.

Bits of loose bark crinkled and fell away as Benjamin moved his paw on the old tree’s surface. He loved the smell of vanilla in the air as he rubbed slowly, careful to save some of the bark for another evening.

Benjamin watched the city of Woodland Park’s lights slowly blink on as the darkness crept into the land below. The phenomenon fascinated him. Behind him, he turned his hairy head to view the last shimmers of the sunset go out on the little piece of the Rampart reservoir he could see from his lofty position. 

His evening rounds would soon begin, a jog through the back yard bushes and gardens of the homes below, and then back to the rocky edge of the reservoir where he’d find a fish or two. For now, though, his huge head wobbled back and forth as he took glances at waning shimmers on the water and the rising of lights of the city. 

Suddenly, between the panorama of sunset views he saw a goat in a field just below him. He knew the goat. It was not acting goat-like. Not quite, anyway. It jumped and spun like a goat, but it’s legs flailed and head bobbed wildly, and it did not stop to admire itself. Benjamin bounded down off the ridge. He had clearly heard the word, “Go.” In human, the bear word also means, “Go.”

In only a minute, Benjamin reached the bouncing goat. The bear walked sideways taking in the frantic, horned animal. He was covered in what sounded like bees, but looked like tiny angry wasps. “Free him,” God said. Benjamin looked around, hoping another bear was nearby who might have also been hearing God’s voice. Not that he was afraid of bees, but the oddity of the situation baffled Benjamin. “Now!” he heard, and Benjamin knew God was talking only to him.

He stepped up to the goat, and in a mid-air hop by the bee-covered creature Benjamin swatted the animal so hard that as the goat flung away, the bees were left hanging in front of the bear. The swarm spun into a huge ball, over half the size of the bear, confused at the loss of their missing prey. Even the few bees that remained on the fallen goat had returned to their pals, intent on sticking together. That’s when Benjamin realized the oddity and craziness was not in the goat, but in the bees. They flew and circled in a rage, rather than for any other purpose. They seemed possessed, no longer able to hear God’s voice, Benjamin thought.

What happened next surprised both Benjamin and the bees. They flew at the bear. The noise level of the swarm sounded like a scream. Foolishly, though, they attacked only his hair. Everywhere. In no time at all were absorbed, captured rather, in the lengthy hairs of Benjamin. The further they burrowed to get to his skin, the more trapped they were. The noise abated as their wings could no longer move. Benjamin stood up on his hind legs and remarked to God in bear cursing noises that if a plan was forming could he please explain it to him.

“Water!” is what Benjamin heard.

Benjamin sniffed, and looked around for water. His brain heard the message, but his body couldn’t see or smell any. He spied the goat, which moved a bit. It was still alive. 

“Lake,” God said bluntly, and with some urgency. That was quite a long trek from here, Benjamin thought. So far the attacking bees hadn’t been successful, no more than a few stings, which was not out of the ordinary for Benjamin. So, he agreed with the idea — jump in the lake. He growled at the goat, hoping to assure it as he left, a remark that God’s ways were strange, and a feigned apology for thinking the goat had gone nuts. He left the translation of the bear’s parting conversation up to God. The goat, still lying down prone suffering from near fatal stings, turned his head to the bear, and Benjamin supposed the message had been received.

Quite a while later, pained with innumerable successful stings across his body, Benjamin reached the closest edge of Rampart Lake and fell into the water, a twenty foot drop from a boulder. He figured the deeper he went in, the more complete would be the drowning of the bees. The accumulation of bee poison had finally reached a crescendo, and Benjamin entered a place in his mind which seemed both familiar and foreign. The daze and silence of hibernation, mixed with the gorging of too many berries. He’d been warned about berry hallucinations, but so far had never eaten too many. He stayed sunk in the water, forgetting both concern for his life and the desire to breathe.

Back near Rampart Ridge, the near death of the goat had sparked a lengthy argument between the goat’s owner and a veterinarian. Since the goat was still alive, and seemed to be fighting off the pain, the owner wanted to let him either die naturally, or recover. The vet considered the owner’s decision unfair to the goat’s well being. 

“Oh, and killing the poor thing who is struggling to live is good for him?”

Their argument meant nothing to the goat. He didn’t understand them. He stood shivering in confusion and pain. He lifted his head periodically to stretch his neck, which seemed to help him balance. Each time he lowered his head he looked to his legs and told them to walk. It was all he could do to see the outline of them through the bloated skin pushing his eyelids almost completely shut.

At the reservoir’s edge where Benjamin had fallen, a dozen folks — campers and hikers and one forest ranger — had roped and dragged and rolled the bear onto a space near the trail where they had accumulated enough help to lift Benjamin out of the lake. From different angles around the lake they had all seen the bear’s dramatic tumble, a cannonball dive into the water amid a mix of curiosity, concern, YouTube history, and forestry. The bear, however, had not resurfaced. They ran to him.

Unconscious, Benjamin dreamed of dead, drowned bees and a goat who could talk in bear language. The goat pattered on an on about his legs. Benjamin heard God talking to the goat about his courage and great jumping abilities, which surely saved his life. The goat, however, insisted he was saved by a fearless bear who magically sucked hundreds of crazed bees into his body, and when he left him the bear told him that God’s ways are strange.

On the trail near the lake, all parties involved concluded that there was no time to safely move the bear to a doctor’s care. The Forest Ranger decided that since it was probably dying, they had best to leave it where it was until another Ranger could come and euthanize it. His walkie-talkie wasn’t picking up anyone, but he insisted his partner should be on the other side of the lake. 

A young man who happened to be studying dentistry, noted that the bear’s breathing was steady. Finally, someone noticed a dead bee in the bear’s hair, and then the number increased as the group saw them everywhere. 

“He’s been stung,” the Forest Ranger said. “Must have been near a thousand of them to bring down a bear.”

The group stood around Benjamin, some urging it to fight off the poison, others wondering if Benadryl worked on bears. The Forest Ranger said that it would be more humane to euthanize it. 

“It has suffered miserably, and probably jumped into the water to die.”

An uncomfortable silence followed, and a woman walked up to the Forest Ranger and told him to hurry and get the other ranger with the gun. “We’ll stay and watch him,” she said. When the ranger hesitated, the woman told him to hurry. “He may be a bit crazed if he wakes up.”

The man turned and jogged away.

“We shouldn’t stay here for much longer,” said the woman to the other folks. “Neither should he,” pointing to the bear. She suggested that they all take the ropes underneath the bear and drag it down the trail into a place where it would be safe from euthanasia. After looking at one another for a few seconds, they all agreed. A few grunting noises from the bear startled them, but the dentist fellow assured them that the bear was still in a deep unconsciousness. He’d just finished an anesthesia class, and said this many stings would probably kill the bear, but by hiding him from the rangers they’d give him a fighting chance. 

They managed to lift the bear enough off the ground to hide the obvious dragging marks a bear would leave. Their combined strength surprised them, and their joint efforts drove them to move quickly. The bear’s grunts subsided.

Benjamin dreamed of the goat pleading with God to find the bear and thank him. Benjamin then heard God talking to him, telling him to remain quiet. 

The next day, the YouTube video of the falling bear went viral, nearly surpassed by the pictures of a goat who walked himself free of being put down by a veterinarian who was livid that the surviving goat was being forced unnecessarily to suffer with PTSD symptoms for the rest of his goat life. 

The Forest Rangers reported that a group of hikers and campers successfully helped the bear out of the water, but he had escaped being put down, and that the neighborhood should report any bear sightings. “That bear probably suffered brain-damage, and could be a danger to humans. We’ll need to put him down.”

A few days later, Benjamin was back on his Ponderosa Pine trunk, holding a lengthy conversation with God about crazy bees. He thanked God for pulling him out of the water, too. He watched the lights of Woodland Park light up. He didn’t know what God was up to with all these people, but if he had to resort to an old bear to get rid of some killer bees, he must really have his hands full with them.

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