the bear story (part four)

The first fifteen minutes of my purpose circle had a kind of schizophrenic quality, with me switching back and forth between episodes of Deep Appreciation (“Look at those stars! Wow! And the moon! Where would we be without that incredible rock?!) and Extreme Boredom (“99 Bottles of Beer on the wall, 99 Bottles of beer….” ). I’ve always been secretly rather fond of that song, and I felt a little surge of glee at being free to sing it over and over to my heart’s content, hitting the rattles against my knees to keep the tempo.

Now, the next development in things is not something I’m proud of, but then again, we’ve already established that I’m no Black Elk. Using my limited math skills, I attempted to calculate how long it took me to get through one verse, or pass the proverbial bottle around. 15 seconds. That equaled a quarter of a minute, and so, if I rounded up to a hundred verses a song, we were looking at roughly 25 minutes total per round. (I’m still not sure if the math is right, by the way.)

Next, I tossed in an extra five minutes for the time in between each round which I might spend stretching my jaw, swatting mosquitos, or being appreciative, and I was up to 30 minutes a pop. Suddenly, things didn’t look so bleak; all I had to do was sing 14 rounds of “99 Bottles of Beer On the Wall” and my vision quest would be over!

It was nearing three am beer bottle time when I first heard the great crashing noises on the eastern shore.

“Hmmm, local wildlife!!” My Appreciative Voice said eagerly, “What a treat! Think of all those poor saps back in civilization right now, watching their TV’s, while we’re out here really getting to Experience Nature.”

The Appreciative Self and I listened as the noises got louder and louder to the point where whole trees seemed to be coming down.

“Moose!” AV went on. “What a fascinating animal! Think of how LARGE they must be to be making noises like that! Why….”

The moose were in the water now, and moving on a northerly route, judging from the increasingly thunderous bouts of splashes and chomping.

“We’ve never gotten to see a moose UP CLOSE before!” Appreciation crowed, enjoying one last hurrah before Panic and Hypochondria tag-teamed it into submission.

“What in the hell are you doing out here on the BEACH?!” One yelled, while the other accelerated my heart-rate tenfold. “A freaking moose family is headed this way and you’re sitting out in the open with nothing to protect yourself but a hunting knife?! At least get between a couple of trees!”

“I’m waiting for my vision!!” I countered. “I can’t just leave my purpose circle! It would defeat the point of my entire quest. Besides….”

I halted my inner debate for a moment when I realized that the noises had stopped right at the area where I estimated Len’s camp to be.

“Uh oh….” I muttered. “I hope they weren’t too hungry.”

“Len?” I half-whispered, half-called over the lake. “Lennnnn??”

Silence.

“Oh, Jesus God,” Hypochondria growled.