A River Bath

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Melissa’s Fandango Flash Fiction Challenge

From Ryan Grewell on Unsplash. The image depicts a bear in a body of water with rocks and trees in the background. Most of the bear’s body is submerged. We see the bear’s head above the water, along with his right leg, which he appears to hold with his right arm. What is this bear doing?😅

I am your most esteemed Tour Guide and Developer of this beautiful place, Logan Tismouth. If you’ll direct your attention to Caper the Bear, who appears to be river bathing as we speak…

Logan extends his arm and points his hand in the direction of the bear. The crowd follows with their eyes.

Caper is a show-stopper. He is one of the happiest bears any of us has ever seen. He is our featured attraction here at River’s Ridge Sanctuary. We provide semi-natural-to-their-habitat homes for bears, mountain lions, deer, bobcats, etc. You name it, we’ve got it! But Caper is something special.

Three years ago, he was found slumped over the stump of a chopped-down tree, dehydrated with a gaping wound in his lower left leg. Daniel, our Lead Ranger, placed the call to me. He gave me the rundown of the bear’s status and informed me to send out two more rangers, a sack of tranquilizers, and a pack of bottled water. He estimated his time there would be four hours. I issued the work order and had all of the items disbursed, along with the requested rangers, too.

If we had not acted fast, Caper wouldn’t be here today. So you see, not only is he our featured attraction, but he is the only bear with a story like this to tell at River’s Ridge Sanctuary. And we believe he knows just how special he is. I have to say, I’ve never seen a vain bear, but Caper is one.

He has grown accustomed to looking at himself in a mirror. When I visit his dwelling space, I take a hand-held mirror along with me. His greeting is always with a light paw to my right shoulder, and a welcoming scoff as he blows a puff of air into the forest around us. I pull out the mirror, hold it up directly in front of him, and he muses about himself for several minutes.

Stunned by his mannerisms, I leave the mirror with him. He has a collection of them now. Several of the rangers and staff have coined another nickname for him, one of which I do not approve, “Logan’s Very Special Vain Bear.”

Luckily, it hasn’t caught on… yet.

I enjoyed crafting this fiction piece for this week’s challenge. Maybe it’s something you’re interested in, too? If so, mosey on over to Melissa’s blog to give this challenge a once-over. I am sure she’ll be happy to see you there

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