dancing bears
Aug. 8th, 2003 02:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deviOut in the ambulance yard the polar bears are taking their smoke break. I like to hang out with them because they’re even less built for this heat than I am. Nothing in this city is built for this heat. Grass cringes and shrivels. Buildings slump. Their bricks haven’t known a blast like this since their birth in the kiln.
The bears congregate in the meagre patch of shadow under the porch, whuffling and puffing clouds of smoke, holding the human-sized cigarettes carefully in their long black nails that they type with most of the day. They have shaved their fur off to fit in better. Their skin is dusky grey – not many people knew that until they started to arrive a few years ago – covered with clear stubble. Some of them wear wigs. One pushes a paw up under hers and scratches her ear. She works in my office, her head down most of the day so that I thought she was just a husky human for about a week. Recently I got up my nerve to speak to her and asked her why she came here. ‘Our ice floe melted,’ she said. ‘We could have moved north, but we hadn’t been able to catch a decent-sized fish for years anyway. I came here with my family in the hold of a trawler. There’s work here. There’s food of sorts. Though I’d kill for a nice fresh seal.’ I winced for a second, caught myself and blushed at my unconscious stereotyping. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t kill people.’ ‘I know.’
Today they’re suffering even more than usual. ‘I haven’t even got a fan,’ says one. ‘I told you, we should have gone to Sweden.’ ‘Yeah, they pay more there too. But this is supposed to be the country where it rains all the time.’ ‘It used to be.’ ‘Oh. Right.’ ‘You know what I really want right now?’ ‘A nice fresh seal?’ ‘Nah. I’ve just had my lunch. I want to go for a swim.’ There is a chorus of sighs. ‘In icy water.’ ‘Yeah.’ They lapse into silence for a few moments, puffing smoke. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ another bear says at last. ‘Why don’t we…’
The rest is lost to me as they huddle, heads together, then break apart in a burst of snuffling laughter. Still chuckling, they drop to all fours for greater speed and lope out of the yard, down the street and around the corner. Curious, and in no hurry to go back to the office sweatbox, I run after them. Sunburned children scatter as they charge into Russell Square, just as the fountain comes to the end of its gentle lapping phase and leaps up in jets. The one who mentioned seals pounces on a fat, slow pigeon and sits crunching and cracking bones with relish, but the rest of them crowd into the fountain under the falling water, stretching up on two legs, shuffling and grunting with satisfaction, their heads thrown back. Wigs slide off and plop to the ground like jellyfish.
The bears congregate in the meagre patch of shadow under the porch, whuffling and puffing clouds of smoke, holding the human-sized cigarettes carefully in their long black nails that they type with most of the day. They have shaved their fur off to fit in better. Their skin is dusky grey – not many people knew that until they started to arrive a few years ago – covered with clear stubble. Some of them wear wigs. One pushes a paw up under hers and scratches her ear. She works in my office, her head down most of the day so that I thought she was just a husky human for about a week. Recently I got up my nerve to speak to her and asked her why she came here. ‘Our ice floe melted,’ she said. ‘We could have moved north, but we hadn’t been able to catch a decent-sized fish for years anyway. I came here with my family in the hold of a trawler. There’s work here. There’s food of sorts. Though I’d kill for a nice fresh seal.’ I winced for a second, caught myself and blushed at my unconscious stereotyping. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t kill people.’ ‘I know.’
Today they’re suffering even more than usual. ‘I haven’t even got a fan,’ says one. ‘I told you, we should have gone to Sweden.’ ‘Yeah, they pay more there too. But this is supposed to be the country where it rains all the time.’ ‘It used to be.’ ‘Oh. Right.’ ‘You know what I really want right now?’ ‘A nice fresh seal?’ ‘Nah. I’ve just had my lunch. I want to go for a swim.’ There is a chorus of sighs. ‘In icy water.’ ‘Yeah.’ They lapse into silence for a few moments, puffing smoke. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ another bear says at last. ‘Why don’t we…’
The rest is lost to me as they huddle, heads together, then break apart in a burst of snuffling laughter. Still chuckling, they drop to all fours for greater speed and lope out of the yard, down the street and around the corner. Curious, and in no hurry to go back to the office sweatbox, I run after them. Sunburned children scatter as they charge into Russell Square, just as the fountain comes to the end of its gentle lapping phase and leaps up in jets. The one who mentioned seals pounces on a fat, slow pigeon and sits crunching and cracking bones with relish, but the rest of them crowd into the fountain under the falling water, stretching up on two legs, shuffling and grunting with satisfaction, their heads thrown back. Wigs slide off and plop to the ground like jellyfish.
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:)
Date: 2003-08-08 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-08 04:36 pm (UTC)