Papa Bear

Shabeg S. Sekhon
Papa Bear
It always strikes people the wrong way when Warren says he was raised by a Grizzly bear. He hated telling the story of how a Grizzly bear was in his kitchen making breakfast for him the day after his parents died. Not because he hated the story, but because he hated peoples’ reactions after they heard it. It always went something like --“Wha- what the hell is wrong with you?” or “Man, what the fuck is your problem?” or even sometimes in job interviews, “Now look asshole, I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, but if you don’t get out of here in five minutes, this security guy here will beat you within an inch of your life, understood?” But even if Warren did not want to tell this story, he could never explain how else he learned how to perfectly capture salmon, or get the honey from a honey comb without being stung once by a bee, or even how to walk on all fours as natural as a bear. The fact is, Warren was raised by a Grizzly bear.
When Warren was four years old, his parents both died in the same week. His mother was the first to pass away from a disease so rare that the disease is now named after her. Three days after, his father passed away in a car accident on the way to the funeral home to prepare the arrangements for her funeral. Warren was too young during this time to remember them; the only thing he remembers in fact was the day after his father died. He woke up early that morning to watch cartoons only to find a two-ton bear in his kitchen preparing some pancakes and omelets. Not knowing what to do with himself, Warren approached the bear with an awe inspired gaze. The bear looked at him and when they got close enough to touch each other, the bear licked the boy’s face and picked him up from the back of his neck and placed him at the kitchen table. The grizzly bear or Papa bear as Warren refers to him now then put a bib around the boy’s neck and served him the best breakfast he ever had. From that point onward the boy was taken to Papa Bear’s cave in the wilderness. It was there he learned many natural things and also many things about math, science, and the social sciences. These skills came to him from books the bear would happen to come across, he never knew how Papa got them and quite frankly, he felt he never should have asked. But all in all Warren had a happy childhood, he had a loving parent, albeit that it was a two-ton furry beast, but it loved him nonetheless. And every time Warren walked back to his apartment bummed out that he didn’t get the job he wanted, he always knew that Papa Bear was out there waiting for him to fix him up pancakes and omelet’s whenever he wanted.