Polar Opposites

Polar Opposites

         Outside the cave where Fluffy and her cubs Snowball and Glacier rested from a long day of hunting and playing, the wind howled like a lovesick wolf. Sparkles of snow and ice filled the air around them like effervescent dust motes.

         Fluffy sat exhausted, sprawled against a wall of the cave in a most unladylike posture while her cubs played at her feet. "When can we go outside again?" Glacier whined. "I want to run in the snow!"

         "Yeah, Mom," Snowball chimed in. "I want to practice fishing some more."

         Not bothering to stifle an enormous yawn, Fluffy slid further down the wall. "Tomorrow, children. Mama needs her rest." The thirteen fish in her belly were causing an almost fugue state to wash over her, and all she wanted to do was take a long nap and rejuvenate herself for another day of raising the two untiring cubs. Her eyes slowly drooped closed and her deep snoring reverberated off the cave walls.

         Snowball and Glacier tried their best to sleep, but the wide, wonderful playground outside called to them with every whistle of the wind.

         Glacier, the more precocious of the two, bumped his sister with his white-furred shoulder and whispered, "She'll never know if we go out. Listen to her! You'd think polar bears hibernate like other bears. She's out like the northern lights in July."

         Snowball wrinkled her sensitive black nose. "But she'll be angry if she wakes up . . . and you know how hard she can hit. I don't want to be slapped and sent tumbling for twenty feet."

         "Girls!" Glacier growled. "Scared of everything."

         "Are not!"

         "Are, too," Glacier goaded. He lumbered toward the cave entrance, then stopped and looked back over his shoulder. "You coming?"

         Snowball took one last look at her mother, who appeared to be almost boneless as she slouched, sleeping, then hurried to catch up with her brother.

         A vast amusement park met the pair as they frolicked through the deep snow -- running in circles and playing slap-tag as they wandered further and further from the safety of the cave.

         Rounding a rock formation they both slid to a halt. Strange lights blinded them, and dim figures, walking upright on two legs, shouted loudly. Men! Their mother had warned them of these creatures!

         Before the cubs could turn and retreat, a large, heavy net draped over them. Struggling only trapped them more securely in the fabric. The men stood looking down at their captives. "Perfect!" one of them said, showing his teeth in happiness. "Bring them to the camp."

         Snowball and Glacier whimpered as four of the men caught the corners of the net and dragged them over the snow toward the bright lights.

         The grinning man dry-washed his gloved hands. "Get them set up over there, by that slope, and tie a rope around their hind legs so they can't run away. I'll get the equipment ready. Oh, this is going to be great!"

         Shortly thereafter, the cubs found one each of their back legs tied with a rope. The other end of the rope was attached to the frightening bulk of a four-legged, black-footed, smoke breathing creature. And some sticky substance had been smeared upon the pads of their forepaws. An oblong object was pressed between their sticky paws, and they held it in a posture of prayer.

         The bright lights glinted off the object between their paws and the grinning man yelled, "Shoot!"

         Back in the cave, Fluffy's own loud snoring awoke her with a start. She blinked, then, not seeing her cubs, she came instantly awake and alert. She growled their names frantically as she padded to the cave entrance and peered out. She saw no tracks, but the heavy snowfall and blowing snow would have filled any tracks in a matter of minutes. But the snow could not hide the scent of her cubs. A mother bear's nose knows where her children are.

         She struck off rapidly across the snow --her heavy, powerful body moving with a ground-covering efficiency and grace.

         She caught the man scent long before she saw them, and fear boiled up inside her. Men were capable of anything. Of all the animals in nature, she knew man was the only one that killed for pleasure, and not just to survive.

         Fluffy came to the same outcropping of rock where her cubs had been captured. A strong, glaring circle of lights focused directly upon her cubs, and men stood spaced around them, holding large objects on their shoulders, aiming them at Glacier and Snowball. One man stood apart from the others. He was shouting orders, punctuated by curses.

         She saw Glacier's eyes dart in her direction as he caught her scent on the wind. She shook her huge head, warning him to look away. He turned away from her and she saw the dark discoloration on the white fur of his chin and chest. Blood!

         Hot anger filled her and, disregarding her own safety, she ran toward the shouting man. Stopping close behind him, she reared up on her hind legs, to her full height of nearly nine feet, and roared at the top of her lungs.

         The man whirled around, saw a wall of fur, then looked up at Fluffy's long, sharp, yellowed teeth. Her enormous paws reached for him and he stumbled backward. She loomed over him, saliva dripping from her jaws. The man regained his footing and ran screaming toward the lights.
"Bear! Bear!"

         The other men turned and saw Fluffy moving with amazing speed toward them. Panic ensued. The objects they held were dropped and lights mounted on metal stands were knocked over in the men's rush toward two large creatures nearby. To Fluffy's consternation, the men were all swallowed up by the strange monsters before she could rip them apart. All except the shouting man, who had fallen flat on his face in the snow.

         From inside one of the large-tired vehicles a man yelled, "Come on, Jack! Hurry! She's right behind you!"

         The man in the snow crawled on his hands and knees until he reached the front of the vehicle, then rolled onto his back. Fluffy stood over him, prepared to slice him into pieces with her razor-sharp claws. He put his hands up in a futile effort to ward her off, then turned suddenly and slipped the ends of the ropes holding Glacier and Snowball captive off the front fender of the vehicle. He tugged on the ropes and saw the two cubs come running in his direction. Fluffy saw them, too, and, forgetting about the man, she ran to meet them.

         As soon as her broad back was turned the man scrambled to his feet, ran to the back door of the vehicle, flung it open and leaped inside, slamming the door behind him. He slapped the man in the driver's seat on the shoulder and gasped, "Get us the hell away from here! That she-bear can probably open this thing up like a can of sardines!" With a roar of engines the two vehicles raced away, leaving thousands of dollars worth of camera and lighting equipment behind.

         The slip knots of the ropes around the cubs' legs fell away before they reached their mother and tumbled at her feet. Fluffy sniffed at the dark stain on Glacier's chest, wrinkled her broad forehead, then licked his fur. Not blood. Something sticky and disgustingly sweet.

         "Mama!" Snowball cried, nuzzling her mother's flank. "I'm sorry we left the cave. Those . . . those men trapped us and tied our legs so we couldn't run away!"

         "And," Glacier said excitedly, holding his paw up to his mother's nose, "they put something on our paws. Something sticky, and made us hold those things over there, and made us drink awful sweet stuff. It spilled all over me!"

         Fluffy ambled over to inspect the objects Glacier spoke of -- transparent, solid green things, with a bit of dark liquid still inside them. She knew them from her occasional trips to the place where men dumped things they no longer wanted. Glass bottles.

         "What's a 'mercial,' Mama?" Snowball asked.

         "Yeah, and what's 'Polar Pop'?" Glacier inquired. "Those men kept talking about making a real live 'mercial' for 'Polar Pop' that would put the 'Kokey Cola' polar bear cartoons to shame."

         Fluffy could only shake her head back and forth. Who knew what men were doing -- ever.

         She landed a good swat on the fat rumps of her two cubs, hard enough to let them know they should never disobey her in the future, then the three of them headed back to the cave.

The End

DMM