In the Kingdom of the Ditch

Seeing Things

10 Seeing Things A 300-pound bear wandered into our village last April and ended up trapped by a crowd staring at him as he moved along the main beam of a maple in Mrs. Henderson’s yard. The game commissioner drugged and tagged him, took his sleeping carcass deep into the woods. We don’t have mountain lion anymore so bear try to lie down with our children. On a logging road this past February a bobcat leapt across the ruts in front of my truck—purple afternoon with nothing moving, me thinking it might be the soul trying to escape with my breath. I wish I’d gotten out of the truck and walked in silence through the snow to see if this is how we’re ushered into the next life. But I couldn’t hold my tongue, and the cat vanished. The last few days the same bear has roamed near the stream that runs behind my house. Hunger showed him the way back. He’ll wreck our bluebird boxes, feast on the orange and gold carp in the neighbor’s pond. The neighbor and I made a pact. We don’t plan on telling anyone about the bear until he disappears with our children, and, then, only after the apple blossoms fly away. ...