Perhaps the real question was whether she should just cut any attempt at logic, and go directly to a nervous breakdown. Maybe she should start shouting into the middle of this weird night. Or declaim the existence of spirits and guides, and what the hell was this bear—a grizzly no less—doing slurping Coke from her fridge. Standing up slurping Coke from her fridge. Smiling no less. Even offering some pretty interesting conversation, were she honest, around prodigious belching.
By now Ralph—that was his name, so he insisted—was on his sixth Coke, which was reasonable she supposed when she thought about it. He was, after all, a prodigious great beast of a bear, so six cans of brown fizz didn’t seem so extreme.

Extreme? She was thinking about the ramifications and quantification of extreme when there was this—
She grabbed the tea towel hanging from the stove and held it up against herself, realized that wee pocket handkerchief of a tea towel wasn’t going to do anything to cover boobs and crotch, and then wondered why she bothered because the bear—Ralph—wouldn’t be concerned she was standing there gawping like some great beached fish, naked as new. She hung the towel over her shoulder. Seemed like a good thing to do.
Behind Ralph, the microwave displayed 3:31 in cool blue light. Of the bloody AM!
Maybe I’m hallucinating? Dreaming? Maybe I’m really still in bed.
“So the thing is,” Ralph said, “I’m getting kind of tired chasing you around in your dreams, so I figured I’d wake you up.” He shook that mammoth head and she wondered if that growl was laughter or something that meant she should turn around and make for the back door, which was closest, instead of standing there in the dimness of her kitchen, the glow of the open fridge door spilling out like a Colville painting across the tiles. Maybe she should run screaming into the night. What would Ellis and Petra think if she showed up at their front door at this hour? Naked? Burbling about bears, well one bear to be exact, drinking soft drinks in her kitchen.
Batshit crazy is what they’d think. Wonder if she’d spent too much time up in the woods alone chasing spirit guides. Or maybe was growing some hot stuff in her barn.
And then she thought: But there aren’t any grizzlies here!
Not in Ontario, that was for sure. Certainly not up on the Bruce. Black bears sure.
And no bloody grizzlies discussing climate change in front of your fridge door!
Well, dream or no, what did this bear, this Ralph, want with her? Chasing her around in her dreams? Had she been dreaming of bears? Of grizzlies? And Coke? Seriously?
But then as she watched him leaning on the fridge door, she did remember vague images of bears, or a bear to be precise. A bear trying really hard to squeeze into the palm of her hand. Just the way a spirit guide might. She looked at her left hand, turned it palm up, felt it itching, looked back at up Ralph—why was it so easy to call him that?—and wondered how some talking ursine could shrink enough to fit into her hand. Or for that matter, how he could pass through skin and bone and muscle and stuff and get inside her.
She shuddered.
Ralph shook his head and whuffed again, his jaw waggling. She was sure that was laughter.
This was absurd. She backed away, out onto the porch, grabbed the throw on the old rocker and threw it around her shoulders. She thought maybe she should sit down. Her knees were by now yelling at her to do that, to bend over, to swim out of the greyness buzzing at the edges of her sight, but instead she leaned back, felt the hard spindles against her head, the cool zephyr coming down off the hills. Cricket song. The night. The sanity of this place.
And woke to sunlight, fragile and perfect, the dawn chorus in the woods.
There had been a bear. Called Ralph. Guzzling Coke in her kitchen. She laughed then, laughed at herself, and the absurdity of waking dreams, of chasing spirits and guides, rose up and let the throw drop back to the rocker, opened the screen door into the kitchen. And halted. There were empty cans all over the floor.
Did I do this?
Very likely. That could be the only rational explanation. She bent and gathered up the cans, tossed them in the recycling bin, checked the fridge and decided a trip into Lion’s Head was what was required. A shower first. Then breakfast in the village, scoop up some groceries, and head back. She needed to get out more. Needed to get outside of her head. That was what was needed.
Later, when she stood in the checkout, watching supplies being deposited into her bags, Ellis, who was punching at the cash register, had just extended an invitation to come and have supper with her and Petra.
“Ralph will be there too,” she said.
Ralph? Her heart kicked. She scratched the palm of her left hand, looked down at the red blotch there. A very bear-shaped blotch. “Ralph?”
Ellis laughed and nodded to the man standing in line behind her. Bearded. Mountain-man bearded. Sort of honey-brown bearded, dark eyes under winged eyebrows, and he whuffed a laugh.
“Ralph?” she said. Her mouth felt dry.
He winked. “Got under your skin already, I see.”
She looked back down at her palm, up at him. “You?—”
“Pretty much. Hey, whoever said spirit guides were easy?”
THE END
This story previously appeared in Five Rivers Publishing.
Edited by E. S. Foster.
Over the past 40 years I’ve worked all sides of the publishing desk: journalist, ghost-writer, author, editor, publisher. I have four novels, two collections of short fiction, and three non-fiction books in publication. I co-edited with Susan MacGregor, Tesseracts Twenty-Two: Alchemy and Artifacts. In tandem with that, I’m an artist, primarily painting landscapes in watercolor, although I do venture into oils, ink, and pencil. Apparently I also get my hands dirty in the garden. I can be found at Five Rivers Publishing.