Good morning everyone. I hope you are well rested and feeling fantastic. I’m still missing my hour but I am slowly getting over it. I’m still not a fan of spring forward. But I’ll get over it. So before I begin complaining about the darkness still being around when my alarm goes off (as if I thought my alarm had magical darkness banishing properties) let’s jump into the morning writing prompt. Ready? Good, lest’s begin.
This one was an interesting one. I know my main character is going to have to come across a bear after the set up. I also need to figure out why they went for a walk in the woods in the first place. After all, it is clearly not their natural environment. Things to think about as Thursday starts.
Thursday, March 17th: The dumpsters had large locks to prevent the bears from getting inside.
The dumpsters had large locks to prevent the bears from getting inside. I stared at them in wonder. Bears. Here. Wandering around. Getting into the dumpsters. My sole experience with bears involved Yogi Bear cartoons. Even in the few occasions I had been taken to the zoo, he bears decided they weren’t In the mood to greet visitors and stayed in their cave enclosure.
Here they were wandering around. Somewhere. Stealing from dumpsters.
I suddenly had a mental image of a bear wearing a black eye mask and wielding a lock pick set. I shook off the mental image and looked around. There weren’t many people around, but there were some. They were enjoying the freedom of moving around in the great outdoors after spending so much time confined to their homes. The groups looked a little strange at first. Each small pocket of people keeping close to each other and not mingling. Even when people knew each other, they stayed in their little group and called out to familiar friends.
Conversations were loud and took on a public speech sort of vibe. I felt almost bad for not listening in rather than tuning them out. As though eavesdropping was the more polite response. There were no bears in sight, either with or without the cartoon-esqe banditry gear.
I wondered how likely bears were and if there were signs on the map to indicate where they congregated.
‘Do bears congregate?’ I thought as I made my way over to the posted map. I wasn’t sure. I had never heard of bears moving in herds but given their size even one was formidable. Two would have been bad but I was certain three constituted a gang. As I studied the open trails I wondered if the bears worked in gangs, knocking over dumpsters instead of targeting banks of liquor stores or wherever held cash these days. I was pretty sure some people still paid for alcohol with cash but I doubted there were many stores who held much in the way of easily swipeable cash these days.
I shook my head. I doubted a gang of bears was planning to attach a gas station.’ If they did they’d be glad of the snacks rather than annoyed by the lack of cash,’ I thought. ‘Besides I think gangs have switched to non in person things like identity theft.
‘Or do those people work alone,’ I mused as I picked out the trail that had the fewest trash disposal sites along it’s length. While bears weren’t marked, trash disposal sites were. ‘And since the bears like dumpsters I’m guessing that’s where they will be. ‘ Pleased with my logic I walked towards the trail head wondering what gangs targeted for robbery if individuals were taking over identity theft.
The noise level swiftly dropped as I left the broad open area and went off on my hike. There were no waterfalls listed on this trail which mean it wasn’t the most popular one. Apparently everyone believed that if you were going on a hike it needed to have a waterfall attached. While I thought they were pretty, I didn’t see them as an absolute necessity.
Soon I left all the others behind and I took a deep breath pleased to be on my own in the wild, or semi wild of the established trail. ‘And no trash for bears.’ AS I walked I admired the view and wondered how they tested locks for their ability to withstand a bear attack.
Ten til Midnight 