Samovar

The samovar is old. Who uses one of those to heat their water now? Who drinks their tea with jam?

She is ancient. Refuses to zap a flavored herbal at the press of a button.

Goes through trouble to make her tea with jam.

The trouble of raising her berries in the backyard. Boiling them at an actual fire. Making jam.

The trouble of heating water in an old, old samovar. Steeping leaves.

She says it tastes so much better that way.

Not something that the kids understand, but there is one. A boy that smiles and nods and… Actually tastes the difference it all makes.

He’s the young man who lives here when she’s gone.

Strange… finding yourself growing berries, steeping tea. When all he ever wanted was the house.

Haley Bear

Haley woke up one morning, and she was a bear.

She had been quite human the day before, but that’s ok, because now she was a bear.

She lumbered about in the woods, eating berries.

She came to a river where she could fish.

She’d swing with her great big paws at large fish, and off they’d fly to the banks of the river. Sunlight glinting on their silver sides, the fish flopped about on dry land.

And then Haley ate them. Raw. Because that’s how bears eat fish. It’s always sushi for them.

A little later she found a real treasure: a beeshive in a tree!

A beeshive meant honey and larvae. Haley climbed up the tree to eat those delicious things.

The bees buzzed about her. And the bees stung! But Haley didn’t mind.

Her fur protected her from most of the bees. And the few that managed to reach her skin, well, it didn’t hurt all that much. For Haley was a bear.

Once she had eaten enough, she climbed dow the tree. Walking away, she shook her body, and bees flung from her fur just like water does from a wet dog.

Then Haley found herself a nice, quiet place to take a nap

Haley really liked being a bear.