Cocchiaro 1
Madison Cocchiaro
Professor Grant
WRIT 201-002
9 February 2022
Brown Bear
The sun rises from the East, casting a shadow on the side of the slate gray colored cave.
The birds perform their morning tweets and chirps, just loud enough to wake me from my
slumber. The morning dew sits lightly on my gray coat, I shake it off. I stretch my hind legs,
wiggle the toes on my paws, and trot over to the nearby stream for water. I do this task every
morning and every morning the stream is the same beautiful mix of blues and greens, with a
potent sweet earthy smell of algae. I take a breath in, it is such a lovely smell with which I start
my day. As I make my way back to the cave I wonder if my dear friend Brown Bear has
awakened from his slumber yet. I pace quietly outside the cave, deciding if today is the day. It
had been so long since he had left the cave. Many missed sunrises that were so vividly orange
and pink you could feel it in your paws; and the sweet and beautifully blue and green stream that
he has yet to see in months. I shake the last of the morning dew off my gray coat and I trot into
the cave. Just thinking to myself, one foot in front of the other. Today is the day. I keep repeating
it to myself, trying with everything in me to believe it. I just know in my heart of hearts that
today is the day my dear friend leaves the cave. Today could not be more of a perfect day for
Brown Bear to leave the cave. The sun shines down on the cave to highlight its beauty, the sweet
smell of earthy algae wafts in from the stream. It is the perfect day. As I get closer to Brown Bear
I notice his eyes are open, his beautiful deep brown eyes are open.
“You’re awake” I said trying to contain my excitement because Brown Bear never was
awake, he was always sleeping day in and day out.
Brown Bear sighed and struggled to look at me, “Yes, I am awake”.
I gathered my thoughts because I needed to say the right words. I needed him to leave the
cave, if not now, then when. He had been like this for months, always sleeping and never
venturing outside of these godforsaken walls. I said to him, “Dear friend, why are you so
sad? you are awake, the day is beautiful, the day is young, plenty of animals to hunt, the
Cocchiaro 2
stream…the stream is strikingly blue as ever. Don’t you want to see the stream?...like we
used to”.
Brown bear turned away, not meeting me in the eye. I waited a second to give him time to
gather himself.
I sighed to myself, “Are you ready yet friend”?
Brown Bear picked up his head somberly, looked me in the eye and said “Dear friend I
fear I may never be ready”. He hung his head after he concluded his sentence. He turned
back over, suggesting that he wanted to be left alone. “I just want to sleep”.
“I understand your desire to sleep, but if you sleep everyday you will never get to see the
world”. I took a breath. “You need to leave the cave”. There was silence and I heard
snoring coming from his side of the cave. He was asleep again, like always these days.
He can’t be blamed for his lack of energy or his lack of wanting to leave the cave. He has
been like this for months, resting day in and day out. “You need to rise from your slumber
and take a walk, anything would be better for you than laying here, rotting away your
existence”.
Brown bear sighed, readjusted himself so that he could look me in the eye and said “I
want to sleep”. He concluded his thought and rolled back over so as to not meet my gaze
any longer.
I whimpered slightly before I pleaded with him one last time. “Dear friend, are you
certain this is what you want”?
He neglected to turn over to face me, but he somberly said “yes” and then I knew.
I stifled my tears and turned around to gather myself because I knew in my heart what he
meant. I knew that he didn’t care about how blue the stream was, or how beautiful the sky was
this time in the morning, or how when the sun rises it casts the most glorious shadow on the slate
gray colored cave. My dear friend, Brown Bear did not care about any of that. He did not care to
Cocchiaro 3
run through the fields like we used to do when we were young. He did not care to leave the cave
for any of that. He did not care about life passing him by or his friends growing old without him.
What he wanted was not impossible to achieve, but yet just out of our grasp. He only wanted one
thing and it was something that I could not give him, it was something nobody could give him.
All he wanted was a place to feel at home. A place that made life worth waking for. A
place that when the rain came he could feel the warmth of his own comfort. A place where he
could see the blues and the greens of the stream and bask in its beauty. A place where he could
feel the glow of the sun rises from the bottom of his paws to the top of his head. A place that was
not the slate gray colored cave because despite it all it was not his home and it never would be.
