A Girl / An Elderly Woman / A Bear

A girl. An elderly woman. A bear.

 

A girl sitting under a raining showerhead, curled into a ball. An elderly woman swallowing her daily vitamins. A bear practicing soccer with a giant pinecone.

 

A girl naked and wet in the mirror. An elderly woman gurgling water mixed with salt. A bear scoring another goal, the imaginary crowd going nuts.

 

A girl cutting pictures of her lover into glitter. An elderly woman wondering what it would be like to run a marathon. A bear cannonballing into the river.

 

A girl placing an ad online. An elderly woman jogging uphill and quitting halfway. A bear shooting out the sky, forepaws in the shape of pistols.

 

A girl typing in the asking price. An elderly woman bent over and clutching at her chest and saying, Is that it, God? A bear crossing the highway and causing a deadly pileup.

 

A girl confessing to her older sister what she did. An elderly woman taking it one step at a time. A bear climbing up a telephone pole for a better view.

 

A girl carefully removing her heart with a car jack, a pair of scissors and tongs. The same girl wiping her blood off the floor with layers of paper towels. The girl again, on her knees, feeling woozy, feeling good, craving honey drops on her tongue.

 

A bear in the playground. Coming down the slide. Monkey bars, next.

 

A girl checking her voicemail every two minutes. An elderly woman dialing the phone number listed on the ad. A bear chasing after a plastic bag tumbling down the alley.

 

A girl waiting at the door, heart in a Ziploc. An elderly woman stopping at the bank. A bear in a screaming contest with a troop of girl scouts.

 

A girl five hundred dollars richer, rocking out to (What's The Story?) Morning Glory. An elderly woman on the way to the hospital with a bloody heart in her purse. A bear chewing on cans of tuna in the market.

 

A girl bumping into someone at the coffee shop. An elderly woman missing her connecting bus and deciding to walk the rest of the way. A bear tackling garbage bins left on the street.

 

A girl drinking Cranberry Chai Concoction. Joking with the boy she bumped into. Forgetting she has no heart.

 

A girl fingering the stitches beneath her shirt.  An elderly woman peeking at the heart in her purse as she takes a shortcut through the park, then peeking once more. A bear making waves in the park fountain.

 

A girl not ready to give up on love just yet. An elderly woman oblivious to the bear scampering towards her. A bear playing make believe tetherball with the body of an elderly woman.

 

A girl hollow on the inside. The mauled carcass of an elderly woman discovered by a jogger. A bear tossing a human heart to itself, skipping through the woods.