Bears

BEARS
WHILE ON HER DAILY WALK one evening, Lulu Toast came upon The Man Who Loves Provo. He–-the Man-–was in his usual high energy, frantic way: shouting in excited tones:
"Did you hear? Did you hear? I just saw it! Horrible! It was horrible! A guy was mauled by a bear up near the Timpanogos Trailhead. They just barely got him to the hospital a few minutes ago. He won’t make it! No way! No way, I tell you. He’s gonna die!"
"What! What?!" cried Lulu.
"A bear. A guy was mauled, I tell you. I just saw it. He’s not going to make it. It was terrible! Terrible. He’s probably dead already."
Lulu too was struck by the horror; she’d been in her own thoughts during her walk and was now jolted to the violence of the world that flourished right next to her own routine, private calm.
The Man Who Loves Provo was panting heavily, and Lulu stared at his face, noticing the trail of sweat at his hairline, the lines of age across his forehead, the unkept hair, the deep crease running down from nose to mouth, the trembling upper lip, and--from out of nowhere--suddenly marveled at this one Moment in All of Time that they were sharing together, and felt the desire to embrace him as a lover, to hold him as a child--to somehow and simply connect with this one other member of the human family. But then, just as quickly, and as usually occurred in these situations, she discarded the thought and moved, emotionally, to a state of reason.
"Well," she said finally, "I’ll have to get a paper and read about it. Where did you say the guy was attacked?’
"Pshaw! The papers! You won’t read about it in the papers. They wouldn’t dare print a story like that."