The Man in the Bear Costume

A man insulted an official in the king’s court. The official sent the authorities to take hold of the man. In prison, they stripped him of his clothes, and they placed his body into a bear costume and fastened it with screws and hooks so that it could never come off. They pressed their boots into the man’s back, so that he learnt to walk on all fours. After a week’s training, they sent the man out on the eighth day into the surrounding area of the town. Against the edges of the city were fields where laborers stood fretting over their lot. While watching each other and their crops to see who was doing the most work, they heard the cry of a man, saying, “Help me!” Upon turning their heads, they found a bear rearing onto his hind legs and waving his arms furiously. Frightened, they took stones and began hurling them. The man in the bear costume ran away. Upon the bear’s exit, the laborers patted themselves, saying, "We have done good. The man that was attacked is now free."

The man in the bear costume dashed into the city streets on all fours, crying, “Help me! Help me!” Men exited their storefronts to witness the dashing beast, and women peeked out their windows. In the city plaza stood a fountain, where the man in the bear costume rested his legs and continued to cry out, “Help me! Help me!” Upon seeing the beast’s vulnerable state, the men, women, and children of the city took to the plaza with the biggest stones and pipes they could find. The first few barrages struck the man in the bear costume, and he cried out, “I am stuck! I am stuck!” The sounds of the cheering and throwing were too loud, and they did not hear him. 

Struck with inspiration, the man in the bear costume picked up a sharp stone and began cutting through the costume. Upon seeing this, the city people halted in shock, for a bear was slicing itself open.  The man was able to cut a hole in the stomach of the costume, and to prove that he was human, he revealed his stomach and genitals to the peoples. “There is a person in here! They put me in here!” He cried. Some city people and their families were horrified at the grotesque display, a human groin planted in a bear’s physique. Wrath for his existence swelled in them, and they stoned the bear-man to death, leaving his limp body to fall into the fountain and be damp. 

Eventually, the official and all his friends in the king’s court met Death, and all of the laborers met Death, and the city people met Him, too. And all of their great-great-great grandchildren, before they met Death, only came across visions and passed-down stories of their ancestors. Eventually, those met Death, too. The monarchy was eventually replaced with a democratic republic. The fields were eventually uprooted for a coal factory, and the stones were eventually sourced from foreign lands. What endured during the passing of generations was human continuance and the forthcoming, evanescent God which fizzled in the hearts of men, tossed to the ends of the Earth.