Summary

This story begins with a black bear’s command, “Witch, write this down,” saying he cannot communicate with humans except through the witch (179). The witch tells the black bear to eat before his friend, the brown bear, wakes up. The black bear responds by saying, “I am waiting for [the brown bear] to die so I can eat her” (180).

It then becomes clear the witch and the two bears are the only creatures left in an abandoned zoo during the Bosnian war. Bombs go off in the distance, and the brown bear begins telling a fairy tale, saying, “Once upon a time, a human baby, a prince, was turned into a bear” (181). The black bear and witch complain about her storytelling, but the bear continues, embarking on her own fairy-tale.

In the bear’s story...