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The mist blew into my face as I walked out of the library.  Both pillars that had been there were gone.  The wizard must have taken them along with the man – I thought.  A little further I saw a dead brown bear.  So, I immediately left the man’s body and crawled and jiggled myself into the bear.  It felt much warmer and more homely. 

  The man lay “dead.”  He must have died of the cold another ordinary person would think.  The reasoning of creatures is also quite amazing.  They have a sense of me having changed bodies.  Usually I change bodies only to make myself more comfortable, and the distressed body they say is “dead.”  Although, their belief of “death” is not based on my discomfort, but the creature’s dreadful tragedy.  My discomfort is their tragedy.

  I started toward my cave.  It was almost dinner time and my kids would be waiting in the dwelling.  Inside the cave was dark.  I groaned and forced them all to go outside the cave, where I had accumulated some meat for the kids.  The youngest bear was a little sick.  I had told her to stay in the cave.  I took a little food inside for her, but she was in no mood to eat.  She lay drowsily.  I fed her a few bites myself; until she suddenly fell backward, and I experienced a soul which I loved leave her.  It was painful.  I too wanted to leave the bear’s body and float away, but the thought of the kids’ pain kept me from leaving immediately.  I knew why my discomfort was their tragedy. 

  I carried the daughter’s body on my back and walked through the mist to the river.  Tears flowed out my eyes.  I washed her filthy body that had been unable to wash herself for the last few days due to sickness.  Then I used my paw to clean up a little place in the tree’s roots.  I left her there for the tree to slowly use her in its growing.  Then returned to the cave, and took care of the kids.  Days passed and we spent some quality time together.

  I was walking down the mountain to collect food for my kids when I felt a sudden pain in my neck.  The pain was so brutal it made me spring out of the bear’s body, that fell without my support.  I was free from the bear’s body as the hunter had shot it down and was coming to get it.

  In the mist I flew in search of another body.  Sometimes I wonder why I search for bodies to stay in.  Is it craving for something?  Or is it a habit?  Does anyone know?

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©2003 Aditya Mittal.  All rights reserved on this work of fiction.  It may not be copied for distribution in whole or in part by anyone.  Plagiarizing this work can result in fines and prison through the court of law.  This work is part of a greater work, "Fierce Game of Foolish Geniuses: The Forces at Chess."