Pilaf the Polar Bear

"I am not afraid to tell you that I have a wonderful life" Pilaf proclaimed proudly to the passersby on the deck just before he plunged into the pillowy depths at his paws.

He ignored the oohs and ahhs, the chortles, chuckles, cackles and cat-calls
and swam with sum abandon

reveling in his own agility and adroitness. 

under and around, up and over, the man on the moon happily leaping from one boulder to another 

reclining on his boulder of happiness to catch the rays of his day 

a few more turns and he finally noticed the crowd waiting breathlessly for him to say something, anything. He stared at them, and they at him for what seemed an interminable moment.  

 "But I don't really belong here, you know" he said after they had waited for what seemed a moment. "I'm not sure where it is I do belong because I've never been there but I can feel it in here-- in my heart. And it's a place far, far from here. But it seems you like to watch wild things in places they don't really belong and I-- " and here his voice made the sound a vase might make on cement. 

"I'm not sure I know how to fish anymore. I don't know what I would do if it were really cold. So this- this is comfortable and good and I love the water. When I am in the water I am a Pilaf of the Wild- " 

"Maybe someday I'll get there." He looked away somewhat sadly and then grinned slyly as though knowing we were just as trapped as he was by our own comforts and then turned away. . .    

So Pilaf swam under the rock, rollicking and rolling, frolicking with the abandon of the child who has not yet understood the burden of adulthood and responsibility 

although we knew from his words that he did understand. 

But he lived in his cement pool far from his natural home with the same radiant breeziness, or at least it seemed to us, as what he would live it in that place that was his.