update from sparkleup
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Madison Scott-Clary
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<p>And Sim is off spinning again, spinning into the dark, and surely Ursula’s got a smile or something going on as he calls out to her — “Two gardens! A row of carrots in front cause I know you love those and maybe a whole fuckin’ mess of beets out back” — but we’ll never know, will we? Sim won’t settle his eyes on her long enough, he’s too busy jumping.</p>
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<p>And let’s just suppose they managed it. Let’s just picture what that looks like. Ursula dressed in those coveralls that fit her just so, standing up to her ankles in good clean earth, turned over and over with peat and that sheep shit fertilizer that somehow manages to smell like it could grow things even on the moon. We can go ahead and suppose that Ursula might plow furrows herself with those handfuls of claws she keeps to herself, dropping seeds in their wake. We can suppose that she’d baby those beets until she could cradle them herself, plucked fresh from the earth. Would she kiss them, you think? Would she sing them lullabies? Surely fresh-grown beets make a hell of a stew.</p>
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<p>But still, they had got to earn their keep, hadn’t they? That’s what Sim said, would say at the drop of a hat, at the drop of a haul, every time they hopped in the van after a heist or holdup. He’d promise her late at night, and maybe he’d even call out to her across a gas station or over the hood of some poor sop’s car as the fox or cat or whatever shrieked and threw coins at her feet and recoiled in terror.</p>
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<p>So Ursula kept up her routine, still doing her runs in the morning and hauling some rocks round here and there just to keep those shoulders from getting too soft and brushing her fur out in the evenings. Still crunching on those carrots we all know she loves and buying cans of beets — pale imitations of those in her dreams — to go with cheap chuck so she can cook up a stew on the tailgate of the van, just past the end of their mattress. Still letting Sim push her down onto that very same mattress after every job, cause we all know the ferret’s gotta jump every opportunity he gets and the jobs, they make him jumpy, and maybe she makes a sound or maybe not, cause we also know how taciturn our Ursula is, quiet to her core, and we’ll never know her thoughts as he hunches and curls above her because Sim hasn’t the time to listen after making, he promises himself, love to her, he’s too busy jumping.</p>
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<p>So with the courage of the sun or the moon or a kite jerking tight at its tether, Ursula kept up her routine, still doing her runs in the morning and hauling some big old rocks round here and there just to keep those shoulders from getting too soft and brushing her fur out in the evenings. Still crunching on those carrots we all know she loves and buying cans of beets — pale imitations of those in her dreams — to go with cheap chuck so she can cook up a stew on the tailgate of the van, just past the end of their mattress. Still letting Sim push her down onto that very same mattress after every job, cause we all know the ferret’s gotta jump every opportunity he gets and the jobs, they make him jumpy, and maybe she makes a sound or maybe not, cause we also know how taciturn our Ursula is, quiet to her core, and we’ll never know her thoughts as he hunches and curls above her because Sim hasn’t the time to listen after making, he promises himself, love to her, he’s too busy jumping.</p>
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<p>All we know, all we know of course, all poor Sim knows is that our Ursula’s heart beats faster.</p>
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<p>And all those parts we all heard before in the papers and the gossip and the chatter cause they caught old Sim, poor fella, caught him in the end, but the rest, of course, we really, truly know.</p>
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<p>And all these parts we all heard before in the papers and the gossip and the chatter cause they caught old Sim, poor fella, caught him in the end, but the rest, of course, only we really, truly know.</p>
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<p>Sim, too busy jumping, never kept the batteries in the flashlight charged, so it’s a damn weak light that bobs and bounces its way up the dirt trail from where they’d made their camp however many days or weeks or months later, that camp an hour or so outside of Sawtooth, and it’s not bobbing from his endless dancing now.</p>
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<p>Someone down in town told him they’d seen Ursula heading up into the mountains. Someone there said the bear’d been wandering a fair piece away from where they were camped.</p>
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<p>Not dancing, no, our poor Sim is troubled, we can guess, by the way he stomps and skitters, first one then t’other, cause he was afraid of the Rockies, up where the air gets clean and bright in the nose and the throat and the trees practically shine and there’s certainly no hauls to be had or plans to be made. Afraid? Perhaps, though we can be sure one so used to jumping would never say so.</p>
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