Boomer Animal is a short story written for us at Boomer for Life by Jared Wright. This post is a follow-on to the Boomer Animal post of March 31st and Boomer Animal – Part II on April 7th. If you have not read those posts yet please read them before you read this one. Next week the story will conclude as we find out about Jame’s re-entry into his body.

About the Author…… Jared lives in Oregon with his fiance and two cats. He studies English and American History at Oregon State University and is currently working on his first novel.

ENJOY.

Life as a bobcat was not all it was chalked up to be (at least in Jame’s mind). In the first week he had to outrun two bears and one mountain lion—which he thought no longer existed in New Hampshire. The            food -raw, scarce and meager, left his feline stomach growling into all hours.

James decided to head into Meredith at one point, forgetting his new form, and within a few minutes, found himself being chased out by animal control. The snows came late, never truly allowing spring to flourish. The clouds roved over the distant mountaintops, as the two months of his life went by.

He worried about things he assumed bobcats never truly worried about: bed sores, electrical heating, oven baked pizza, comas, sleeping in, and his human body. Yet, there were things he never thought he would experience in his lifetime: jumping feet off the ground, hunting squirrels through the tops of trees, sleeping in caves, and catching birds out of midair.

He had seen a moose and a bald eagle.  He witnessed every sunrise over secret lakes and sunsets over unseen passes. The nature opened within him a new appreciation for the world. He had lived most of his life, and being on the down side of the hill left only a bleak knowledge of the bottom. However, being within the bobcat, he saw the importance of living out every day.

James ran through the snow, leaving small paw prints within the white powder. He thought he could hear the unmistakable sound of human voices from somewhere deeper in the pines. The unmistakable sound of boots crunching snow led him to the young couple, resting, with their cross-country skis resting against a tree trunk. The bobcat climbed the tree and sat, out of sight, watching the two eating their lunch. The days grew warmer and he knew his two months were close to being up.

The young couple began slow dancing in the shade of the pines, allowing the snow to move out of their way. There was no music. James looked over and saw the Boomer Angel sitting in the tree nearby.

That was when the world began to shimmer, and voices—familiar—began to come from the sky. The kids kept dancing, and James faded……