“Bears” by Liz Ross (Fiction ’22)

Bears

The small college that hosted the summer writers’ conference was nestled beside woods so deep the air felt damp and smelled of frogs. Nearly two years without students there, the school had been partially reabsorbed and vines dropped like spider silk from lampposts, snaked across the paved walkways connecting dorm to lecture hall. Beside the path to the bookstore, someone pulled a rubber Chewbacca mask over a tree stump in what felt like a nod to the bears.

In her welcome letter, the director of the writers’ conference expressed gratitude we could meet again in-person. She was enthusiastic about a return to beloved traditions lost to online formats—the mid-conference bonfire, quick dips in the creek—but there was also a hint of danger in her repeated suggestion that attendees adopt buddy systems and not forget their flashlights. Bears had the run of campus for most of the pandemic and were now turning up where they shouldn’t—lolling across coffeehouse patio, body slamming vending machines, overturning trashcans outside the dining hall, leaving uncoiled curly fries in their wake.