It was nighttime at the zoo, a medium strength wind rustling through the bare tree branches, tossing about an occasional snowflake. Gord the polar bear was curled up in his small cave at the back of his home, mostly asleep but still glancing outside now and then in-between closing his eyes.
The day had been quiet, with very few visitors willing to brave the cold and wind in order to see the animals. Gord of course loved the weather, being a polar bear and all. Still, he did regret how it kept the visitors away, and how it made most of if not all the other animals burrow as far away from the elements as possible. Not having anyone to talk to or listen to was something Gord didn’t much care for. Some days, though, that was how it went.
He was almost all the way asleep when suddenly he stood straight up, almost hitting his head on the top of his cave in the process. Gord stood very still for a moment, then dashed outside where he sat down in the middle of his home, looking up at the sky and the snowfall which was now growing heavier. He sat there, not moving, as a smile grew across his face.
After a while, a sleepy voice broke the silence. “Gord? What are you doing, silly bear?”
Gord recognized the voice as belonging to his friend Cherie the thrasher, who lived nearby. Without moving to look at her he replied, “Why, I’m listening.”
“Listening to what?” said Cherie in return. “The only sound is that cold wind.”
“You mean you don’t hear it?”
Cherie shook her head. She was used to Gord’s occasionally being a little strange, but even by his standards this was quite weird. She sighed as she said, “No, silly bear. I don’t hear anything. So tell me what it is you hear.”
“Why, it’s the yesterday whispers.”
“The… yesterday whispers.”
Gord said in a quizzical voice, “You mean you’ve never heard of them?”
“I must have missed that lecture in bird college,” Cherie said in a tone indicating more than a little concern over her friend’s mental health.
“Why, I thought everyone knew about the yesterday whispers,” Gord replied in a way indicating he completely missed the way Cherie was talking. “Back where I come from, everyone knows about them. At night, when the pretty light curtains appear in the sky, if you listen carefully sometimes you can hear the voices from yesterday talking to you as if they were standing right next to you.”
“You mean the ones who aren’t here any more?”
“Yes. The faded ones. Only when the yesterday whispers come, they’re not faded any more. Oh, you can’t see them, and they come and go as they please. But you can hear them talking to you. Sometimes they’ll even answer you when you ask them something.”
Cherie thought about it for a moment, and then decided it would be best to go along with Gord on this one. “Must be a polar bear thing. And what pretty light curtains are you talking about? I don’t see anything.”
“We have them where I’m from. How I miss them, and until now I thought you had to have them in order to hear the whispers. But now, tonight, I heard them again.”
“Anyone you know?”
“Some, yes. Some I was told about, who were before me.”
Cherie softly said, “And what did they have to say?”
“Why, they were telling me I can come home anytime.”
“As in leaving the zoo and going back up north? I don’t know how you’re going to do that.”
Gord sighed. “No, not home like that. Although I’d like to. They were saying I could go home in my heart.”
“By remembering where you came from?”
“Yes and no. They said remembering was part of it. But they also said if you come home in your heart, it’s not just remembering. It’s alive right here and now.”
Cherie asked, “I don’t suppose they told you how to do this.”
“Not really,” Gord replied. “They said I’d find the way.”
“Is that all they said?”
“Why, no. They said one more thing.”
“What was that?” the thrasher said.
The polar bear stood up and turned to where Cherie lived. In a quiet voice he replied, “That they would be there when I get there.”
The two looked at each other for a moment, a look of friendship. Then Gord excused himself and went back into his cave.
