An old man sat on a bench at a pond. He watched the ducks as he fed them his leftovers. It was idyllic, and he enjoyed it very much. To him, this was enough. This was it, life couldn’t be any better. There might have been a time, a long time ago, when he had had ambition, plans for the future, or ideals. All that was gone now. What was left was an old man who found his own personal joy and refuge at an old pond, in a part of town long abandoned. The Person to his right, lying flat on his face in the wet spring grass, was of a very different state of mind. This was for a number of reasons. Lying face down in the mud was already a bad premise to happiness, though this might be argued about, but more importantly, there was an absolutely gorgeous, unbearably cute, bear sitting on his back. And, because he was very dead. The old man scratched the bear gently behind its ear. Then he started humming an old tune;

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“Here’s a little song I wrote,

You might want to sing it note for note

Don’t furry, bear happy

In every life we have some trouble

But when you worry, you make it double

Don’t growl, bear happy!

The old man knew it was a bad rendition of a good song, but the bear didn’t seem to care. It growled along happily. Then the dead man’s arm twitched, and that might have rubbed it the wrong way, and a second later the offending arm was hanging from its mouth, being used to gently rub the old man’s knee.

And so they sat for another hour, feeding the ducks.