Business Bear

Ethan Wang

Business Bear weighed 800 pounds, and his apartment was 500 square feet. He was getting dressed for work, buttoning his too-small, dark brown wool suit that he had found in a clearance sale seven years ago. Must’ve gained some weight, he thought to himself. His multi-function Nespressro VertuoPlus Coffee Maker sat cramped in the corner of the kitchen. Even though he splurged on a fancy coffee machine this year for his birthday, he continued to make the same simple coffee every morning- half coffee, half 2% milk, fourteen packets of Splenda. It was just like what his mom used to make.

“Hey! Business Bear! Guess what I saw at school yesterday!” Collector Cheetah yelled up to him from the street below. Yesterday, he learned about the San Andreas fault and wanted to share to anyone willing to listen that the planet had a huge ass crack. Business Bear had made the mistake of talking to the trash collector Collector Cheetah a couple of years ago while he was heading to work. Business Bear had asked him why he was working when he was so young, and Cheetah had told him that it was because he wanted to buy cigarettes.

“Some other time, Cheetah,” Business Bear grabbed for his tie. The piece of fabric looked comically small in his paw.

“Buy a car yet, ya bum?”

Business Bear mumbled something incoherent under his breath, and Cheetah dashed off to go harass the guy down the street without saying goodbye. Business Bear acted like Cheetah was so lonely for talking to an old bear like him, but he sort of liked knowing that Cheetah would come every week. Usually, Cheetah would try to teach Bear a young animal handshake. Sometimes Bear would practice the handshake by simulating the second person with his other paw. He had gotten up late today because the night before, there was overtime at work, and then he had to review spreadsheets at home on his undersized, underpowered, small battery, dim and dainty laptop. He had then skipped dinner to play video games for five hours straight.

Business Bear checked his phone and realized that he’d never get to the bus stop on time, so he decided to wait for the next bus and returned to a meager walk. The sidewalk was small, and he was large and slow, so by the time he got to the stop, there was a line of animals behind him.

“Running late, too?” It was Finance Frog.

“Yep. Was up late reviewing papers,” Bear croaked. Last Christmas, Business Bear had gotten a limited edition 2023 Ursus Americanus Fur Grooming Kit™ for the company White Elephant. Right before the game ended, Finance Frog had traded his Star Bucks Pike Place Roast™ for Business Bear’s limited edition 2023 Ursus Americanus Fur Grooming Kit™. Frog had said that it was for his lovely wife, Surgeon Salamander.

Inside the bus, Business Bear was sitting, and Finance Frog was standing in front of him, holding onto the ceiling handle with his left hand. Bear thought that the hand was sticky, warty, weirdly colored, and wholly disgusting, but the women reptiles at work constantly approached Finance Frog to compliment him on his skin – the beauty standards between mammals and reptiles were very different.

“I want to get to know you, Business Bear. Like know you, know you. No small talk. Tell me: what’s something weird about you? Give me a fun fact.” He looked at Bear with wide, red, beady eyes. Business Bear didn’t particularly like his attitude. He didn’t like that his suit was sleek and skinny, and he didn’t understand how Finance Frog had the most friends in the office when he asked such strange questions. A moment a tad too long passed by.

“I like video games.” Business Bear liked to think of himself as a complex, intelligent animal - someone who had a reservoir of interesting facts to pick from. In that instance, the only other thing he could think of was the fact that he currently had a hemorrhoid.

“Oh, cool. My kid likes this game called Angry Birds. You know that one?”

“Yeah.” Seven and a half seconds passed as they stared at each other. Business Bear was studying his chin. Pointy and wet, he thought to himself.

“So, what sort of games do you like?”

“Super Monkey Ball 2.” This time, Business Bear responded a little too fast.

“I might’ve played that one in college. It’s like, sort of like Mario?” It wasn’t really like Mario.

“Yeah.”

“Give me another that’s more recent. You play the new Crash Bandicoot?”

“I only have Super Monkey Ball.” The two remained in silence for the remainder of the trip. Finance Frog silently ranked that exchange in his top five worst conversations of his life.

In the office, Bear was scheduled to be in room thirteen for a weekly meeting. Instead, he was slouched in his cubicle, refreshing his email. In last week’s meeting, all the employees were taught how to use the new calendar system, specifically the scheduling features. Business Bear had paid close attention, jotted down every word being said, and even thought that the new system was very intuitive. However, he had simply forgotten all of it. Business Bear’s memory wasn’t great. He’s not really good at anything.

For the next hour, Bear did his spreadsheets. He liked doing his spreadsheets because he didn’t have to think very hard, and his calculator made cute sounds every time he tapped it. He put a little heart sticker on the corner of the calculator because he liked it very much. Every twenty-five minutes, he did a small stretch, walked to the water cooler, or used the restroom, and then returned to his desk.

“Business Bear, please come to my office.” Boss Baboon had hired Business Bear just after starting his company. In the past, Baboon had trusted him to format the spreadsheets, read over the spreadsheets, type data into spreadsheets, name the spreadsheets, and much, much more “important work.” Baboon liked to believe that he had a special fondness for Business Bear. He liked to think that he had watched him grow up and guided him from a naive college kid into a responsible adult like himself. In reality, Baboon forgot that Business Bear was any more than an intern and kept him on the introductory tasks for his entire time at Baboon’s Binder Clip Company LLC.

“Have a seat, Business Bear. How was work this morning?” Business Bear sat down. Because of his weight, the room shook a little, and a splash of coffee bounced out of the mug in a beautiful hyperbolic trajectory and landed on Boss Baboon’s white tie. It was a Hermès tie that he got last month. Baboon glanced at the ugly stain, and then looked back at Business Bear.

“Oh, it went great. I inputted the numbers that someone gave me and they outputted some other numbers and then I put those numbers into the website. I think it was the right website, but I’m-”

“Look, Business Bear, let’s cut to the chase.” Baboon paused to look up at Bear. A few seconds passed. Baboon had expected Bear to know what he was talking about, but Bear sat there with a slight smile on his face, still happy about his spreadsheets.

“Bear, why were you not at the meeting this morning?”

Business Bear was stunned. He swore he checked his email right when he arrived and there was nothing about a meeting. Sure, sometimes he showed up late to work, but he always wanted to be there. The weekly meeting was one of the only times where he got to share anything to anyone. Underneath Business Bear’s fur, his face turned bright red, and he thought that this mistake might purge his chances at the promotion he had been planning to ask for that week. Maybe he had missed something from last week’s meeting?

“I, uh - there was an accident,” Bear lied. He thought of himself as quite the charming, cunning person, and theorized that there still might be a way to get out of this unscathed with his clever deception. Boss Baboon put his head in his hands.

“What kind of accident?” he mumbled back.

Business Bear spent too much time thinking. In his mind, he heard the sound that plays right before Sonic The Hedgehog drowns.

“Hemorrhoids.”

“What?”

“Sorry, just hemorrhoid. One.” Business Bear looked down at his feet. Mismatched socks. It wasn’t his best answer, but he still felt a sliver of hope.

“You were doing spreadsheets… the entire morning. Look, Bear, you’ve been here since the very beginning, and I respect that. I’m putting you on a temporary leave, and then you’ll get a second chance, okay?” Bear readjusted his feet, and his head drooped.

“Think of this as an opportunity. I heard hibernating is trendy again. Give it a try.” Boss Baboon turned to his computer monitor, signaling that the conversation was over. On the screen was a YouTube video titled 14 Myths You Didn’t Know About Space.

“How long?”

“I’ll give you a call.” On the bus home, Bear stared at the seat in front of him. He didn’t get off at his stop, and an hour later, when the bus looped back to his stop again, he still didn’t get off. Only when he realized that Finance Frog would be getting on soon did he leave the bus, this time at the wrong stop.

Business Bear snacked on a Danish chocolate bar that he could not pronounce. He had bought a subscription snack box service two years ago because he wanted to have something to look forward to every month. On his phone, he looked up how to cancel his subscription. Bear felt like he should talk to someone and vent, but he didn’t really want to. It was late (Bear had to walk two hours to get back home when he got off the bus early), his mom was probably asleep, and he crawled in bed and hugged a stuffed teddy bear that he bought himself after he got his first paycheck many years ago. He fell asleep while wondering what he’d do tomorrow.

Published in Issue No. 2, Vox Novum, November 1st, 2024.