The Bear Pitched
A small picture book companion to the venture-capital section. Ten short pages about ten friends, the cubs at the kitchen table, and a half-past-eleven bus station on a Tuesday night where the bear met another bear who was going home.
The bear had a friend who built a small company. The friend's company became a big company. The friend was, for a while, the kind of bear other bears wrote about.
The bear had nine other friends who tried the same thing.
This is a small book about ten friends, and the cubs in the bear's kitchen, and what the bear noticed about being on the inside of a thing the bear had not been on the inside of before.
ONE
The bear had ten friends who had each tried to build a small company.
One of them is now in the magazines. Nine of them are not. The nine are kinder, mostly, than the one. The bear thinks this is connected. The bear is unsure how to say so without sounding mean, which the bear does not want to sound.
TWO
The bear's friend who is in the magazines does not know, the bear thinks, that the friend is in the magazines because the magazines need a bear who is in them.
The friend thinks the friend is in the magazines because of the friend. This is also true. Both can be true at the same time. The bear is alright with this. The friend is, mostly, alright too.
THREE
The bear had a cub at the kitchen table.
The cub was twenty-four. The cub was about to do the same thing the bear's ten friends had done. The cub was very excited. The cub had a small piece of paper with numbers on it.
The bear made tea. The bear did not say anything for a while.
FOUR
The cub had asked: do you think it will work?
The bear had thought about the ten friends, and about the magazines, and about the cubs at the kitchen table, and about how the bear had been twenty-four once, with a small piece of paper with numbers on it.
The bear had said: I think it might. I think mostly it doesn't. I think you will be alright either way.
The cub had said: that's not very reassuring.
The bear had said: I am not very reassuring. I am the bear who has watched it ten times.
FIVE
The bear loved the cubs who were starting things.
The bear loved the way the cubs believed it would work. The bear loved the way the cubs were, all of them, certain they were the one. The bear loved the way the cubs had not yet been told that ten is a number that does not divide evenly.
The bear thinks the cubs need to believe it. The bear is also a little sad, sometimes, in the kitchen, after the cubs have gone home. Both can be true at the same time. The bear has stopped trying to pick.
SIX
The bear was at a bus station, at half past eleven on a Tuesday night, because the bear had missed an earlier bus.
There was another bear waiting. The other bear had a small bag and a tireder face than the bear's own. The bear and the other bear had said hello, the way bears do, when there is no one else, and the bus is delayed, and the rain has started.
The other bear had said: I am going home. I had a job in the city. The job ended. I am going home.
The bear had not asked what the job was. The other bear had not offered. The other bear had said, after a while: I had thought it would work. I am thirty-eight. I had thought, by now, it would have worked.
The bear had said: my father is eighty-eight. He never thought any of it would work. He is alright.
The other bear had nodded. The bus came. The other bear got on first. The bear sat three rows behind. They did not speak again. The bear thought about the other bear all the way home, and for some weeks after.
SEVEN
The bear had a friend who had not been the one in the magazines, and who had also not been alright.
The friend had built a small company for eight years. The company had gone, in the end, to nothing. The friend was, for two years after, very tired, and very quiet, and the friend's wife had been worried, and the friend's friends had not known quite what to say.
The friend is alright now. The friend has another job. The friend does not talk about the eight years. The bear thinks about this, sometimes. The bear is not sure what to do with it.
EIGHT
The bear had been told, when the bear was small, that you became famous because of what you did.
The bear thinks now that this is partly true.
The bear thinks the rest of the truth is that you become famous because there is space in the magazine for one bear that month, and the magazine has chosen the bear, and the other nine bears that month are at home, doing something, and one of them has just made the cubs a sandwich.
The bear is not against the famous bear. The bear is for the other nine. The bear thinks the other nine are most of what is happening, in the world, on most of the days.
NINE
The cub had asked, after the tea: what should I do?
The bear had said: I cannot tell you what to do. I can tell you what I would have wanted to know.
The bear had said: I would have wanted to know that the cub at the kitchen table is also one of ten cubs at ten kitchen tables. The other nine are also being told they will be the one. They are also good cubs. They have also done the work. The reason I cannot tell you which one of the ten is the one is that the ten cubs themselves cannot tell.
The bear had then said, more quietly: do it because it is the thing you cannot not do. Not because it will work. Not because it might. Because it is what you are for.
The cub had nodded. The bear had made more tea.
TEN
The cub had gone home, late, with the small piece of paper with the numbers on it.
The bear had stood in the kitchen for a while, after, and washed up the cups, and thought about the bear's ten friends, and about the cubs at the ten kitchen tables, and about the bear's own twenty-four-year-old self with the small piece of paper.
The bear loved the cubs. The bear loved the ten friends. The bear loved the one in the magazines, who was not so different from the nine, in the end, but had got the magazine.
The bear made one last cheese and onion sandwich. White bread. Cheese, grated. Onion, chopped small. The bear sat with it for a while, by the kitchen window, while the light went.
The bear leaves it there.
A small companion to the venture-capital pieces on this site. The bear is not in the analytical pieces. The bear is in the kitchen, with the cubs, with the tea. The pieces, if you want them, are here.