I read a very intriguing book last year by Mykle Hansen called HELP! A Bear is Eating Me! Now this little Bizarro story captured my interest through its title but I was also impressed by the narrative. Imagine being in the wild woods changing a flat tire when the jack gives way and traps you beneath the car. Now consider the possibility of a gnarly bear nibbling on your feet as they protrude from the undercarriage.
How many times have you heard in a movie or even real life that a lion (or a bear) has gone rogue (not to be confused with Sarah Palin), tasted the blood or flesh of a human, and now must be destroyed at all costs … once they taste man-meat (or woman-meat) their craving can only be assuaged by more you-know-what. I’m not sure about Soylent Green but this suggests people taste pretty good.
Disregarding the religious implications of god’s creatures noshing on the chosen ones who were cast in god’s image, there’s a simpler lesson to be learned: to animals, people are just meat (the corollary to this being equally true: to humans, other animals are just meat .. although some have cute faces that serve them well when escaping the spit or the stew-pot). So if a bear eats a person and subsequently poops him out in the woods, is the pope catholic?
I invite everyone to read Hansen’s little book and contemplate the gustatory excellence of human flesh. Like many Bizarro works, it takes the imagination up a notch or two and escapes the tedium of constant cliché.
A Celebration of Reading 