Not Enough

Polar Bear Den, Ellesmere Island, Canada

I blink furiously, eyes shimmering in the sunlight as I squint through its new brightness for the first time. The snow is soft beneath my paws and its countless flakes cling to the fur between my toepads. I turn my head, ears flicking, and look all around. It’s the solstice, the first day of spring, and the sky is so big. I thump into a sitting position, still looking at the cloud-dotted blue, and feel the breeze through my fur. Our mother said the days will only get longer from now until winter, but I can’t wait to see the stars. My brother starts to run off, kicking snow into my nose as he goes past, his head wagging excitedly from side-to-side. I respond in kind, shaking my head, and hop up to go after him. I can still barely see past the glare of sunlight on the snow. From behind, a low cuff, like an almost-growl. My brother and I skid to a stop, paws digging into the snowpack, and turn to our mother. She growls again and we return.

Her fur hangs in ropes from her skin, already warming in the sun. Never entirely white, patches of gradient brown dot her back and legs. Her nose is wet and her paws are solidly planted in the shifting snow. We come back to her side and my brother starts to hunt her toes. He crouches, darting in and out of range, and nips playfully at the fur on top of her paws. She and I just watch him. I look up at my mother, at her pink tongue hanging from her mouth in stark contrast with her pitch-black gums, and wag my head back and forth: slowly at first, then standing up on my haunches and wagging it more and more wildly. She responds, first wagging her head and then nudging my brother away from her toes. I totter for an instant on my hind two legs but fall over, tumbling down the slope. The feeling of fresh snow in my fur is fun and new. Instead of telling me off, she knocks my brother down too and follows us both, rolling and somersaulting down the hill towards a rocky shore. The wind picks up the snow left in our wake, carrying it skyward, dancing. Ice crystals form around my nose, prickling at my nostrils, as I breathe in the fallen snow. I slow to a halt, body sliding the last few feet before I stop, and start to roll on my back in the fresh flakes, relishing the feeling of new snow. Our mother told us about it, but I had thought she was exaggerating. My brother rolls, colliding, into me and pushes us both another couple of feet shoreward to where the snowpack changes to earth. I nip at him, annoyed, but stop as our mother arrives. She stopped rolling before we did and slides down to meet us on her side, feet walking her horizontally down the hill. I grunt a little as she gets closer; the outdoors is so much fun.

I rub my nose in the dirt, soil coating my snout and sticking to my tongue and jowl. I look up at my brother, wag my head slightly, and shake my entire body, sending snow and dirt flying in all directions. He lets out a small moan, protesting. Our mother comes up beside us both and nudges us back onto the snow with her paws, each one the size of us. She licks my face roughly, cleaning off the dirt, then does the same to my brother. He allows himself to be cleaned with some roughness, then puts his nose to our mother’s, asking for food. We mewl, not quite whining, and draw small circles in the snow in front of her, putting our noses to hers as we pass by. She brushes us off, flicking away our noses, and instead ambles to a patch of scrub, lips pulling the hard and sparse blades from their holdings with each mouthful. We follow her, curious.

It's sharp, scrub. I try to eat it but the grass pricks my gums and I let out a small cry. Pausing her meal, my mother licks me from my tail to my ears, encouraging me, and goes back to eating, slower this time so I can watch how she does it. My brother is still asking to nurse and completely ignores the grass at our paws. I try again, still half watching my mother, and end up just caressing the grass with my lips, not actually getting any of it. This is harder than it looks. My brother mewls louder, his whimpering turning into huffing grunts; I keep trying to figure out how grass works.

After a while, we’re shepherded back to the den. It takes a few tries for me and my brother to make it back up the hill; the snow is hard to climb, we keep sliding back down. Our mother, already back at the entrance to the den, watches us struggling. Then she chuffs, a sound like a sharp burst of angry air. We hurry the last few feet up the hill, paws slipping with every step, get behind her, and stay close to her legs, half in and half out of the den. From across the hill, another polar bear comes towards us, a big one whose coat is patched with brown and red. My brother starts to go out from behind our mother and I let out a small scream, like creaking wood, as he goes past me. Harshly, he's batted back into place by our mother’s massive paw. He tumbles into the den and lands at the bottom. I cry, the noise somewhere between a whimper and a moan, as the other bear gets even closer.

His fur is matted and coarse, none of it quite white. Even from a distance he towers over my mother; her head wouldn't clear his shoulder. His skin hangs from him loose and ill-fitting, half-moons of folded skin swinging from his belly with every massive stride. I can see his ribs through his fur and his shoulder blades protrude at sharp angles, moving evenly back and forth as he walks. His eyes are set back in their sockets, already black and shadowed by his brow. The fur around his mouth and jowl his short and ruddy, and saliva drips from his exposed canines. My mother rushes the stranger bear, her head lowered to the ground and eyes trained on his. She chuffs again, louder this time, almost a bark, and stomps one paw on the snow with a deep thud. The other bear snorts, shaking his head to one side, then lowers it the way my mother has. He emits a throaty growl, one that almost vibrates the air, and fixes his eyes on me. They’re starving. I cower, quivering.

My mother whips her head around to look at me and drowns my frightened whines with a low growl of her own. I back into the den until I can just barely see over at the lip of it. My brother is still at the bottom, tense and murmuring a constant whimper. I scream, the sound coming from inside my chest, gruff and low. I watch my mother fold her ears back against her head and breathe heavily, angry streams of air hissing from between her canines, becoming frost in the air. The other bear moves sideways, eyes still locked on me, and starts to circle around. A shift in the wind carries the stench of dried and rotting blood towards us as it comes off him in waves. My mother moves parallel with him, always between us and the stranger male. She growls with what seems to be her entire body, every hair standing on its end. Her lips fold up and back, exposing her yellowing teeth, and her chin almost brushes the ground as she crouches on all fours, ready. She rushes him again, darting forward several feet and then coming back to us. She growls again, teeth bared, her warning filling her chest and shaking the air as it sounds. The other bear moves downwind, admitting my mother’s victory, and meanders away. His paws, each print larger than me and my brother combined, leave a patchwork trail across the hill as he goes. My mother doesn’t relax until she can’t even smell him anymore.

- - -

She’s been gone longer than normal. It doesn’t usually take so long to hunt. My brother and I are in our new den, playing. This den is bigger than our old ones; we’re bigger too. The sun drops below its lip, our small horizon, and everything falls into shadow. I clamber up to the edge and peer over, watching as the line of sunlight moves across the tundra and slips over the cliff-edge. In the distance, I spot our mother and grunt happily, ungracefully exiting the den and trotting towards her. She has a ringed seal in her moth and its body draws a painted line between my mother’s pawprints in the snow behind her. It’s smaller than the ones she’s brought us before. I come up alongside her, still trotting; my nose is higher than her knees now. I greet her with a series of soft grunts and sniff the seal up and down. Prodding it with my nose, its skin gives way slightly and my nose slides along its body. I take one of its flippers in my mouth, a complicated task, and prance in tandem with my mother back to our den. My brother is sitting on the edge of the den watching us approach; his rough keening gets louder as we get closer. Our mother deposits the seal just outside the den, its blood seeping through the fresh snow and dyeing it shades of crimson, and starts to eat. I take a few steps towards it, going in to eat, but a muttered growl from my mother makes me pause. I look up at her in some surprise. Then, remembering, I go up to her and put my nose to hers between her too-small bites of seal. She pushes back against me approvingly and huffs slightly. Now I can eat. My brother goes up to our mother too, almost at the same time as me, but instead starts to nose at her side, his keening from earlier more prominent and insistent now. She shakes her entire body, fur and loose skin hitting my brother and knocking him a step back, and grunts loudly. Refused, my brother joins us at the seal, but he doesn’t take a bite. He prods at it with his nose, dissatisfied. Seal is actually quite tasty if he’d just try it. Their blubber is even good, but this seal doesn’t have much of it.

She’s taking us on a hunt again today; we’re finally old enough. She always does the actual hunting, but I’ve been practicing. I found a seabird’s nest on our last hunt and my brother and I shared the eggs. Excited, I jump between her pawprints, trying to fit all four of my paws into her one print. It was easier when I was smaller. I take my full weight and jump up to land heavily in my mother’s next print with my two front paws. Just like how she caught the seal last time we went hunting. My brother plods along behind us both, less enthused. He keeps stopping and looking around; he doesn’t like to hunt.

He starts to cry, his moaning whine carrying on the breeze. Still moving, but more slowly for a moment, I turn back to look at him and grunt. He grunts back then quiets. I turn back forward and take a few almost running steps to catch up to our mother; she isn’t waiting. My nose prickles and twitches as I try to catch every smell in the air. I put it to the snow and try to feel vibrations the way our mother does, but all I succeed at is getting a nose-ful of snowflakes. Snorting and shaking my head, I abandon my game of pawprints and focus on keeping up with our mother. Her ears perk up, rotating slightly sideways, and she pauses with one paw still in the air. I take the opportunity to catch up with her and look between her face and the snow in front of us, trying to figure out what she’s found. She turns, at last, to check on my brother, lagging behind us both, and grunts roughly for him to catch up. He trots a couple of steps then resumes his uninterested plodding. She huffs, the air in front of her nose turning to mist, and I huff back, my mist combining with hers. In a large sweeping motion, she turns back forward and we continue walking towards the sun.

I slip. I take a big step forward and the snow gives way beneath me, and I’m down. All four feet slide out from under me and I splay on the snow-covered ground, one paw outstretched in each direction. My mother huffs gently and takes me by the scruff of my neck and stands me back upright. I shake my head and look at the ground, not moving. Not trusting it. My brother, plodding still, walks past me. Seeing his ease, I decide to stop prancing and just walk after our mother. I guess this is the sea ice our mother said we’ve been heading for. It isn’t quite what I expected, more slippery than last year. Our mother doesn’t have any trouble with it and walks silently across the ice, her only trace her pawprints in the thinning snow.

Focused entirely on following a scent trail I finally found, my mother’s paw blocking my path surprises me and I stumble backwards and tip onto my side. I look up at her and chuff, but she doesn’t react. Her eyes are trained on a hole just in front of us in the ice. It would just about fit me if I tried to go through it, but it would be a squeeze. Righting myself, I walk towards the hole slowly, not getting too close, and realize that the smell I’ve been following is coming from it. It smells like salt and seal. My brother hasn’t noticed yet, too far behind to be involved in the hunt. Our mother stands perfectly still, the only motion the wind through her wiry fur, and I park myself beside her, just as still. She backs up a step or two noiselessly and I move to follow, but she presses her nose into my back and keeps me closer to the hole. It’s my turn to hunt. Finally. I crouch slightly, front legs a little bent and back legs poised, and wait. The sun drops lower in the sky. And wait. The stars begin to twinkle far above us. And wait. The wind blowing past us is much colder without the sun. And—

Now! A ringed seal pup, smaller than me, emerges from the hole, propelling itself from the sea and onto the ice. I attack, lunging towards it with bared teeth, and grab it near its tail. It thrashes in my grip, fighting against my still-tenuous hold. Like my mother does, I lift my head as high as I can, shoulders and front paws lifting for a moment off the ice, carry the seal aloft, and slam it back down onto the ground, the ice, with my full strength. It stops struggling for a moment, stunned. I adjust my grip, pulling it towards me as I go to bite its neck above its flippers. One shake, hard, from one side to the other, then again. Still holding it between my no-longer white teeth, I turn back to my mother proudly. She comes over to me in a single bound, licks me from my tail to my ears, and gently takes the seal from me. She slides it across the ice towards my brother, its limp body leaving a thick-thin trail as it spins, and he jumps, startled, as the tail of the seal smacks his front legs out from under him. He sniffs at it, then steps over and around it, leaving the seal in the snow behind him. He mewls at our mother, groaning and insistent but tired, and ignores me. She walks past him to where he left the seal and pokes it with her nose. She calls me over with a grunt and allows me the first bite. The hunter eats first. I take a bite, swallow, and put my nose to hers before going back in for more. My brother sits on the ice behind us, not touching the seal and still mewling, even though we stopped nursing moons ago. He needs to learn to eat.

I wake up and I’m on my mother’s back. Her shoulder blades alternate in long, even strokes as she bounds across the snow-dusted ice. Snow crystals cling to my eyelashes and sting at the corners of my eyes as I blink awake. I can feel her spine and ribs shifting underneath me, their hard lines pressing valleys into my fur. The sun hangs low behind us, its early orange rays casting our shadows far ahead of us, unnaturally elongated and long-legged. I can’t hear anything except the wind and her heavy footfalls against the ice. Usually our mother carries my brother like this; he gets tired easily lately. I yawn and stretch, almost falling off her back. I snap to attention as adrenaline flashes through me and I hang on too-tight for a moment to my mother’s fur. The snow rushes past as I look over the edge of her ribcage at the ground below us. Her paws flit in and out of my periphery as she gallops. I look ahead and see dark veins patterning the sea ice, accentuated against the otherwise white expanse. They’re bigger closer to the horizon. A small whine escapes me as I yawn again. Looking behind us, I have to squint against the rising sun.

That’s weird. I grunt hoarsely, sliding off my mother’s back and onto the ice. Picking myself up and shaking off the snow, I hear my mother come to an abrupt halt as she realizes I’m no longer riding her, but she’s already twenty feet away. I scream, the pained sound reverberating through my ribs and rubbing coarsely against my throat as it escapes me. There’s only one set of pawprints behind us.

I start to run towards the sun, following my mother’s pawprints as I run faster and faster. I scream again, ripping the air as I tear it from my lungs. My mother pulls me towards herself with one paw, blocking the way back. We have to go back. I scurry sideways away from her and keep running. I need to find my brother. Where is my brother? She grabs me by the scruff of my neck, yellowing teeth making sharp indents in my skin, and I thrash. Legs swinging wildly, I twist and contort in every effort to make her drop me, to make her let go. We can’t leave him behind. How could she leave him behind? I feel her jaw tense as I struggle against her. She turns, resigned, away from the sunrise and continues as she was before, retracing our pawprints in the snow. Then she’s running, galloping, faster than I ever could. Faster than my brother every could. I dig my back paws into the snow, trying to slow her down, but all I get is snow between my toes.

- - -

I latch my claws into the snow-less ice as my mother launches herself off it and it seesaws and keels. She lands with a violent splash of cold ocean on the next iceberg. I wait for my footing to settle, for the ripples to pass, and look behind us. She chuffs harshly for me to hurry up. I catch myself still waiting for my brother. My eyes go between her iceberg and my own, once, twice, three times. She chuffs again, more insistently. Her gaze darts from ice-flow to iceberg ahead of her, dwelling on the navy sea between them. If I fall too far behind, I don’t want her to leave me too. I pull my back legs beneath me, crouching like a pulled-back spring, find hold with my claws in the ice, and jump. I fall short of my mother and land in the sea, its cold grasp stealing the air from my lungs. I kick ferociously to stay afloat, front paws scrabbling at the edge of the iceberg as my mother pulls me up by my neck. Again. I can’t fall behind, I have to be good, be smart.

Saltwater drips from my fur and saturates the surface of the ice, making it shine and reflect the sun. My mother licks the top of my head, checking that I’m okay, then turns to look for the next nearest iceberg. There aren’t any good options. My stomach rumbles from deep inside me. My mother is starting to let me nurse again; we haven’t caught anything in days, and she hasn’t eaten in weeks.

The sun emerges from behind the horizon, staining the pockmarked sea peach and purple and red and painting long shadows on the waves. My mother nudges me awake, eyes sinking back into their sockets. There’s no more ice nearby. It was easier last year, there was more ice. We slide into the sea, our fur billowing with thousands of tiny bubbles. It makes a skirt of white against the dark salty waves. We paddle, one paw after the next, with the sun to our backs. The current pulls against us, pulling us sideways and back. I’m tired, so painfully tired. My mother gets farther ahead of me and I mewl, not wanting to be left behind too. I can’t be like my brother; I force myself to swim. She pauses, treading water, and waits for me to catch up, huffing between panting breaths and nudging me onto her back. Still partly submerged, I rest between her shoulder blades as she keeps swimming. How does she know there’s ice this way? I can’t see any. I shift my weight as her spine, covered now by only the thinnest layer of skin, digs into my ribcage. She didn’t use to be this thin.

We see an ice-flow in the distance, shining white in the low-hanging rays. We’re too tired to speed up. Our paws grab hold of its edge, tilting it down into the sea as we pull ourselves up. The fading sunlight casts dancing shadows across its face as we struggle. I get up first and scramble away from the edge before letting my body go limp, exhausted. Eyes half-closed, I watch my mother try and pull herself up onto the ice. She latches with her claws on its slick surface and pulls herself out of the sea; before she gets to safety, her arms give way and she collapses, first half onto the ice, then slips back into the sea. She tries a second time, then a third. My mother finally heaves herself up alongside me, breaths hard and fast as they turn to ice crystals in the air, and the iceberg cracks. She drops back into the waves, into the sea, and I tumble, thrown through the air by the force of the snapping ice, and splash into the ocean a few feet away. I burst through the surface and sputter, panting. My mother floats beside me, fur shifting gently in the current. I can’t hear her panting.

I nudge her with my nose, pushing against her sunken cheek, and mewl. She doesn’t move. Day falls into night and still she doesn’t move. I scream, hoarse and tired, to the star-less sky as I tread water beside her, nose buried in her fur. I shiver; the ocean’s cold seeps into my bones. Remembering, hating, what she always taught me, I turn my eyes to the black and violet sky, and I keep swimming. I have to keep swimming to survive.