When she was young there was plenty to eat. People left stuff everywhere and if all else failed there was always the dump. It was party time then. Now it was all contained. The garbage containers were thick steel with enormously heavy lids. Used to be you could tip them over or get the lids off. Now she scrounged half the night for a few fried chicken bones.
There was still the stuff in the woods of course. Grubs and worms and berries and even the odd dead animal, but you could scrounge all night for that stuff and still be hungry by morning. She killed a dog once, and a couple of cats, but the bear patrol didn't give her any peace for weeks.
This night she found nothing in the camp ground so she moved on down the road to where a handful of houses collected around a gas station. Nothing.
Then she saw the apple tree. With apples. She climbed. The apples were not sweet, but she ate.
She rested, propped in a Y of branches, and found herself face to face with an eight year old boy who was standing at his bedroom window. They examined each other carefully. The boy opened the window.
``What are you doing there?''
The bear just looked at him sadly.
``Can you get down? Are you stuck?''
The bear did not respond.
``I'll get my dad,'' the boy said.
When the boy came back with his dad who had his shotgun in hand, the bear was gone.
The boy looked at the shotgun and thought of the bear.
``I guess I dreamed it,'' he said.