Preservation Page #3

---

- We were not cute. We were monsters.

We used to push over Port-a-Potties

at the state fair.

We used to stuff raw meat

into people's mufflers.

We used to hotwire cars

in the shopping mall parking lot.

We'd break into golf courses

and shoot at squirrels.

Poster children

for the gun control lobby.

Shouldn't Boy Scouts

be singing "Kumbaya"?

The Neary family

is notoriously tone-deaf.

Our mom used to sing us lullabies

despite the fact that she couldn't sing.

At all. But no matter what...

if we were having nightmares

or we were too afraid to sleep,

she'd come into our room and sing

"The Bear Went Over the Mountain."

Like she could protect us

from all the evil in the world.

All the boogeymen under our bed.

F***ing song's been stuck

in my head for 30 years.

Tomorrow, we hunt the old-fashioned way.

No GPS.

No cheating.

Fine, then. I'll give it to my wife.

She's directionally challenged.

This way...

I can see you...

if you can't keep up tomorrow.

Tomorrow I think I'm just gonna

do some yoga and finish my book.

That's a good idea.

We should all do some yoga.

Maybe roast some tofu.

Really, you don't want to go hunting?

I'm not exactly the hunting type.

I don't have it in me. I just...

I don't think I could actually kill.

I think you'd be surprised at what

you can do when it needs to be done,

when it's fight or flight,

kill or be killed.

Self-preservation.

- You ever hear the story of Artemis?

- Greek goddess of hunting.

Artemis was just a little girl

when Zeus sent her into the woods

to fight the big, black bear Calisto.

Artemis decided that,

in order to defeat the bear,

she would have to become a bear.

So she cut off all her little girl hair,

she threw away

all of her little girl clothes,

she tied bearskin to her own skin,

she tied bear teeth to her own teeth.

She learned to walk on all fours.

And then one day,

she walked into the woods.

And into the cave.

Disguised from head to toe

in bear hides,

she approached

the hibernating black bear.

Calisto... believing that she was

his little cub,

cradled Artemis in his arms,

went back to sleep.

That's when Artemis found a rock,

and, with a strength

she never knew she had,

she broke his skull.

Later that night,

walking back to the village,

bearskin tied to her own skin,

bear teeth tied to her own teeth,

holding in her hands the head

of the big, black bear Calisto,

Artemis, it was decided,

was no longer a girl.

In that village, on that night...

Artemis became a god.

Sh*t.

Sorry. I have to take this.

I hope a bear eats his cell phone.

Walter, hey, yeah,

I'm in the middle of nowhere...

Smoke inhalation.

Mosquitoes. Moths.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes