Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

LIONS AND TIGERS AND BEARS, OH MY!

“Victoria, you know that movies are make-believe, right?”

I looked at Dr. Dora Hall, my therapist, my face conveying my annoyance.

“Of course I do, Dora. I’m not delusional. Geez.”  

For added emphasis, I rolled my eyes, making sure that she was looking at me.

I couldn’t believe that she had said that to me. We’d been working on my “problem” for a couple of visits, and all she could think to say was that movies weren’t real.

“You know, Dora,” I said, “I can tell the difference between a documentary and a fictional movie. I’m not stupid. I’m just, perhaps, too receptive to the concepts presented on screen.”

“Do you know why you do this?” she asked.

I thought for a moment. “My family always said that I had an over-active imagination as a kid,” I said. “I was six when I first watched the Wizard of Oz …”

*****

1964

“Momma, why don’t these monkeys have wings?” I said, grabbing her hand tightly, as I looked at the primates in their enclosure.

My mother looked at me, shaking her head slightly. We were at the zoo, in the Monkey House.

“Victoria Jean,” she said, “You know that monkeys don’t fly!”

“But they did in the Wizard of Oz,” I said. “They flew and grabbed Dorothy and Toto, and took them to the Wicked Witch. It was so scary!”

“That was just make-believe, baby girl,” she said. “Monkeys definitely do not fly.”

I looked at the monkeys and apes. None of them seemed to have wings, so I had to believe my mother. Sort of. But I didn’t turn my back on them, so they couldn't get me. I figured that there had to be a reason the monkeys could fly in the Wizard of Oz. Maybe not all monkeys, but some could, right?

*****

“To this day, I’m not completely convinced that monkeys can’t fly," I said.  "Theoretically they could. Bats are mammals, and they fly.” I looked at Dora, and shrugged. “Last year, Ben wanted to go to South Africa on a safari but I couldn’t do it. ‘What if they really could fly?’ I kept asking myself. ‘What if all the experts were wrong?’ So, we didn’t go. Instead, we went to the Poconos. There aren’t any monkeys in Pennsylvania — at least not in the wild.”

“So, your belief that maybe monkeys could fly, based on the Wizard of Oz, prevented you from enjoying a trip of a lifetime with your husband?’  

I nodded my head. She looked at me skeptically. 

“Rationally, I know that monkeys don’t fly. And rationally, I realize that the concept that they can fly is irrational. But, what if …?”

Dora continued to look at me. “So you know that it won’t happen —“

“Probably won’t, happen,” I corrected. “There are no absolutes.”

“So, this fear — that you admit is irrational — has prevented you from taking a trip to South Africa?”

“Yes.”

“How does Ben feel about it?” she asked. “Does he resent your reluctance to travel to any place where there may be monkeys?”  

I thought for a moment.  

“No, I don’t think so. When I didn’t want to go Martha’s Vineyard because of the sharks—“

“Jaws?” asked Dora.

“Yeah. Jaws,” I said, ad libbing the theme song. “Buuuummm bumm … buuummmmmm bumm bumm bumm bumm bumm bumm bumm, bumm bumm.”  

*****

1975

“What’s playing at the drive-in?” asked Robin, my best friend. We were hanging out, trying to figure out what to do. There were eight of us, and two cars. It was a Saturday night, near the end of the school year.

“Jaws. It’s supposed to be super scary,” said Wanda.

“I read the book,” I said, adding my two cents worth. “It was suspenseful, but it wasn’t scream-worthy.

And I was wrong. Right from the opening scene when the woman is swimming at night, I was petrified.  I spent most of the movie looking through my fingers covering my eyes. And it proved to be really scream-worthy — ask Stanley, Robin’s younger brother who tagged along. Every time I screamed, he screamed. It was the longest, most excruciating two hours and four minutes of my cinematic life.  

“I’m never going to a movie with you guys again!” whined Stanley, when we got back to Robin’s house. “She screams too much!” he said pointing at me. As he turned and walked away, he said “We need a bigger car.”

*****

Dora held my gaze. “You don’t have to go into the water, you know,” she said.

“I know, but there would have been the stress of being there,” I said. “I had a friend who travelled to Cape Cod last summer, and she said that there were shark sightings and warning signs all over the place, every day she was there. Tell me that this fear is irrational.”  

I looked at Dora, daring her to tell me that I was being foolish. I did not want to become shark sushi.  

“Granted, there is a minimal risk,” she said.  

I looked at her. “Minimal is still a risk,” I said.

“Point taken.” 

She sighed, looking down at her notes. “Okay, Victoria, how do you feel about the fact that you have been restricting your travels based on the possibility of something bad — from a fictional movie — might happen to you?”

I thought for a moment.

“Like I said last time, I’m okay with it. It was Ben that got me to thinking that maybe it was missing things. South Africa is on his bucket list. But he says he won’t go without me. So, maybe, for my husband, I should get over my fear of flying monkeys and giant Great White sharks.”

Dora nodded her head, and looked down at her notes.

“Do all movies prevent you from participating in your life?”

I looked at her. “I participate in my life, quite well, thank you. And to answer your question, no. We travelled to the Dakotas, and I wasn’t afraid that I was going to be mauled by a bear like the Leo DiCaprio character in Reverent. My daughter travelled to Paris, and I was pretty sure she wasn’t going to kidnapped and sold into white slavery, like in Taken, although I did make her watch the movie with us before she left.” I took a breath, looking up at the ceiling, “When something goes bump in the night, I’m pretty sure it’s just the house settling, and not a poltergeist like in Amityville Horror.”  

I crossed my arms across my chest, and looked at Dr. Hill.  

“It’s just that some things resonate with me,” I said. “When I was in high school, we went on a canoe trip. There were about twenty of us and a couple of teachers. Safety in numbers, right? But I’d recently seen the movie Deliverance …

*****

1976

“Okay, everybody, today’s route takes us through some Class One and Class Two rapids …”

I turned to my friend, Robin, ignoring Mr. Ray.

“Did he say ‘rapids?’” I asked her.

“Yeah,” she said, “But they’re no big deal. We shouldn’t even get wet.”

Robin’s family were back-country campers and canoeists, so she knew all about rapids.

“Yeah, it’s not getting wet that’s bothering me.”

“What then?” she asked me.

“Do you think there are, like, people living in the woods, who would, attack us, or try to kidnap us, shoot us with arrows, or, you know, make us squeal like a pig?”

Robin shook her head, looking at me.  

“You saw Deliverance, didn’t you?”

*****

“That was my last canoe trip. I admit that I let my imagination get away from me. Again, rationally, I know that the probability of hillbillies attacking our camp are close to nil. Especially because I was canoeing in north-eastern Ontario, not Georgia. But, realistically, there could be someone out there, along the river, just waiting for unsuspecting canoeists to float by. It’s just too big out there. You never know.”

Dora looked at me. “Are you ever effected by books the same was as you are movies?

I thought for a moment. “Sometimes. When I read Salem’s Lot, by Stephen King, I couldn’t read it at night and I couldn’t read it alone. I had to go to McDonald’s and buy a coffee and read. But not usually.”

“Are there any books that prevent you from participating in your life?”

I really hated that phrase “participating in your life.” I participated in my life, thank you very much. I just … tailored it a bit.

“Books are different. It’s up to me to imagine what’s happening. And, if I don’t like a book, I can put it down. With a movie, it’s over in a couple of hours. It’s visual, and the images stick with me.”

Dora was nodding her head — she was beginning to remind my of a bobble head.  

“Hmmmmm,” was all she said.

“Look, Dora, not all movies scar my psyche. After seeing all the Vacation movies, I still went on road trips with my family. I watched all kinds of zombie movies — Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Sean of the Dead, Zombieland, I Am Legend, to World War Z. I have absolutely zero worries about the Zombie Apocalypse. Although, if it did happen, I’m heading for Costco — they’ve got everything there encapsulated in a nice fortified brick building, no windows, and roll down steel doors. Safest place in town,” I said, smiling.

“So you have thought about what to do in case of the Zombie Apocalypse?  

I raised my eyebrow at her, á la Stephen Colbert.

“Seriously, Dora? Tell me you and you friends have never sat around talking about what you would do if there was a Zombie apocalypse?”

“We’re not talking about me —“

“Come on! It’s a parlour game — just something to talk about.”

She dipped her head. “Well, okay, yes, we have discussed it.”

I smiled at her. Apparently, she was human, after all.

“So, Victoria, getting back on topic, do you see a trend in the types of movies that prevent you from participating in your life?”

Again? I thought. She needs a different shtick.

“Well, I think that it has to be in the realm of possibility. I’m not really worried that an astroid is going to hit earth like in Armageddon or Deep Impact. What could I do, anyway? There’s nothing I could do to stop it. I don’t worry that there’s going to be Sharknados dropping sharks all over.  Things from the future don’t bother me. It’s the future, right? It hasn’t happened, so why worry about it. And, I’m pretty sure that there are no hobbits or dragons or omnipotent rings waiting to be thrown into the Mount Doom. And although they say it was “a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away,' Star Wars is set the future. The Death Star does not keep me awake at night”

I looked at Dora again, trying to explain myself. It was harder than I thought.  

“But something like The Blair Witch Project,” I said. “It could be real. There could be things in the woods ...”

*****

1999

“You want us to do what?” I asked Robin.

“Go away, for a few days. Our two families.”

“Where away?” I said.

“Well, there’s this great cabin up in the woods. It’s in the absolute middle of no where. No phone, no running water, no hydro. “

“In the woods … deep in the woods?”

“Yeah. Way off the beaten path. It’s really close to this abandoned settlement,” said Robin, oblivious to the look of horror on my face. “Apparently, there were five families that lived there, and they all mysteriously disappeared in the 1940s. No one ever found out what happened to them. Spooky,” she said. “I thought we could take the kids, and go explore the site.”

I tried to swallow. “Are you insane?” I hissed.

“What is the matter with you?” Robin asked, perplexed.

“What did we do last month?”

She thought for a moment, and nodded.

Ahhhh, right, Blair Witch Project. Never mind.”

*****

“But you do camp, right?” asked Dora.

“Yeah,” I said, “But not in the woods. No. Way. I want to hear late night drunken singing from the people in the next site. The more more people around me, the merrier. “

Dora was looking at her notes. I was dying to know what she’d written.

“How about television? Do you have the same type of reactions as you do with movies?”

It just took a second. “No. Not really. TV’s more … encapsulated.” I paused to think about my answer. “Except maybe The Handmaiden’s Tale.  Dystopia’s the worst — what happens when everything goes sideways, and life as you know it is changed for ever.”

Dora just nodded, and wrote something down.

“Well, Victoria. That’s about it for today. What I want you to do this week is think about what would need to happen to make you say yes to an African safari with Ben. What would you have to change, to make that happen? Can you see a way to change your thinking? And remember, flying monkeys are only in the movies.”

I thought her last statement was a little condescending, but I was willing to try and change my thinking. I was sixty-four years old, and for the last fifty-eight years there had been no instances of flying monkeys. So, maybe I could get past my irrational fear. Maybe. I’d try. It would make Ben so happy.  

I thanked Dora and headed out of the office, buoyed by idea that I could conquer my irrational fears. Monkeys first, then sharks, then canoeing and back-country camping.  I could do it!

I was feeling pretty positive as I walked across the parking lot towards my car, then I heard it. The flapping of wings — many, many wings.  

I turned and looked up into the sky

“You’ve got to be kidding!” I said, just as three flying monkeys swooped down, and lifted me into the sky.