Park Ranger Love Story (Flash Fiction)

Park Ranger Love Story (Transcribed and maybe a bit altered from a maybe true story recounted by a ranger at Pacific Rim National Park)

by Kilmeny MacMichael

Once upon a time not that long ago, somewhere here in the Americas where mountain lion roam, a woman was out hiking. And when she came around a bend in the trail, she saw there was a cougar, a puma, a painter, on the trail ahead of her.

The woman did everything she was supposed to do. She didn’t run. She made herself look big. She waved her arms about. She backed away. She did everything we advise people to do if they come across a cougar.

But this cat started following her.

Fortunately, the woman held her nerve.

She kept backing away, and yelling at the cat. Whenever she stopped, it stopped and sat down and put its head on its front legs and watched her. Just like your kitty cat might, following a bird or a mouse or a toy.

It kept following her.

This woman had some experience being alone in the woods, or not alone but alone as a human. Not that she needed a lot of experience, to know this lion was stalking her, toying with her. She knew this was bad.

She kept walking. Kept backing away. The cougar kept following.

And following. And following. It seemed to go on for hours.

Finally the woman had enough, she couldn’t go on like this forever. She stopped, and the big cat stopped, but now the woman was fed up and angry.

Do you know what she did?

She took one step towards the mountain lion. Just one.

And the cougar turned and ran. It vanished back into the woods.

Why? Because the woman did something it didn’t expect

Up till this point, everything she’d done, it had probably seen before. But then she surprised the cat.

And the cat couldn’t deal with it. The cat had thought the woman was prey for it to play with.

But prey doesn’t walk towards the predator.

With one footstep, the woman went from potential prey to unknown danger.

And the mountain lion ran away.

THE END

(Thanks, Canada Parks guy!)