I live amongst you. I commute beside you on the train, traipsing with my head at your knees as you swarm to your places of work. I have a job too. My tedious office sits in the heart of London, England, and every weekday morning I pull myself out of my bed in the suburbs, glug down a black coffee (with no honey) and wend my way through the grimy streets amongst you busy humans. Most of you don’t look twice at a 10-inch bear making his way to work. You’re all too caught up in your own worlds to care about a miserable, bored, lonely guy like me. And they don’t make iPod earbuds that fit my ears. I have to wear big stupid headphones.

Let me give you a bit of history. I’ve lived in London for ten years now. I originally came from the country, but the lure of the city lights was too much for me to bear (heh). But what happened? Instead of making my name and becoming the kind of bear you see on TV and the movies, or one of those great novel-writing bears (believe me, you’ve read more novels by ursines that you’d think), I became another soul-destroyed drone in a dead-end job. I actually had a ladybear friend who lived with me for a while, but my depressive mood drove her away and me further into the drink and prescription drugs. Some days I use the booze and meds to take the edge off, other times I use it to sink into oblivion, to forget that I’m a little furry bear in a human’s world, and I sometimes wake up in my own sick.

There are days when the loneliness doesn’t cripple me. I do like a good movie (preferably something by David Lynch, or Werner Herzong), I play first-person-shooters on my Xbox, and a nice Cabernet Sauvignon and a good book will put a fuzzy glow in my heart, but the world is so cruel to me. I’m too sensitive, too easily driven to rage, to little bear tears, to throwing myself in a litter bin and hoping someone doesn’t tip me out, so that I can just sit there in the dark under a pile of wastepaper.

Big real bears out in the real world, with their big teeth and claws… well, they terrify me. I’ve never met one and I don’t want to either. But they sure know how to make a little fella like me feel inadequate. Pretty girls on the train never catch my eye, no matter how much I try to make them notice me. I guess a human would never kiss or hug a bear like me, they’d think it was weird, but sometimes a kiss or a hug is the only cure for the ills life persistently delivers. I guess it’s too much to ask, though.

But hey, don’t worry about me, I’m not suicidal. I wouldn’t dream of removing myself from this big, thrilling world. I know I act and talk of my boredom, my loathing of the sights around me, but only because I see them from the perspective of me – a miserable little bear. I know the world can be a beautiful place, but when it repeatedly treats you like a piece of chewed-up gum it got on its new trousers you just don’t feel like looking on the bright side.

I guess Twittering helps. I feel less lonely now I know there are others out there a little bit like me. Not as depressed, as lost, as royally crushed as me, but like me all the same. Maybe one of those people out there will read this, or one of my Twitter posts, and they’ll take pity. Maybe one day I’ll get my train and someone will smile at me, or at least they won’t pretend I’m not there.

Maybe I’ll get that hug…