"Bluffing" mother nature

Lying in bed, passing time, within the "eggshell white" corridors, Liam is a "mummified Egyptian" living through the pain after a bear's claw underneath the "bandages [winding] around his scalp." Deceivingly, he pours another lie off the tip of his tongue to reassure Gabriella as "[he] meant [for] the bear to come after [him] instead of" her. In the short story Bluffing by Gail Helgason, Liam and his girlfriend are trekking up in the wilderness near a lake when they encounter a grizzly bear. Liam begins to "run away" to divert the bear's attention, to save her. Now, he is "propped up in bed." He is a liar; Swiftly diverting others, only to tell the the other hikers they "came across an elk carcass... [and] some grizzly" was around the lake. Distastefully, he plans to leave for "Yosemite [or] New Mexico" to spend his time along the rocky cliffs, and thousands of miles away from his girlfriend. Beyond the "steel edge" in his voice his honestly is fake as he is a simple man "guiding American and German tourists up... in the Rockies" who won't "have his photo in glossy magazines." Lying in bed once again, "the doctor sweeps into the room" when the "nurse begins to snip away" the bandages which will cut away the deception he is living with.

Little old Clarisse

An old leather bag, dressed like a hag, she is horrific to sight. Wafting the pale white smoke of her cigarette towards the center of the room, she only manages to sit crooked in her old wooden rocking chair. Horrified, pale, revolted are all feelings you may feel if you are in her immediate proximity. You smell smoke and a faint scent of old people’s perfume. She is putrid. Slowly withering away, eventually to dust, her youth is gone. But in a sense her form is almost admirable. Not by looks but rather in the experiences lived by her. She wears her pale rose colored dress that barely stretches to the floor that she wore many years ago. It is the memory of dancing with her husband in that dress. It's the only memory she can hold. She is a cup with a hole in the bottom, unable to retain any of her life's memories. Her mind is like a broken record, broken beyond repair and will live each day the same as the last. When her ancient hands don't hold a cigarette they move in a uniform pattern tying the knots between two strings as she knits a sweater. A sweater for her grandson is what she is creating. For a person from the portrait that protrudes from the wall in front of her. She lives and hopes. She wants to see her family on her last days before they all tick away like the hands on her grandfather clock.