We recently read some very intense scenes in our novel, Ben Mikaelsen’s Touching Spirit Bear. On page 64, while Cole was facing the bear with the spear he made, he “…hesitated to glance over his shoulder. No one was watching. He could easily back away from this bear and not a single human being on the planet would ever know.” So why didn’t Cole back away?

Even after the violent attack, as Cole lay near Death’s door, he bemoaned his bad luck to have happened to end up with a “stupid bear,” the same bear he had referred to as a “stupid moron” for not knowing that Cole would try to kill it. Is Cole so incapable of thinking about someone else’s point of view, someone else’s feelings, that he is doomed to a lonely, angry existence for the rest of whatever life he has left? Is he even capable of thinking about his own feelings?