Touching Spirit Bear: Chapter 10 Summary & Analysis

Cole thinks about the sparrows as he struggles to stay alive. By dawn, he’s hanging on by a thread. His pain gets worse, and unable to put it off any longer, he ashamedly allows himself to defecate. The stench is awful, but he’s too weak to move away. Mosquitos swarm around him. He wants to be angry and blame other things for his predicament, but that takes energy, and Cole is weak. As the sun rises, horseflies begin to swarm too. There’s nothing Cole can do.

Cole watches birds flit around the downed tree and remembers the nest. He spots it and then notices four dead baby birds scattered in the grass. Cole envies them—they died clearly trying to get back to their nest, and Cole doesn’t feel like he ever had a home worth trying to return to. He feels sad and like the birds didn’t deserve to die, but he also can’t figure out why they had the right to live. Haunted, Cole wonders if life—including his—has any meaning. He watches a bird, wonders if it’s the mother, and he thinks that he doesn’t have anyone to search for him.

Tears well in Cole’s eyes. He wonders if the baby birds suffered as they died, and though he thinks it’s awful that maggots will eat the bodies, he also thinks that this is the cycle Edwin talked about. Cole knows that dying is part of living and knows that he’ll die someday, but he angrily thinks that right now, he’s no better than a plant. The world hasn’t benefited from his life. With this thought, Cole vows to live—he knows that he’ll have no control in death, but he’ll be able to make choices if he’s alive. Cole also suddenly understands that the power to make others scared is “fake.” He realizes he’s squandered his choices feeling sorry for himself. Now, everyone he hates is safe and warm; Cole’s choices have only hurt him.

The image of a baby sparrow in a nest flits into Cole’s mind. The bird isn’t angry; it’s just helpless and wants food and life. Cole realizes he needs food if he’s going to live. He picks a few blades of grass until he has a wad of grass in his mouth. When he tries to swallow, he chokes. He then chews slowly until he can swallow. He grabs several worms and then opens his mouth to the rain for water. When he’s tired, he realizes he can’t feel any mosquitos on his right arm. His arm, however, is covered in mosquitos. Cole wishes he had the at.óow for protection, but he doesn’t know where it is. Cole sleeps, and when he wakes up, there’s a mouse on his arm. When it steps onto his hand, he grabs it.