2:26

The beaver, for all his apparent youth, had a long memory. He remembered the bison, he remembered a time without horses, he remembered the river smaller and faster, carving out its present valley with all the unbridled energy of youth, and he remembered the mountains when they were younger and wilder and full of things not seen today. And the beaver remembered the lodge and the murky water and sun-warmed mud. The taste of the new growth on trembling aspens in the spring, the joy of chasing silver-sided minnows in the shallows and the satisfaction of giving in to those irrepressible urges to build and create and construct.

The beaver remembered a lot of things and yet he remembered nothing clearly, and he often wondered what it must be like to be one of those whose memories are full of details. Tiny incidents, names, texture, tones and the plethora of images that paint the clear picture others claim to hold in their heads. The beaver’s internal galleries were abstract: powerful, intense and full of emotion but void of precision, awash in colour and emptied of the clutter of specifics.

But despite all that, the beaver remembered. He remembered the bunny, if that’s what he wanted to call himself, and he remembered Barney.

It was unlikely he would ever forget Barney.