The Tiger Cage: ~a short story~

Peter Duncanson
May 10, 2017
6 min read

It was an old house. 12 women and myself. We were all acquainted through our tour guide, another woman. I don’t know if she was a realtor, a curator, or if she had just bought a fixer-upper and wanted to show it off.

I remember touring the top floor and the ground floor. Can’t remember anything about either floor. Then she brought us down to the basement, guarded by one of those doors underneath the stairway. On the way down an eerie feeling grew inside me. It seemed to cause my heart to pound faster, harder with each step down. I wanted to stop and turn back, maybe wait for the others outside but curiosity grew as deep as the fear inside of me. The anxiety pricked my calves all the way to my toes like needles.

As I turned the corner at the bottom of the steps I came face to face with a tiger in a cage. It looked at me as if it had been waiting for me. The cage was like one of those old circus cages or the ones you might see in an old cartoon. Just enough room for the tiger to take two steps, turn, and take two steps again, then continue the cycle of pacing. The tiger was dangerous. I felt the tiger’s menacing gaze directed at me. I could sense its threat like a heavy smoke that filled the air.

An ineffable sense of desolation and sadness gripped me from my throat through my heart and stomach. It was as if grief had balled them into a point at my sternum. I was heartbroken to see the majestic animal in a cage. An equally powerful feeling of fear lashed out at the muscles in my jaw and the back of my head. I felt the sadness and loneliness of the beast and an overwhelming urge to set it free. I could not. The fear inside me was too great. I was saddened by the fact that I must leave the tiger in his cage; the terror of setting it free was overwhelming.

No one else in the room was the least bit concerned with the tiger. As we moved up the stairs I said out of desperation, “What about the tiger?!” to which the host replied “Oh, don’t worry, he’s in a cage!” But that was the very reason for my concern. I thought for a moment, “How can this tiger be freed? I certainly can’t do it…” As we left the basement the door was closed and we headed out. I tried to put thoughts of the tiger out of my mind. Then someone said, “Oh I left my pocket book in the basement.” She then reached for the basement door to open it and I screamed down the hall, “DON’T OPEN THE DOOR…THE TIGER!” She responded, “Oh, he’s in a cage, it’s fine.” I somehow knew differently. I ran down the hallway as fast as I could as she opened the basement door again. She gasped as I thought to myself, “Stupid lady, I told you!” We heard the tiger bounding up the steps! There was no time to figure out how or why he was out…I just ran to the door to slam it shut. But not before the tigers paw got caught in the door.

I struggled to keep the door shut but the tiger was too powerful. I pushed with all my might but the tiger banged fiercely, opposing me, squeezing his two front paws out of the door opening. I couldn’t hold much longer so I yelled at the woman who was weakly pushing with me, “Run! I’ll hold it till you’re out the front door.” My plan was to run, as soon as everyone was out, and try to shut the front door before the tiger could catch up. Really?

I wasn’t fast enough! The tiger was right behind me. I saw the air conditioner hanging out the window above the door and my plan quickly changed to jumping up to see if I could pull myself up onto it. I did. The tiger ran out into the crowd but could not find me. It seemed, as I previously suspected…the tiger was only after me. A sigh of relief as I began to climb further up. Then I felt its teeth dig into my left ankle. “GRRRRR!” the weight of it almost pulled me down but I managed to shake it loose. Feeling relieved again, I began pulling myself up but this time the tiger jumped higher and sunk his teeth into my right arm, the one that had a firm grip. He tore me from halfway between the first and second floor and we hit the ground like sacks of concrete.

I was sure I would be torn to pieces but I decided to hold on to the tiger’s neck. I thought if I could get around to its back, and hold on I’d stay away from it’s mouth and avoid getting chewed up. I did. I put the tiger in a chokehold, not to choke it out but to hold on and avoid its teeth. The tiger swung me around like a rag doll. It swung me up then down and each time we hit the pavement it felt as if I was crushed by a… well… by an 800-pound tiger! The tiger would swing his neck up, jump, and come crashing down on top of me. Each time it blew the wind right out of me. I couldn’t tell what hurt more 800 pounds falling on my chest, my head slamming against the ground, or the inability to breathe after each blow. This happened over and over… probably dozens of times. My arms weakened until they could barely hold on to his neck. I wanted to give up. I thought it might hurt less to get eaten by the tiger rather than smashed into pieces.

This was the last whip from the tiger. I knew it because my arms were giving out. As the tiger swung violently upwards the only thing holding me to it were my fingertips. In that moment I had resigned. I was okay and ready to die by tiger mouth… that is rather than tiger crushing. A part of me was glad I would not have to hold on anymore. As we ascended for the last time I thought, okay here we go…wait a second…I wonder why this tiger wants to eat me? Why was he chasing me and no one else? Why is it fighting me? I didn’t do anything to this tiger!!! I realized as we were descending, this tiger just wants to fight me and for no good reason! My fear began turning to anger. I felt violated and used. As we approached the ground again I was furious! I did nothing to deserve this unjust attack! At that moment, we hit the ground and my fear had been replaced with rage! This wave of rage was accompaniedEndFragment by a mountain of power. As the tiger began his cycle of swinging me I grabbed him by the fur on his chest and picked him up like he was a kitten. I threw all 800 pounds of him against the wall like he was a tiger cub. I was ready to kill it. I stepped into my fighting stance like a Kung-Fu Master and said, “LET’S GO FIGHT.”

The tiger was gone… or maybe I should say changed. It wasn’t a tiger anymore. A woman stood before me. She was stunningly beautiful with pale skin that glowed like silk in the moonlight. She had jet-black hair that was wild and wavy. Her eyes were black like onyx. She had tiger scratches on each cheek that were fairly even… almost like whiskers. She moved into fighting stance fluidly and fiercely like a cat. We stood for a moment staring each other in the eyes.

I felt as if we both knew three things at once. One, that neither of us could win this fight. Two, that neither of us would stop fighting, and three, neither of us wanted to continue fighting. I knew it. She knew it. We stood there face to face, hearts pounding in an enormous sea of mixed emotions; each of us fluid, fierce, and grounded in the stillness of the moment.

I sensed she wanted something from me. The only thing I could think of was love. She moved intending to strike. I could not let the fight continue so I moved in towards her strike. We were close. So close. I kissed her. She relaxed into my arms with the same intensity she formerly moved to strike. She kissed me back. All of the emotions, fear, rage, sadness, resentment, and anxiety were gone. They melted away with the kiss and were replaced with a feeling of freedom.

Our lips parted. We looked into each other’s eyes and felt each other’s breath. I said, “What do we do now?” She said, “I don’t know.” I woke up and had a GREAT DAY!