The Princess and the Tiger - Part 1

After watching the movie "The Life of Pi", I have been meaning to write a small story about a Princess who has a tiger as a pet. One of the finest kinds, a real Bengal tiger, with his magnificent stripes, his deep soulful eyes, his small tiger mane, a tail high up in pride that follows him around, and that carefree gait of a tiger that walks around as if he owns the jungle. The princess is a spirited creature of desires, whimsical, wishful, impatient, energetic, easily amused, easily disheartened. They are inseparable during the day. The tiger follows her around everywhere. She frolics with the winds, while he strolls majestically, basking in the sun, lazily gulping in the wind she breathes, none losing the sight of other. But they part ways at night. 

While she retires to her chambers to sum up the victories and disappointments of the day, praying for another wonderful day, he gets down to business. The carefree, nonchalant, sluggish pet changes colors at night. He is a tiger after all. He is but an animal of prey. His deep, soulful, daytime eyes burn as bright green lights in the midnight forest.

One fine day, they are having the time of their lives. Time just flies in their games and neither one realizes how dark it's getting. She had never imagined how much fun it could be to be with him. Suddenly, the night doesn't seem so dark anymore. She still has some amount of energy and enthusiasm left in her. She doesn't have to call it a day quite yet. But she is out of her daylight ideas. Night is his play-field. They slowly move away from her royal gardens and walk into the forest in search of new games. Night is not the same color everywhere. The same forest that brings out his strengths also reveals her fears. It's an hour of the day she has never seen before, just as it is a part of the woods she hasn't been before. While she talks all day of what goes on in the palace, he has never mentioned what his world is like. In the thick of the forest, he is not the pet anymore, she is not the princess. She is just a young girl, he is an animal of prey. She can hear his deliberate footsteps, she can feel his breath on her hands, he places his paw on her shoulder, something he has done many a times before, except it's the first time she grasps the sharpness of his nails. 

They look into each others eyes. Usually, all she sees in them is her own reflection, her bright and shiny smile, her confident moves, her hopes, her dreams, her future self, her magnificent future self, her pride is as deep as his eyes. She always thought that they shared those hopes and dreams. They were as much his as hers. But the night reveals objects that sunlight fails to reach. The depth of his eyes has changed to a sharpness which is ruthless in it's judgement. Unlike depth, sharpness has nothing more to it, except the point it's making. There is no future or hope or dreams in those sharp green eyes of his. They are plainly a mirror of the present. And, in the present, she is only a young girl. Defenseless, doubtful, dependent, incompetent. How did she ever think that she could tame a beast of his form. She feels a wetness follow the path his claws trace on her body. She gets bruised everyday that they play together, but this is her first scar. Something tells her that this one's to stay for a while. Just kisses and rubs are not going to erase a wound so deep.

Maybe she should turn around and run and never look back. Or maybe, just maybe, she should look into his eyes one more time, last or not, just one more time, stay there with him while he whiffs around and then follow him in his quest of the night. He might just have something to show, something she has never seen before.

Coming up soon: What does a girl need two tigers for?