The Tiger

He used to live in his little cottage in the midst of a rainforest which was ready to burst with life when the rains came with their regal splendour as they gently spread their motherly cover over the monotonous green cover which stretched for kilometers in every direction. 

He lived in such a forest and couldn't remember where it was located. he was living devoid of any electronics in his hut and relied only on the brute strength of his body and nature's produce. He was shut off from civilization and social interaction for so long that he had forgotten his name, his identity in the ladder of society and even all his family members except his wife who was the reason he had moved to such a lifestyle and environment. His house back in civilization reminded him too much of her.

 She had died due to cancer which had consumed her from the inside and she left him alone in the world with two children. He left his children at her parents and left off to begin a  new life. It took every bit of his energy and thought to leave his children behind and begin a new chapter in his life, at times he felt that it was very selfish of him to leave his children but after a while he used to convince himself that it was better than having a lonely and slowly emotionally changing father that they were in the care of their grandparents.

 Every day in nature was full of unexpected surprises and new things to learn would emerge through the wet and ever damp soil and into his mind. He was woken by the songs of the birds and the calls of the animals in the forest and he loved every bit of it. 

Though he had forgotten his old life except his wife, he never thought of it but it always used to come back to him with certain incidents that used to occur in the wild, he used to shudder and stop like a machine that took to long to decide what it had to do.

 By living close to the nature he forgot all about the mixed emotions of anger and sadness which used to cover him like a cold blanket on a wet night. His everyday work was to brush his teeth by chewing on twigs of Acacia which was a minute's walk from his hut, bathe in the water of the running stream beside his abode and then he used to occupy himself in the work of collecting food, making cloth and other necessary tasks that had to be carried out.

 The serene beauty and sounds of nature kept him entertained in the day, but during the night he was met with cloudless skies  and spectacular sights of the milky way and the constellations that were in the sky. Tall trees, grass and plants used to surround him like cove and nourish him. He was always left stunned by the bounty that nature provided him with. he was totally dependant on nature and muscle and activities like lighting a fire and weaving clothes had to be done by hand.

 The simple sight of him would make you happy and sad at the same time because he would always smile no matter what  happened but if you looked closer you could see the wrinkles on his face which were the marks left behind the stress. His face was in the shape of an oval with lots of wrinkles on his forehead and his brow was high, his hair was a bird's nest uncut like his fingernails, he wore a torn shirt and surprisingly fine belt whose buckle was covered in dried blood after using it a few times which held up a pair of pants, they were torn at the knees and calves. 

One fine day when the sky was now golden with the sunset and he was sitting by the stream enjoying his day's work when the rain came down unexpectedly with a thunderclap so ear shattering that it nearly shook his clothes.

 The rains had finally come. He stood up and looked at the heavens which finally let go of the all the water it had accumulated during the months. The first drops fell on his face  gently but slowly quickened their pace with time and he realised that all his work was outside, so he rushed to the hut and brought all the ramshackle equipment inside which he had made with wood and vine and the dry fire wood for the fireplace inside his hut where he used to cook his meals. 

By the time he was moving all his equipment inside, it was already night and the rains wouldn't stop when he heard the rustling of leaves  ahead of him. It was his time to sleep and he had to make sure that his territory which he had marked with urine was unbreached.

 He went to investigate barefooted which invited uninvited guests like rocks and thorns, they impaled his feet but he pushed away the pain and carried on.

 wherever he stepped foot he left marks of blood which immediately dissovled in the rain water and seeped into the ground. He stopped of exhaustion after running for a while. To his right he saw a flash of bright orange and black. A tiger he thought too himself.

 He was in grave danger and ran as fast as he could to his dilapidated hut which had been reduced to that state because of the rain which seeped in through the roof and had made the mud of the hut soft. By the time he reached the door,  he was limping due to the pain by the stones and thorns in his feet which had doubled  in quantity. 

He quickly entered the hut and threw himself on the piece of furniture which served as the bed to sleep on. He rolled up into a ball with fear and kept his eyes fixed on the door, waiting for the now imminent death which seemed to be staring him in the face.

 There was an eerie silence and only the sound of the rain was continuous before the door creaked open as in a horror film and first came in the whiskers and then followed the nose. He closed his eyes so that he would be spared the bloody scenes that he thought were to come shortly. He waited impatiently for death to come and whisk him away when he felt the warm and humid breath of the Tiger.

 The Tiger approached him and the closer it got the more heavily he breathed. He now waited for the final strike to occur any moment when all he felt was a pec on his left cheek. He was shocked and surprised and when he opened his eyes the Tiger was gone. The kiss felt as if his wife had given it and tell him that she still loved him and what all he did for her. 

He was forever lost in the wonder that his wife had come to visit him.