Sometime about 30 years ago, maybe more, I had a dream, just a fragment, which I still remember vividly.
There was a tiger in a coal mine,
and it was trapped down there by a manic and harsh master,
dressed like a circus lion tamer;
skinny man in black coattails, a top hat, with a stick.
That was it.
Never forgot it.
A few weeks ago I woke in the morning and muttered into my cell phone, half unconscious, the bones of the very short story/fable below.
Can it really take 30 years to under a thousand words?
Yes.
It can take 30 years to write under a thousand words.
Now that’s humbling.
I hope y’all find it a good story/fable.
Tiger In a Coal Mine
There was a tiger in a coal mine.
The tiger was alone down there,
except for his master.
The tiger
– so immense, so swift, pure muscle, and teeth and claw and glowing eyes, overwhelmingly and awesomely powerful –
sat in the corner of the deep chamber,
staring silently at its master who lay against the wall guarding the shaft leading upwards and out,
– the shaft with its otherworldly scents –
his stick across his lap,
guarding it from letting the tiger out.
The master,
with his stick,
lay against the wall of the shaft.
He was old.
He was weak.
He was done.
He was covered in scars and wounds,
from the tiger.
He had raised the tiger,
down in the coal mine,
with such tender affection and playfulness when the tiger was a cub.
And then when the young tiger,
growing stronger,
yearning,
smelling the life from above,
following its instincts to be free,
had striven to escape,
the master raised the hard stick.
Such ferocious beatings,
on the little tiger,
driving it back over and over into the dark corner of the deep chamber,
of the coal mine.
The tiger grew larger and larger,
and its desire grew bolder,
and the stick struck harder and harder,
and hurt less and less.
At last the tiger,
in its full youthful vigour,
challenged the master at the gate to its freedom.
The master flailed his stick,
its power now more from memory than from physical pain.
The tiger –
massive, pure muscle, four times the size and speed of his feeble captor –
could not even feel the rain of strikes from the stick –
and the tiger’s desire to be free
was now four times the size of the power of that stick’s memory.
The great young beast, with one paw, easily pinned the little man against the wall of the exit, and took his whole head in its jaws, and in a moment would have crushed his skull like an egg in the mouth of a dog.
But in that moment the youthful tiger,
so full of vigour and power and desire,
holding it’s now pitiful sentry’s head
– its deeply affectionate father and then it’s ruthless punisher –
in its mouth at the gate to its freedom…
…hesitated…
The tiger,
with the head of his defeaten master in its mouth,
flared its nostrils towards the surface and smelled…
danger…
terrible danger…
And it also smelled the now little man’s fear,
his fear of dying.
But the young tiger,
the skull of it’s ruthless master’s head in its mouth,
tasted something else:
the little, now broken, man’s love –
his love for the tiger –
which was even greater than his fear of dying.
And in that moment the tiger,
as only a wild animal could understand,
understood that this broken old man,
whose head it held in its jaws,
loved it,
and was trying to protect it,
from the danger – a terrible unknown danger – that it now smelled
from above.
The young tiger,
sniffed the surface again,
and then released his master’s head
– no longer his master –
and turned and went back to its corner.
—–
The tiger waited.
And waited.
Learning a terrible terrible patience.
Because from the one smell it had from the surface it learned it that the battered old man was trying to protect it.
So the tiger taught itself to wait:
pacing, menacing, growling, dangerous, furious…
but knowing…
to wait…
And the old man,
weak from wounds and loneliness and age,
almost helpless,
still lay at the gate…
also waiting.
————-
There was a tiger in a coal mine.
It was alone there, in the dark and dank, with his master, who had guarded the exit for as long as it could remember.
His master lay, broken, against the wall of the shaft leading to the surface.
The tiger had somehow learned to wait,
somehow learning to measure its desire against the danger it had smelled,
and it waited and waited,
and waited and waited,
its old master,
covered in scars and weak,
also waiting
laying
at the gate to freedom.
The time finally,
finally,
came.
The tiger – now a truly huge beast, no longer a wild youth, but a grand mature creature, pure power, but also, humility, patience, majesty – stood and slowly paced to the old man, covered in scars. The tiger gently pushed its huge head – as big as the old man’s whole upper body – into the old man’s chest, and held it there, gently… patiently.
And the old man felt its immense and overwhelming strength,
and also its immense kindness.
And he wrapped his arms around its head and held it, pulling it in closely with all the strength he had, like he used to when it was just a cub.
And he cried and cried, and he cried…
because neither of them had ever been able to leave the coal mine,
way down below.
And he cried for how he had treated the tiger, keeping it from going to the surface.
And he cried for what he had become in doing so; a monster, with a stick.
And he cried, most of all, for how lonely it had been for both of them, down in the coal mine, just the two of them, their whole lives.
And he knew that, however a tiger can cry it also cried, with its huge head buried in his chest.
And then the tiger gently pulled its head back, and turned to the entrance, and sniffed, and gently growled, and turned and slowly walked towards the entrance.
The old man stood, and followed the tiger, knowing that at last the time had come, and wondering, with all his wounds, and his isolation, and his age, how much help he could be.
Nearing the entrance the tiger sniffed, and stopped.
It sat back on its great and powerful haunches, and turned its head back, towards the old man, who had followed.
The old man, for a moment, raised his stick to hit the tiger on the rump to make it go forward,
out,
into the blinding light.
But, then he took his stick, and with a great and sudden effort for an old man, snapped his stick on his knee. And with a gentle stroke to the tiger’s great head as he passed, he walked forward towards the entrance, and the tiger slowly followed, growling.