Thee Random Words

04 – FOG, DOG, TIGER

04 – FOG, DOG, TIGER

It was an early morning. She had been tossing in bed, restless and sleepless, for the greater part of the night, until finally, as the first chirps of the birds announced their waking, she had finally given up.

So it came that she was walking down the sleepy streets as the first rays of sunrise fought to break through the eeriness of the autumn fog, reflecting off the glistening drops on the leaves. This was perhaps her favourite part of the day. A moment when there was just her and the unpretentious presence of urban nature.

It was the only part of the day that she could, despite the oppressing fog, breathe with full lungs and with no restraints.

Her footsteps, echoing on the concrete pavement, were the only sound that penetrated her hearing from time to time, reaching her ears as a meditative melody. She was completely engulfed by her own thoughts and existence.

Until a distant, faint howl disrupted her reverie, grounding her firmly in the surrounding reality.

She stumbled and came to a halt. She scanned the environment, but the lingering fog made it impossible to make out anything in the remnants of the dusk. Shrugging, she continued. After all, it really didn’t hold any interest for her.

Again, a howl emanated through the silence.

She could still not make out the source of the sound, the fog still casting its long shadows.

It didn’t matter. What she couldn’t see, had no bearing on her.

Another howl.

This time, a slight uneasiness settled in her stomach. It was the persistence of the sound rather than the sound itself that was disconcerting her, igniting her imagination. No, just ignore it and keep going, a voice inside her instructed her.

So, she did.

With every new howl, the gasps of silence between them shortening and their clarity increasing, she pushed harder on herself to block it out. Focusing only on that what was immediately in front of her. Steadying her racing heart. In such a manner, she proceeded.

The fog lost some of its grip as the sun began to gain its strength. New, bright figures started appearing before her. The bowling had ceased, making her momentarily forget about it.

She became intrigued by a colourful figure materialising not far from her. What could it be?

With every step she took, it was becoming clearer and more discernible.

A dog!

Her heart leaped with joy. She loved dogs. They were furry and fluffy, so perfect for cuddling.

Now, with joyful expectations, she proceeded. She could hardly believe that this cute, small creature sitting in front of her, wiggling its tail and looking at her with wet, innocent eyes, had been making such a racket before. She suppressed a smile and proceeded to the still dog.

When she was just a few steps away, she extended her hand, to give the god an opportunity to smell her and accept her. Out of the blue, the dog started barking unwelcomingly.

Frightened, she pulled her hand back, freezing in her step. The dog, however, remained unmovable, his unfriendly barking continued.

Perhaps the dog was scared of her and that was why it was barking, she thought to herself. That seemed most plausible. Reinforcing her courage with that thought, she advanced.

As she took another tentative step, something new started materialising in the background, leaving the fog and coming closer.

Possibly, another dog, she imagined.

But before she could discern the figure, a deafening roar pierced through the air, revealing what was coming from the shadows.

A tiger!

A menacing tiger was approaching her! Dread spread over her, immobilising her completely. This was the source of that previous howl – it had not been a howl at all but rather a tiger’s faint roar.

A roar that was now unmistakably clear and approaching her. As by miracle, the dog had disappeared without her noticing, she was totally absorbed by the sight of the tiger. When another roar reached her ears, she let out a cry for her life, a cry which released her frozen legs and she ran. Ran screaming, trying to save herself.

She could hear the tiger running after her, chasing her.

She ran as fast as her legs could carry, her back turned on the tiger. She knew she couldn’t escape the tiger, it was impossible, so she preferred to be attached from behind rather than facing the threat, even though the suspense of expectation was gripping her heart, making her lungs contract, her throat dry, her legs getting heavier and heavier, until she could no longer proceed and all the strength had been drained out of her body, and she could almost feel the tiger’s breath on the back of her next.

Now, there was no choice. The attack was surely coming, even though a ray of hope had initially accompanied her flight.

Stripped of every hope, she turned around. The expectation of her ill faith lay heavy on her. Not knowing what to expect, and when to expect it, became even more frightening to her than imagining the attack itself. She turned around to face the menacing monster.

Only to discover that the fog had finally lifted, the sun was shining, and that the tiger had vanished.

***

The words for this story were provided by my lovely partner V.D. who, when I gave him this story to read, said, in a very politically correct tone, that the story was nice, however… making my eyes roll, because, obviously, whenever someone is claiming something to be nice, only for the claim to be followed by a but, we all know they are really just trying to “sandwich” communicating their belief that it is rather contrary to nice. Anyway, his constructive criticism was that he would have expected the story to be much more exciting, adventurous, spooky, and whatnot, so obvs, I had to give it another try and try to make the story, take 2 much more adventurous.

This comment had also been a nudge in the direction of starting to write a longer romance novel about werewolves of all things. For the sake of adventure. Hopefully, it will not be much longer before it is completed.

However, when preparing for writing "the take 2", somehow fog turned into a frog, which in itself gave a rather nice starting point for the story revolving around three animals.

Oh, and btw, if you are wondering what it means to “sandwich” something, well, a “sandwich approach” is a technique for tackling “difficult” situations in which you basically “camouflage” a negative critique – the essence of your “sandwich” between two positive ones – your two slices of white toast bread everyone finds addictive, to ease the blow of the criticism. In this particular instance, it was really just an open sandwich on thin rye bread topped by a heavy-handed portion of ham & cheese. :-p