The Tiger by Sophia Uder

The city crouched low in the valley, caught in fevered, sticky limbo between the lumbering mountains and the boiling sea. Dark, tributary streets twisted through it, rippling with heat waves as if they were hot veins. Breaths of sticky vapor panted on the necks of the civilians, saliva condensing on the sides of drinking glasses. Lightning-bloated skyscraper teeth bore over it all, sunk deep into the earth.  

The roads were suffocating at late twilight. Pedestrians abandoned the chalky asphalt, ushering in a crawling legion of cars, a loose wave of chipped paint and chemical odor flooding onto the stripes. A driver in a corporate-issued truck, hypnotized by the infinite lights and intersections, stared straight ahead.  

He felt lost when he drove at night. Headlights faded into faraway stars, stripes turned into streaky comets. His mouth would turn sour and his head would fill with exhaust, and the empty black roads would flow and ripple beneath him. The gas and brake gave him a heady sense of power. The whole three tons of machine, all that power, all subject to his fluctuating whim.

A golden flash of orange, encaged by tar ribs, streaked into the road. He slammed on the brakes, a strangled shout tearing from his sour mouth. His sweaty forehead cracked against the steering wheel as the truck lurched, a greasy smear left on the plastic grip. Moaning, he rubbed his head to expel the spots from his watery eyes. Sitting up made it worse. Psychodelic waves of imaginary colors curdled in his periphery as he slouched back, eyes slowly searching past the windshield.  

Its shadow stretched long on the black street, darker than the asphalt below it. It shifted as it tensed, its bursting, pearl-like teeth bared at the headlights. The driver’s pain-clouded eyes flicked to the tiger’s claws, laid neatly on a yellow stripe. They were kind of pretty, a ten-set of petty, swollen needles.  

He sighed. He didn’t suppose the damn cat would move. It seemed frozen, as if a Gorgon had peered into its suspicious eyes. His eyes wandered again, slimy hand fumbling down into the passenger seat. He needed his work phone if this was going to take a while— 

His eyes flicked up, suddenly, so fast it almost hurt, called by instinct and hooked by terror. 

It was staring at him. Staring, lucid and bright. Accusatory. 

His hands tightened, whitened on the steering wheel as it grew before his eyes. He became all too aware of his heartbeat pounding behind his eyes as it took a soundless step forward. It was a predator, silent as breath, all that electric power bound by nothing but feral whim. The driver’s heart began to throb in his chest, a beating, wet tumor. Sweat slicked his oily skin, beads crawling across his face and into his eyes, mingling with leftover tears.  

The tiger lowered its head, gaping maw closing. He blinked, the ache in his chest fading out in echoes as it left, gone within seconds, like thunder in the countryside. 

He watched it leave, stumbling to the side of the road, then into an alley. It seemed as if it were fraying at the ends, antiquated paper, a toy some oblivious ankle-biter left on the playground, discarded orange peels mashed into feline shape. Its humped back disappeared among the trash cans, roadkill tail slithering behind.  

He stepped on the gas, hesitantly, with a opaque, sidelong glance at the obscure form retreating into the shadows. 

Above, the blistering night stretched on. Steamy, mercurial clouds stirred overhead, billowing and smearing, showering acid on the lace of verdigris leaves below. Sapphire pools of water glittered in the dim moonlight, inscrutable surfaces reflective with pale rainbows. Wiry stems of flowers wound around thick smokestack trunks, slick nectar pooling on their petals, oil flowing into every flaw in patina bark.