aufhocker

i used to love rainy weather. i guess in all fairness, everyone loves weather as such. how the rain pitter patter on your rooftop making sounds that have the power to put you to sleep. and the kind of temperature that it provides, the kind of cold that you can let yourself snuggle inside of your blanket without shivering to death. the kind of cold that you would embrace instead of hiding away from and of course with rainy weather, you can enjoy your cigarette more that you usually do on ordinary day. both the rain and the smoke clouding your eyes thus, clouding your mind too. everything just goes blurry at the edges and soon they just does not seem to matter.

i used to love rainy days, until that day. here is what i want to tell you; i didn't know why i can't run, i can't scream, i can't cry. i was just petrified with the sight of a tiger in front of me ravishing my father's inside. it started like any other rainy days, i went outside to puff on my cigarette while my father was writing furiously for his next journal for the daily newspaper, but when i came inside, instead of seeing my father with his hair out of place and papers scattered on the floor as usual, i saw a tiger, yes, a life size tiger leaping on my father and without giving him the chance to even let out a tiny scream or giving me a chance to react to that situation, it clawed on my father's throat then thrust the flesh into his mouth. i was still standing on the wide opened doorway but like i had said earlier, i can't move. at all. as i recall, i'm positive that i was barely breathing at all. i just stood there, witnessing the whole event as the tiger peel the flesh of my father then with its sharp teeth, it engulfed, sucking clean all the blood, muscles, flesh, clean to the bones. right to this day, i can still smell the blood that ran across the floorboard towards my feet and soaking my white socks. when i finally had the courage to part my lips, i projected the tiniest voice that i could possibly project, "please...." i begged. "please stop eating my daddy."

i knew the tiger heard me because it turned its head to me, slowly, and i was shocked to see what i saw. the tiger's eyes, they were so human-like, and it looked as if it was on its verge of bursting into tears and it's face showed nothing but pain and regret. as if my emotion was reflecting upon it. i didn't know if the tiger understood what i said but i kept on begging, "please........ please, at the very least, please let me have pieces of him that i can bury." slowly, the tiger distanced itself away from my father's body and it curled itself next to my father and i saw it's body shiver. i took a closer step, braving myself to go beyond for the sake of my father, and it shocked me as i saw the tiger was weeping, choking on its own tears. and in that moment, all the feelings that i can't feel when i was watching this animal, this fucking beast feasted on my father, i felt all of it at that moment, the anger, the pain, the vengeance, the sadness, every fucking feeling that are related to pain, i felt them all at once and with all that feelings, i  stomped my feet on its feet, its stomach and its head as hard as i fucking could. how fucking dare it took away the only person on this fucking damning world that loved me for whoever i was. how fucking dare it cry when i was suppose the be the one who bleed my eyes! i kicked the tiger with all my might, i took the nearest chair that i could grab and slammed it on the tiger until the chair burst to pieces in midair but the tiger just curled itself tighter and continued on crying by my father's side and soon, i too collapsed between my father and the tiger and started crying my eyeballs out like i should. both the sound of my breaking soul intertwined with the sound of the tiger weeping, creating an orchestra of sorrow.

after what it felt like forever of crying, i heard a voice behind me saying, "i am sorry." at first i was too shocked to move, had the tiger slipped away and left me alone or had somebody else came in to kill me too? if so, i so badly wanted to be killed, to die beside the man that i had love my whole life, but instead of having a knife being stabbed onto my back, i felt a hand, grasping on my shoulder urging me to turn to him. and so i turned. i saw a man but instead with a pair of legs, it was the lower half of a tiger. just like centaur but instead of having the lower half of a deer, this creature had the lower half of a tiger. the tiger that had stole my stole my soul away for eternity. i stared at the creature with all the hatred in the world and i spitted at him. "may God damn you." those were the words that i gritted out from the gap of my teeth to him. and i meant every bit of it. then i collected what was left of my father, all the flesh, his head, his amputated fingers and i held it close to my chest. i looked at the creature one more time before i stormed out of my house and into the woods to find a place for my father to be buried in.


to be continued.

jazmin


confession: i am not really sure whether this is going to be a short novel or just a couple episode of short stories. entah. i guess i am just going with whatever the flow is.