Nobody Believes in Tigers
Will they ever do?
“Nature is the art of God.”
‘Divine Comedy’, Dante Alighieri, Italian poet
Maggie drank her morning glass of "Care from the Wild" and dressed for work.
One last look in the mirror to make sure that the rosy cheeks and bright eyes were not an illusion.
One childish jump in the air, to make sure the agility of her body was not an illusion as well.
Then into her red leather boots that matched her red scarf, and onto the bike.
Maggie entered the busy office and was met by a bunch of colleagues who were still walking around, holding cups of coffee.
"You look wonderful, Mags!"
"Not one migraine symptom since you’ve started 'Care from the Wild,' right?"
"I know what it’s like. That energy... Will you believe me if I tell you that I started jogging? I couldn’t walk, and now I jog!"
Migraine, arthritis, eye issues, asthma, allergies: the names of all kinds of mild health disorders that were still able to cause horrible daily suffering. Her colleagues had been all healed.
She hadn’t believed them when they talked about the magic milk, but now she, too, was healed.
Maggie worked, but half her brain pondered on the strangeness of it all. A new dairy brand came out a few months ago. No advertisement, just a short note about the farm. It was located high in the mountains, managed by an old man whose name she couldn’t remember. He claimed that only he and his wife worked on the farm. They tended the best cows in the best way. The old man promised good quality at a good price.
He was known to have invited only health experts to his land to get his products certified. Nobody else was allowed in since then. There were a few interviews online, regarding the miracles people started witnessing. "Do you know that your milk and cheese cure chronic pain?" "I’m very happy to hear that. I suppose it’s the clean air and fresh grass my cows get."
There is something wrong here.
Half of Maggie’s brain was repeating this sentence over and over again to the other half that was trying to work. Finally, the working half screamed angrily, Stop drinking the stupid milk if you’re not happy about it!
Maggie concentrated on the project. She knew she wouldn’t stop drinking the milk.
After work, she decided to cycle around the town’s old neighborhoods. She loved the cobbled streets, the colorful houses whose second floors hung over the first like protective umbrellas, and the children playing on the quiet pavements like dolls that had suddenly come to life. She paused to watch the game of a group of girls: it was hopscotch. She felt like jumping off the bike and joining them.
Maggie reached the end of the most distant neighborhood. She saw a house painted orange and white, with black stripes. How funny. Someone here is a fan of tigers.
Maggie got off the bike and stepped closer to the house to take a picture. She saw that the black front door was ajar.
She quickly stepped back. If the owner stood behind that door, getting ready to go out, they would probably be pissed at a stranger intending to spread their whim of a house around social media. Not that Maggie would do this, but she knew that was what they would think.
She waited.
Five minutes passed.
A half-open door and nobody going out, nobody going in.
Maybe something bad happened to somebody inside?
I should go and check it out.
Maggie wasn’t someone who would doubt a decision once taken. She entered the house.
The hallway was dark and smelled of vegetation. The floor was soft and rustling beneath her feet, and Maggie had the feeling she was walking not on a carpet, but on grass.
She passed by a few closed doors. The hallway took a left turn. She followed it. There was an open door at the bottom, and yellow light flowed out.
Strange sounds were coming from that room. A murmuring human voice. And then a mixture of growling, purring, whining, meowing.
What?
What’s that?
More out of curiosity now than a noble desire to help, Maggie walked toward the open door. She peeked into the room.
It was an enormous chamber. An artificial sun was spraying its golden rays from the high ceiling. A few acacia trees were growing on the vast expanse of soil and green grass. Their crowns hovered under the ceiling like green clouds. There was one short Jackal berry tree in the middle of the chamber, looking like a disheveled rock star. There were green, yellow, brown, and red bushes everywhere. There was the babbling of a narrow stream swaying around the bushes. And under the jackal berry tree, the most unbelievable sight.
A huge tigress, at least three meters long, was wallowing in the grass, her huge paws groping the air, her white teeth flashing in the light of the made-up sun. The tigress made all those weird cat sounds Maggie had heard a while ago. A young man was kneeling beside her, sparring with her, and while Maggie was watching their limbs intertwine in a mortal-looking play, she must have made a sound. An indefinite sound that was yet loud enough for the tigress to hear and turn her head in her direction. The animal growled a bit louder and not that playfully anymore.
The man followed the tigress’s gaze.
He locked eyes with Maggie’s.
He was curly and dark-haired, with a strikingly handsome face, one of those that makes you think you are in a movie, not in real life.
Maybe this is indeed a movie? Maybe they are shooting a film here and I came in, and interrupted, and…
"Oh, my God!" the handsome young man said and got up. He had the body of an athlete.
Or is it a secret cult? They probably murder anyone who comes across their rituals!
"I’m... I’m sorry... I..." Maggie’s voice was cracking, "The door was opened, and I... I thought..."
"I forgot to close the door. See, Beb?" the man looked at the tigress and patted her head to calm her down. She had been about to get up, but she lay down again. "We were praying for a sign, and here it is. I forgot to close the door. A door that I usually not only close but lock, too. No, it’s not because I was worried about you, it’s not the first time you whine at the camera... no, no. It’s the sign."
Maggie stepped back. Yes. A murderous cult.
"Don’t worry!" the young man smiled. A stunning smile. "I’m not insane, and I’m not going to kill you. My name’s Mark. I used to work as an animal tamer. Wild animals are my lifelong passion. During one of my journeys in Africa, I found her," he pointed at the enormous cat, "I adopted her, and I’ve taken care of her since. She pays me back in the most incredible way."
He leaned over the tigress, who was squinting playfully at Maggie now.
"Shall we show her, Beb?"
The tigress growled in approval.
The young man brought a strange-looking machine and started milking the tigress.
It was only then that Maggie saw the animal’s large, succulent tits. Six of them. They looked like thick, pink balloons, and what was inside them was quickly drawn out by the machine, just like air from a balloon. It filled six large buckets. Not with air, though.
The content of the buckets was sparkling white liquid.
The young man who had called himself Mark put his mobile to his ear. A few short words and two boys came to take away the buckets.
"The buckets are going to the mountains," Mark explained. "To the farm 'Care from the Wild.' The old guy there is an old friend of mine. He and his wife pasteurize the milk and make cheese and yogurt. Then sell it to the shops."
I’m dreaming.
Maggie couldn’t take her eyes off the animal which was wallowing happily in the grass again. She realized her feet were carrying her into the room. She sat cautiously near the tigress. The grass felt soft and cooling under the thin fabric of her white dress.
"I brought her here as a baby, half eaten by a male tiger," Mark said. "She takes me as her father. Or mother. I don’t know. I just know that I’m her everything. I was obsessed with her, too. I didn’t want to take her back to Africa, so I transported Africa here for her. Once, I even found a male tiger for her. They mated and had babies. I gave away the small cubs to an animal organization, and I expected Beb’s milk to stop, but it didn’t. A year has passed since then. Beb wants to be milked every hour. That’s so much milk. In the beginning, I threw it away. Then that friend of mine said, give it to me, let’s see if we can use it for something, and that’s how we created 'Care from the Wild.' Of course, he had first tried the milk on himself and his wife. His stomach ulcer was healed. His wife’s arthritis, too."
Maggie was taking in the small Savanna with eyes that saw the secrets of the Universe revealed in front of her. She watched the huge, beautiful animal lying on the grass next to her, and the handsome man who was patting the tigress’ striped, silky head.
"People won’t believe it," Mark sighed. "They are going to take Beb and do bad things to her. That’s why I keep her a secret. Maybe her milk will stop soon. Maybe she’ll get tired of doing it, and then everything will be the way it was. Until then, however, I’m obliged to fulfill her wish and help human beings."
"She is helping human beings?" Maggie whispered. "You think she’s doing it... consciously?"
"I bet she is. She is so grateful to us that she wants to repay us. But people would never believe in..." he hesitated. It seemed to Maggie that the artificial sun dimmed its light, and greyness overtook the chamber.
"They wouldn’t believe in what?" her voice was hardly audible.
"They wouldn’t believe in tigers."
Hello, friends! I hope you enjoyed my story! If you subscribe, you’ll get one short story in your inbox every week. The next one will show you the only way out of hell!
Always yours,
Dreamy Nev
Such a wonderful story, Nevena! As always so beautifully written ❤️ I also liked the images— thank you for sharing, my friend! ❤️
Wonderfully surreal - you excel at magical realism