YEAR OF THE TIGER by Lianne Warr (1st place, Oct22)

“That’s £6.50, please,” I said, flashing the customer my mouth-only smile; it never reached my eyes here. The fluorescent lights glared and buzzed annoyingly. I was tired, on the verge of a headache.

“Are you fucking kidding, it’s a sandwich love!” he snorted. Obviously I’d heard that before, and obviously the price was ridiculous. I shrugged nonchalantly, doing my best well-what-can-you-do face which I hoped indicated: yeah, I secretly agree with you, aren’t we both daring anti-capitalists?

His brow furrowed, at which point I realised I’d made a grave mistake and misjudged the level of shared inner human experience here. He was furious.

“That’s all you’ve got is it, muh?” he said, grotesquely mimicking the little face I’d pulled, laughing in a joyless way, looking round trying to catch the eye of another customer to share in the joke.

My face flamed. My heart battered my ribcage. My mouth made a sticky, stupid-sounding noise when I opened it, managing only, “I…” the words catching in my throat. I swallowed, dumbly.

“I I, I,” he aped, his face distorted like a seaside caricature of an angry man.

Another man waved a baguette at me whilst pointing at his watch. I gave the angry man a tiny submissive grin and gestured toward the card reader, my hand shaking. He tutted loudly, elaborately tapping his debit card with a flourish before muscling his way out of the café.

“Why are you such a fucking pussy?” I thought to myself.

“Next please,” I managed, almost a whisper.

*

I pushed my forehead against the bus window on the journey home. It was cold and soothing. The moon caught my eye, suspended between two high rise buildings like a Chinese lantern. She was full and yellow, luminescent and vibrantly shadowy. I could almost sense the depths of the craters, and that was soothing too.

*

I kicked off my shoes, ripped off my bra and left it where it fell. I poured myself a large glass of corner-shop finest Shiraz, laying my head on the sofa armrest and lifting it only as much as I needed to sip the wine. It was so acrid it almost stung my throat, but it was warming too. I absent-mindedly picked at the label and looked at my fingernail. My hand was covered in dust. Looking at the bottle, I could see the whole thing was coated in grime. Wondering how I’d managed to pick this up and knowing I’d never have the courage to take it back to complain, I noticed the label itself: a picture of a tiger with luminescent eyes that I could sense the depths of. Her teeth were bared and I bared mine back at her. It gave me an electric thrill. That’s when I fell unconscious.

I awoke much later. The night was still and cold, the living room unusually bright. My head pounded. I reached for the remote to turn off the tv. But it was not my hand that reached it; it was the giant paw of a Bengal tigress. I recoiled in horror, knocking and smashing the wine glass with my new, unfamiliar and ungainly form. I spent some time thrashing around, terrified and breaking things, before hiding under the duvet and waiting for the nightmare to end.

*

This has happened every month since, on the full moon. “I was a loner to begin with, but all of this really does take the piss,” I remember thinking the first few times. It’s funny I suppose, if you’re big into irony and sadism (which I was not; not then at least).. I am increasingly prepared for it, though. I nip into Sainsbury’s after work, buy five steaks, a bottle of wine and some paracetamol. I take the bus home as usual. I make sure to lock the door and close the curtains. I put something like the Antiques Roadshow on; I can’t risk something provocative like a nature documentary. I open the steaks and lay them on the kitchen floor in a row, raw, I pour the bottle of wine into a bucket: an offering of sorts. I lay on the sofa and await the transformation. I feel it begin as a knot of dread at the pit of my stomach, a heavy pressure convulsing downwards, writhing and worming toward my toes. The tigress, when she appears, paces from kitchen to lounge. She thinks mostly half-formed tigress thoughts of being trapped, and of being hungry. She prefers Malbec to Shiraz. If I had thoughts, I think she would hear them too.  For the most part, I stay hidden in a subconscious recess in the predominantly tigery brain. A bit like being underwater, squeezing my eyes shut. I am scared of what she would think to me. As dawn breaks, I allow myself to sob a little, which she emits as a low growl from deep in her chest before she dissolves back into me. I mop the steak juices off the floor and get ready for work.

*

Three months ago, she had a proper thought. This was new.

Where are my others?

How could I answer her, fearing her wrath? I’d just had to replace the lamp and couldn’t afford her to break anything else. I’d brought her terrible existence in to being somehow, and I knew she was utterly alone. I stayed mute and listened.

Where are the things that my paws are for? They itch with longing. Where are the things my nose is for? I smell some other on these sheets. Where are the things my ears are for?  I hear lives outside. There are others, but why not here? Thankfully, finally, she lapped up the Malbec and passed out on the kitchen floor. I vowed it would be different, the next time the full moon came around.

*

Next time around, the moon so full it threatened to spill over, I announced myself.

I’m here.

I know you are.

You knew? I’m so sorry I left you alone.

Of course I knew- we’re one and the same. Stop apologising.

Oh- yeah. Yeah, I suppose we are. I didn’t think of it that way.

Well you’d better start. It’s getting quite lonesome as it is, no?

Very.

Are you ready to stop hiding now?

I think so. I mean- yes. Yes. I’m ready.

Do you love me?

I’m not sure what love is any more, it’s been so long.

Bullshit. You don’t forget. You’re starting to love me, I feel it.

There’s no hiding that either, is there?

Nope. Nourish me, then.

What do you mean, nourish?

Come come, don’t be coy. We can wait until next month. You’ll be ready then.

 We watched our moon through gleaming obsidian eyes until dawn and danced in pools of spilled light. We dozed peacefully.

I woke up alone and late for work. Never mind, I thought, rummaging through a pile of heels at the bottom of my wardrobe, dusting off a sleek black pair.  I smeared blood-red lipstic on my lips, smacked them together.

“You’re two hours late, I’ve got better things to do than steam milk for you,” the manager said when I arrived, directing his words toward the coffee machine. He was sweating with the heat and effort of it all.

“You’d better get on and do them, then,” I replied.

He looked up. I winked seductively at him. His eyes widened; I wasn’t quite sure if it was with fear or arousal, but I enjoyed the feeling of power it gave me anyway. He made a small spluttering noise, not unlike the milk steamer itself. He walked into the office, still holding the little silver jug full of frothy milk. He came out after a minute or so, handing me the jug sheepishly.

Good girl, said the tigress.

*

The next month, I brought someone home for us. I’d found him in a bar. It was mid-summer, the sky not darkening until late, the breeze warm and charged. I’d watch him buy an elegant cocktail for a girl (and it was a girl, seventeen at most), seamlessly slipping a pill into it from his crisp tailored sleeve as he gave it to her. It fizzed enticingly.

“That looks good,” I said, looking him up and down slowly, “shame it’s not for me?” I was all big eyes and innocence.

“Hmm I’m sure I can help you out there,” he said, flashing a mouth-only smile.

And here he was now, clumsily pulling at my waistband on the sofa as the evening light failed. He sneezed.

“Have you got a cat?” he asked. I roared with laughter at this.

She laughed too, later, as she ripped his throat out with her teeth and clawed his heart out of his chest.

In the morning, I mopped the floor and got ready for work. I straightened my name badge.

MANAGER, it now read.