In some strange state, terrified but determined not to leave Lucille behind, I ran in one direction calling Lucille’s name every five seconds. I wondered if I should go to the restaurant where we had dinner. So, I took the plunge and turned right at the crossroads. The further I walked, the calmer it got. I saw fewer people too. That got me worried that I was closer to the tiger. Maybe it was the fear of meeting the tiger combined with the surreal moonlight, but every step I took felt like I was sinking deeper into quicksand, where my identity had vanished. It was that same feeling when I walked, feeling the wind on my face in Phnom Penh, looking at this book of prayers and sutras and the dream afterwards. It wasn’t me walking in the moonlight, searching for my girlfriend, hoping a tiger hadn’t eaten her. My heart pounded in my thorax, sending the blood running through my chest at full speed. I felt like a paper mâché doll, into which a sorcerer had breathed a fleeting life. The vibrance of real life was gone. I was a puppet to be used in some sacrifice.
So where was the real me? I wondered.
The streets were now completely deserted and silent. Suddenly at the next corner, I heard a calm and controlled growl. The tiger appeared slowly, calmly, but menacing before me, with piercing eyes and blood covering the fur around its mouth.
My heart skipped a beat. I didn’t know what was real anymore. I needed to hang on to something tangible, and I grabbed my wallet in my pocket. My hand covered it in sweat.
I froze. The tiger planted its eyes on mine and stared. For some reason, I started to think of my sister, my apartment in Toronto, the Toronto skyline, and ice-skating with Lucille. Lucille… I remembered her smell, the feel of her lips, her laugh… I wanted her to hold my hand just like when we were ice-skating together and never let go.
With his big yellow eyes, the tiger stared at me for a long time. He killed me and devoured me with his gaze. This was the end.
Out of the blue, a big siren noise resonated through the streets. Surprised, the tiger looked away and around him and decided to start running in a different street. I remained immobile, paralyzed, thinking of nothing longer than I could quantify. Eventually, I looked at the moon and its craters, signs of years of destruction and pain. It looked like its surface was being eaten away by some disease. Was Lucille safe? Had she disappeared? Was the moonlight playing tricks on my mind?
I didn’t know what to do anymore. Was I supposed to keep searching for her? Maybe she was already back at the hostel. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to keep on living without her. She was the only one giving a purpose to my life.
I looked in the street where the tiger had disappeared, just to ensure he was gone, and Lucille wasn’t around. Then I retraced my steps back to the hostel. The only way I knew how to get back. On the way, I saw people again, calm, almost like nothing happened. It confused me greatly. There was no indication whatsoever that a man-eating tiger had caused panic in the city.
I returned to my room. Lucille wasn’t there. I was dying to drink some hard liquor, except the hostel room didn’t have that sort of thing available. I tried to go to sleep, but I couldn’t. I felt I was still under the spell of the moon. Then, suddenly I pictured the tiger eating me in my hostel room. The real me was dead. The tiger was biting into my heart, lapping my blood, devouring my entrails. The tip of his rough tongue licked the soft layers of my mind, and with each lick, the last sparks of my consciousness died out like a campfire in the rain.
