NEO FILE - March 13th | 4:44am
WHAT HAPPENED ON THE 9th DAY
THE TIGER ATE
BABA MAX GANGARAM RANGER KID BARISTER
Just Kidding
Read On
In the twilight of the 8th night—
After Ganesha spared us
or saved us—
While the Tiger slipped back into shadows—
The jackals came.
They raided our camp.
Stole hunks of Bubbles from the pot.
Feasted on our feast.
And curiously,
They never came back.
Surely a jackal thief would return to a successful steal.
But they didn’t.
Baba thinks Nightmares killed them.
No blood.
But you’d be surprised how bloodless a tiger’s kill can be.
A man in the Sundarbans told me about the day his father died.
Said his father was curled in the tiger’s mouth, limbs pulled in—
Like a prawn.
Not a single drop of blood.
The jackals didn’t return.
But the Tiger did.
So what happened on the 9th day?
The tiger ate us all and used my Neo to write a book about it.
Just kidding, we survived.
But you probably guessed that already.
The morning of the 9th day, we learned we were being hunted.
Gangaram found the prints.
Baba and I studied them.
We found the Tiger’s ambush.
Followed his path back into the valley.
And for the first time, Baba wanted to stay in camp.
And I agreed–
It was no longer safe to wander the jungle.
It never was.
But now we knew.
It’s a peculiar kind of feeling—
To know something wants to kill you.
To know something tried to crush your spine in a silent bite.
To know it’s still out there.
To be honest, I loved it.
I think the 9th day was the most fun I’ve ever had.
In anything. Ever.
We crawled low through the mud.
Spoke in birdsong.
Made a man of straw–
And dressed him in my clothes.
We disguised our numbers.
Posted men in trees.
Watched one fall.
We built torches of burlap and bamboo
Carved new staffs of heavy wood,
but never dared to sharpen them.
We were afterall the jungle’s guests
And we would be rebels today
But never killers of the most sacred.
We lit pyres from driftwood.
Moved camp from the shade of trees into the stone riverbed,
Where nothing could sneak up without crossing firelight.
For days, the jungle had ignored us.
Deer grazed. Monkeys howled. Tigers passed us by, uninterested.
But we never ignored them.
We chased their prints like children chasing gods.
We snuck into the valley—
And death crawled out with us.
We saw him on the evening of the 9th night.
Just after sundown.
Smoky dusk.
Bloodhound Baba spotted him - crouched at the riverbend.
Eyes in the almost-dark.
Watching. Studying. Adding to his notes.
Learning who pisses first. Who naps before dinner.
Who's the biggest. Who’s slowest.
I wonder - did he see us kill the goat?
Did he see the blood run from our hands?
Did he recognize us as rivals?
Because he learned we too, are killers?
But Baba saw him.
And we lit him up in spotlight.
Six beams as one.
A tribe of savages.
We walked in the dark together.
We stared death in the eyes—
And death blinked first.
