This was done for an English creative writing assignment. We had to make up a character and show their view of the world through what they took notice of in other people, and write it in third person. As I'm posting this, I haven't even handed it up yet, let alone gotten the mark back, but here's hoping!
She sat poised, staring blindly beyond the shining silver trees that lay in front of her. Beyond them, her sharp, yellow eyes saw several humans meandering past. Some peered through the steel rods that held her captive, some scanned their eyes over the board that stood to her cage’s left. Others sauntered past the moon bears opposite her.
In the wild, tigers were stealthy, vicious creatures, one of the few in the animal kingdom who could truly be called dangerous. But here, Kaika, as she had been dubbed by the zookeepers, was rendered helpless. She gazed lazily around her, flicking an orange ear, curling and uncurling her monkey-like tail. She was a caged animal, bound on three sides by vertical, concrete cliffs; the forth, a trench and the steel palisades that distorted everything beyond them. In truth, her enclosure was about the same area as the average human habitation, but despite the vague attempt at imitating tropical vegetation, it could hardly compare to the jungles of her Sumatra.
She could hear humans beginning to cluster mindlessly around the enclosure to her right. Big cats like herself were held captive in it. She had always wondered what they could be. They didn’t sound like tigers, and their bellowing roars (always followed by squeals from the smaller, more ignorant humans) were too deep for leopards. What other animals existed in the world? She didn’t know. Her keen, once alert eyes now only knew herself, her cellmate and the pair of sun bears, licking at the honey in their trees in the enclosure opposite. She was envious of them. They had grass.
But she did feel lucky that she didn’t have to worm her tongue through tree branches in order to sustain herself until her next meal. If it weren’t for her pride and the fact that they got grass while she suffered with dust and dirt, she would have almost felt sorry for the animals. They had stumpy legs and squat bodies, a stark contrast to the lithe figure of her own supple one.
The big cats to her right had quietened down, and the murmuring mass of humans, scuffing their feet on the black earth, moved over to her cage.
Kaika yawned, revealing her sharp, potentially deadly teeth, her only remaining sign of power, and lazily arose from her perch on the ledge to the rear of the enclosure. She began pacing, noting how the mob of noisy, two legged creatures grew. She was getting edgy, letting out the occasional aggravated growl as her golden eyes scanned the crowd. They were the usual suspects; the shortest ones up the front, those who couldn’t fit sat smugly on the shoulders of the taller ones, all pointing at the ‘big pussy cats’ that paced beyond the bars, safely out of harm’s way.
But there was someone who was different to the rest of the pack. A tall, blue-clothed figure, silently standing out from the raucus, as though he was alone. Kaika’s shining golden eyes locked with his own brown ones as she paced. She noticed that, like herself, he appeared to block out the metallic, mutated voice of the zookeeper, which droned on as it did every day about the wonders of the tiger. But this man appeared to already know it all. He didn’t stare at Kaika like everyone else did.
He looked at her. He marvelled at the shimmering amber and ebony coat and how it fitted her rippling muscles like a glove. It could never fit a human so well. Her body was elegant and graceful as an egret in flight, yet as solid and powerful as a fully grown grizzly bear.
Her glossy tail twitched with anticipation as she strode along the ridge, feeling the man’s eyes not only on her agile form, but in her mind as well. His fascination with the stunning creatures that lay beyond the bars before him showed through his hazel eyes.
There was something bittersweet in his gaze, as though he wished, for their sake, that the pair of tigers in the prison of the zoo could run free and wild in their home jungles. They didn’t deserve to be caged up like this. The zookeepers would argue that it was for their own protection, as in the wild they would probably be killed by poachers. They were doing the whole tiger species a favour, helping to increase their numbers with their breeding program, and educating the world about them so they could be saved.
Because of her time here, Kaika had little memory of the jungle she had once called home. The cage was all she knew. She had some vague memory at the back of her mind of spaces larger than this, all but lost after three years—more than half her life—in the zoo.
She finally caught the whiff of meat on the air, and her growls of anxiety turned to grunts of pleasure. She saw the hunk of meat fly magically out from under her ledge, a shining star in her otherwise drab and boring life. Her pacing ceased, and her eyes broke the gaze of the man, now focusing on the food on the ground in front of her.
Her muscles bunched and her body lengthened as she sprung off the ledge and landed silently on the dusty earth. Humans weighed less than a quarter that of Kaika, and had half as many feet, but not even the most delicate ballet dancer could ever drop three meters and not make a sound. The man longed to see the animal in full flight, flying through the trees as if on wings.
As she tore off great slabs of meat with her jaws with ease, Kaika could sense this in him, just as she had been able to sense the thoughts of her prey in the wild. She was a born killer, and here she was, gorging on a piece of an animal that had already been killed for her. She didn’t even know what it had been. There was no challenge left in her life anymore, no thrill of the chase. Some small part of her, way into the darkest recesses of her mind, longed to return to the jungle, and how it began to resurface.
The zookeeper may have rambled off the same information day after day, but Kaika could never understand human speech. She had learnt all this from one human, from his love and understanding of the beautiful big cats. He had revived her love of the jungle without even opening his mouth, and for this Kaika thanked him.
[edit: 20/9] finally gotten it back, and I got an A! Yay~~~~! *grooves*
She sat poised, staring blindly beyond the shining silver trees that lay in front of her. Beyond them, her sharp, yellow eyes saw several humans meandering past. Some peered through the steel rods that held her captive, some scanned their eyes over the board that stood to her cage’s left. Others sauntered past the moon bears opposite her.
In the wild, tigers were stealthy, vicious creatures, one of the few in the animal kingdom who could truly be called dangerous. But here, Kaika, as she had been dubbed by the zookeepers, was rendered helpless. She gazed lazily around her, flicking an orange ear, curling and uncurling her monkey-like tail. She was a caged animal, bound on three sides by vertical, concrete cliffs; the forth, a trench and the steel palisades that distorted everything beyond them. In truth, her enclosure was about the same area as the average human habitation, but despite the vague attempt at imitating tropical vegetation, it could hardly compare to the jungles of her Sumatra.
She could hear humans beginning to cluster mindlessly around the enclosure to her right. Big cats like herself were held captive in it. She had always wondered what they could be. They didn’t sound like tigers, and their bellowing roars (always followed by squeals from the smaller, more ignorant humans) were too deep for leopards. What other animals existed in the world? She didn’t know. Her keen, once alert eyes now only knew herself, her cellmate and the pair of sun bears, licking at the honey in their trees in the enclosure opposite. She was envious of them. They had grass.
But she did feel lucky that she didn’t have to worm her tongue through tree branches in order to sustain herself until her next meal. If it weren’t for her pride and the fact that they got grass while she suffered with dust and dirt, she would have almost felt sorry for the animals. They had stumpy legs and squat bodies, a stark contrast to the lithe figure of her own supple one.
The big cats to her right had quietened down, and the murmuring mass of humans, scuffing their feet on the black earth, moved over to her cage.
Kaika yawned, revealing her sharp, potentially deadly teeth, her only remaining sign of power, and lazily arose from her perch on the ledge to the rear of the enclosure. She began pacing, noting how the mob of noisy, two legged creatures grew. She was getting edgy, letting out the occasional aggravated growl as her golden eyes scanned the crowd. They were the usual suspects; the shortest ones up the front, those who couldn’t fit sat smugly on the shoulders of the taller ones, all pointing at the ‘big pussy cats’ that paced beyond the bars, safely out of harm’s way.
But there was someone who was different to the rest of the pack. A tall, blue-clothed figure, silently standing out from the raucus, as though he was alone. Kaika’s shining golden eyes locked with his own brown ones as she paced. She noticed that, like herself, he appeared to block out the metallic, mutated voice of the zookeeper, which droned on as it did every day about the wonders of the tiger. But this man appeared to already know it all. He didn’t stare at Kaika like everyone else did.
He looked at her. He marvelled at the shimmering amber and ebony coat and how it fitted her rippling muscles like a glove. It could never fit a human so well. Her body was elegant and graceful as an egret in flight, yet as solid and powerful as a fully grown grizzly bear.
Her glossy tail twitched with anticipation as she strode along the ridge, feeling the man’s eyes not only on her agile form, but in her mind as well. His fascination with the stunning creatures that lay beyond the bars before him showed through his hazel eyes.
There was something bittersweet in his gaze, as though he wished, for their sake, that the pair of tigers in the prison of the zoo could run free and wild in their home jungles. They didn’t deserve to be caged up like this. The zookeepers would argue that it was for their own protection, as in the wild they would probably be killed by poachers. They were doing the whole tiger species a favour, helping to increase their numbers with their breeding program, and educating the world about them so they could be saved.
Because of her time here, Kaika had little memory of the jungle she had once called home. The cage was all she knew. She had some vague memory at the back of her mind of spaces larger than this, all but lost after three years—more than half her life—in the zoo.
She finally caught the whiff of meat on the air, and her growls of anxiety turned to grunts of pleasure. She saw the hunk of meat fly magically out from under her ledge, a shining star in her otherwise drab and boring life. Her pacing ceased, and her eyes broke the gaze of the man, now focusing on the food on the ground in front of her.
Her muscles bunched and her body lengthened as she sprung off the ledge and landed silently on the dusty earth. Humans weighed less than a quarter that of Kaika, and had half as many feet, but not even the most delicate ballet dancer could ever drop three meters and not make a sound. The man longed to see the animal in full flight, flying through the trees as if on wings.
As she tore off great slabs of meat with her jaws with ease, Kaika could sense this in him, just as she had been able to sense the thoughts of her prey in the wild. She was a born killer, and here she was, gorging on a piece of an animal that had already been killed for her. She didn’t even know what it had been. There was no challenge left in her life anymore, no thrill of the chase. Some small part of her, way into the darkest recesses of her mind, longed to return to the jungle, and how it began to resurface.
The zookeeper may have rambled off the same information day after day, but Kaika could never understand human speech. She had learnt all this from one human, from his love and understanding of the beautiful big cats. He had revived her love of the jungle without even opening his mouth, and for this Kaika thanked him.
[edit: 20/9] finally gotten it back, and I got an A! Yay~~~~! *grooves*