Short Stories

The Pool

The moon shone silver-blue, the circle cut into half with a smooth-fading edge. It was like butter spread on some sort of semi-circular bread, the way it looked tonight. The foggy edge of the moon's reflection danced, an impression of more: the showing of half an image. The light was spread in a way even more spooky than a crescent or full moon; it was somewhere in-between, thus it disturbed the mind with the shadows and lack thereof. Things were overlayed as to not make sense to the eye and mind, but that was a moon for you.

A half moon was an in-between time, and in-between times always have the most magic. This is what she knew as she padded through the forest, her spotted coat neatly groomed. She was on her way to a meeting, a gathering, a useless somewhere - it didn't matter. What matters is that she was stopped. She heard the whisper thought to be silent, and felt alarm spread. The secret she kept had not been discovered yet, and she was not the one to give this secret away. No, this secret was worth too much.

So in a clearing she whirled around, facing the creeping man as she gave a vicious, violent growl. It shook him to his boots, she thought with some satisfaction. She bared her normally pearly-white teeth, the teeth turned silvery by the half-moon. Her tongue seemed to be a grayish snake peeking through the stalactites and stalagmites of the cave her mouth made. But the man, the human male, he pulled out a silver dagger turned slightly blue due to the moon's half-light.

She growled again, and he bared his teeth like she did. She nearly snorted at the tiny, flat things. He only had one weapon - as viciously curved as it was: it curved in a little and was jagged on one edge, the other smooth as glass, and the only safe place to touch the blade was on either side of the metallic surface - and she had many!

They fought a violent fight, until the human man fled and she growled her triumph. The still-bleeding cuts - and blood itself - was turned brown in the half-moon dark, and she felt herself go weak and dizzy. She knew with sudden solemness that she would not make daylight. But she felt an intense pride. The secret was still safe; she had not given it away.

And in that, she collapsed and fell into the final sleep, laying in a pool of blood that would not be had not a greedy man come for the most prized of treasures.

The jaguar had a fitful final sleep, shockingly enough. Occasionally out of the blackness she would feel heat and see light; other times she would feel shocks of pain break through her peace. She was rather annoyed, and she always heard voices. Muttering about this, muttering about that, or some other thing; she didn't know. Several times she saw and felt gentle hands, and she ate and drank. Sometimes she did it herself; sometimes she was guided by these gentle hands.

The first time she consciously realized she was not dead was when she heard whispers - human whispers. Heaven would not have humans in it; no, if there was a Heaven it would allow animals and humans to be separate, if at the very least for animal comfort.

She could, of course, also be in Hell, but she doubted it. There would be no gentle hands there, and she felt comfortable and relaxed. The one option left to her was that she somehow managed to survive the inflicted wounds, and so she opened her eyes and watched the two whispering humans in front of her.

They were saying something about HER; they talked of her, and whispered about her, and finally she yawned. She hated the bars inflicting her view, but she did not want to hurt or scare the humans. Hurt, scared humans were dangerous indeed. She tried to sit up, and found that she was successful. The cage in which was contained had plenty of room for her to sit up, even stand up, and lay down in any comfortable position. It was also layered with grass and leaves underneath the human invention called a pillow; she assumed, in this case, that the pillow was her bed. In the corner a little door was locked; it was where her food was put in, and a filled water bowl also rested there.