Lessons The Tiger Taught Me.

Day 18, Saturday: "Tell a story from your childhood. Dig deep and try to be descriptive about what you remember
and how you felt."

This happened sometime in 1999, I was about 8. I'm not really sure how it happened exactly, I can't quite remember.

What I know is, our neighbours had this rather terrifying dog, very ugly and mean, think Snitsky of the WWE. Or the Boogie man, that was how scary the dog was. But I got the impression that it only looked scary when I was alone with it, cos usually when the neighbours were around it was usually tame and a babe.

Tiger. They named the dog Tiger. Yeah right, Tiger my left shoes, I'll rather chill with a tiger a million times than chill with that dog from hell. That's how scared I was of it. Everytime I went out for small errands I made sure it wasn't in sight. I always wondered where it always went everytime I'm going out alone, cos it was never there.

One day, I can't remember exactly where I went but while returning, just this close outwitting Tiger one more time, I heard it growl from behind me. "I'm dead meat" I thought, Tiger had always wanted to murder me, now is about a time as any, the neighbours were not around, my parents were not around, only a bunch of 2 year olds playing in the sand. If we were unlucky and it was hungry, it was gonna eat us all. But I was the only one in danger at that point.

My next move was probably one of the worst decisions I'll ever make, I made a run for it, Towards our house. In hindsight, maybe it wasn't so bad a move cos I was this close to getting into the house.

But then, the unthinkable happened. I tripped and fell. Next thing I knew Tiger had pounced on me, it's ugly face was all I could see. My thoughts at that point was simple. "Dear God, forgive me my sins and let Me go to Heaven."

Tiger had no reason to spare my life, as far as I was concerned, Tiger hated my guts. "This is my chance to put an end to this 8 year old child who walks around like He owns the joint, pffff, humans" it must have thought.

I honestly don't know what made Tiger stop, all I know is Tiger stopped, walked off of my terrified body and walked away. It just walked away and didn't look back.

Honestly, I kinda felt disappointed. "That's it?, you've been threatening me all your life, now you have a chance to kill me, and you're just gonna walk away?? Where art thou sting?"

Tiger and I never became friends after that episode, although, our enmity wasn't half as bad as it used to be.

Tiger taught me one of the most important lessons of life that day...
Death kills you once, Fear kills you over and over and over.

That's the story of Tiger and I, it died some years later. I don't know how.

Never let the fear of something kill you even before the thing gets a chance to.

Till next time,, Keep dreaming!!