This month’s short story, THE TIGER LEAPS (Copyright © Arliss Ryan, 1990), didn’t exactly fit any of the usual literary magazines, so I am grateful that it was accepted and published in Pulphouse (Issue Six, 1990). It was inspired by a photograph in a National Geographic book about zoos that I used to read to my children. The picture showed a Bengal tiger pacing in its enclosure, an open, grassy area with an elaborate temple building in which the tigers slept at night. There were no bars; a ditch separated the big cats from the gawking humans on the other side. Yet all this appearance of freedom in a natural habitat mattered not. Something in the tiger’s expression said, “You have robbed me, and I will kill you.” This story, with a nod to William Blake, is the result.
Check it out on the Short Stories page!