‘I woke to my hand in the mouth of a Tiger’

I was – of course, off-world, where I spend most of my waking hours –much to the chagrin of anybody trying to get any sense out of me. I wandered through the remains of an ancient civilisation looking for clues to the current conflagration now raging in this quadrant of the galaxy.

My boots were scuffing the crap lying about until a glimmer of something interesting caught my eye and as I bent down a ruddy great mouth fastened onto my wrist and commenced trying to remove it in one bite. My mouth went into a rictus as my other hand came up to rip the offending beast from my hand when I suddenly came upright in bed with Tiger wrapped around my hand and giving me the best view of a wildcat.

As I sat on the side of the bed I managed to remove him by pushing him off (never in my presence harm an animal –for any reason) and as he turned around he meowed just as the kitten he is — although he is a rather large cat for his age. Trying to stem the rush of blood while Tiger is imploring me for his breakfast, it was 4am for god’s sake, I rummaged through the medical kit for something to stop the rivers of blood cascading from my hand.

One-handed trying to hold a rag to the injured hand, I finally found a pad to soak it up. Off to the kitchen, followed of course by our dog, we embarked on what Tiger thought was the most important task, feeding the beast. So, animals settled and blood flow finally stopped, I went over recent events.

Forget about the ancient civilisation, I must have had an arm hanging down from the bed – Tiger waltzed in after his forays around the neighbourhood, hungry as usual, found my arm and thought ‘you beauty, I’ll ring the food bell and get this one to feed me’. My day started well,  it is 4:15am and I am in my chair nursing a severely emaciated hand, looking at Tiger lying in front of the heater, peaceful as a lion, Puddles looking worried, and me thinking that life is full of surprises. Did I find anything on that abandoned planet – oops here I go again…

Have you ever been woken suddenly from a dream?

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