Did He smile His work to see?

Did He who made the lamb make thee?

-William Blake, The Tyger

Once upon a time in a dying and chaotic jungle there was a day of quickness and order. But the morning of that day started with an animal in pain; even though it will be told to you that it will end with a man in doubt.

The beast writhed in the early mists of its jungle kingdom. The striped lord knew only suffering now. It let out a piteous roar that sounded like a moan of anguish. An animal in great agony that was there, its noises silenced the jungle around it.

An old tiger. He had lived with nobility in his restraint and strength in his paws and grace for his role in the jungle. A big old male tiger, but now his stomach was full of gnawing night-worms. Parasites had weakened the tiger and his appetite and the unyielding biting inside had tightened the tiger's instincts into madness. It was a mad cat, a frothing and twisting creature that killed out of rage, instead of for food.

As it rolled back and forth upon the trampled leaves the flies of the dead lifted. A great carpet rose from the floor of the jungle, black and buzzing. Many flies sang the word 'Beelzebub' over and over as they feasted on the dead. There was a lot of strewn and dismembered and crushed remains of any and every animal that the tiger had seen since it had gone feral and vicious. It killed and dragged and tore. But it didn't eat. All around it was a slaughterhouse of many animals it had murdered and butchered and then left for the flies, eating very little of the meat.

The tiger would have kept on dying and killing for a while longer.

Except that three of those animals were human men. Men from a nearby village. The tiger had become a mankiller. The obnoxious men had always been beyond the prudence of the prime-predator. But in these times it killed for no reason but for the sake of inflicting pain and then having flesh in front of it to tear to pieces in its furious sittings.

The tiger had also killed a child in the village the last time it had gone. It had wounded the little girl while dragging her daddy into the jungle. She had died that morning, the same morning that the tiger awoke and heard and smelled a man coming.

The man was coming.

He had brought a gun, and a cross.

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A priest, a vengeful priest. An angry, faith-questioning priest.

He had his gun and he had his cross.

He had nothing else, really. He hadn't been eating much and sleep had evaded him. The little girl he had sat with for two nights and when she had died his anger had won. He knew that going into the jungle with an old rusting rifle alone was suicide. Maybe.

But the child had been the last straw in his teacoaster. Now the cup was spilled and the mad-hatter had come loose. The young priest had always liked Lewis Carrol's stories. He felt like he might be descending a figurative rabbit hole of his own.

He found the first of the men killed by the tiger. Ghastly ravaging testified to the beast's unnatural cruelty and bloodlust. He could still hear the old man's screams of protest as Beemar Paashu had dragged away his first victim.

Days later a second man and then a few more days and then at night it came into the village. This time it had broken into a man's home, injured a child and dragged the man into the night. Before killing it had clawed and pinned and tortured its victims. Beemar Paashu was a cruel demigod and killed to feed on pain and fear, leaving the bones with the meat on them to rot.

Father Albright heard no animal noises. No monkeys or birds or anything. All the animals had fled. The stench of rotting death was so thick it made him stop and dry heave.

A twig snapped and Father Albright looked up. Suddenly thousands of flies were in the air. So many in their cloud that he couldn't clearly see the approaching tiger.

Beemar Paashu was old and huge but mangy and lean. His eyes were those of the devil and his grin was a rictus of fangs and primordial promises. He roared that promise, glinting fangs sharp and ready.

Father Albright imagined the nightmare that would soon be atop him. Its weight pinning him to the ground. At the mercy of hooked razors, snagging and tearing and slicing their way through his flesh like carving meat with a serrated knife. It would be painful and the monster would make a whole process out of it. It had practiced on three men already and Albright would be its masterpiece.

It came running and the gun clicked. He pulled the trigger, aiming at the tiger, and again nothing. He tried to fire again, adding a prayer without words as the tiger was leaping to him.

The gun went off, a misfire. Part of the rifle flew off into the jungle and another piece stuck into Albright's left cheek. He hardly felt it at first. The bullet had gone through the tiger's mouth and hit the base of its skull, shattering two vertebrae and ending its rampage.

The tiger was laying atop Albright. Its eyes stared down at him and blood and saliva poured from its tongue onto Albright's neck. With effort he got the carcass off of himself.

"You are still a bastard for letting this...thing...kill a child." Albright prayed. "But I forgive you."

He wandered with the broken rifle in one hand and the cross in the other, back out of the jungle.

When he got to the fields around the village he was spotted and he discarded one object but examined the other. Then he dropped the second object as well.

"Still a bastard." He muttered tiredly.

Then the villagers surrounded him and he preached and praised and prayed over them, for their benefit.

The piece of the rifle was still stuck in his cheek the whole time.