Elegant Tigers

"In Watermelon Sugar" Richard Brautigan

Tigers used to exist in iDEATH.
They were elegant tigers.
Intelligent.
With beautiful singing voices.

But they were tigers, nonetheless.
And so, they came upon a family having breakfast and
decided to eat the mother and father.

These tigers are civilized,
and don't eat children.
Instead, they assisted
the boy with his arithmetic.

Yet left him an orphan.

*****

"It's a nice day," one of the tigers said.
"Yeah," the other tiger said. "Beautiful."
"We're awfully sorry we had to kill your parents and eat them.
Please try to understand. We tigers are not evil. This is just
a thing we have to do."
"All right," I said. "And thanks for helping me with my arithmetic."
"Think nothing of it."
The tigers left.