The Tiger

I'm not that keen on zoos in general but one afternoon I had a lot of time to kill waiting for my train. Given that the station I was due to depart from was called Bahnhof Berlin Zoologischer Garten, going to the zoo was an obvious choice. So I put my suitcase and bass guitar in left luggage and headed there.

I had been to Berlin Zoo before as a child – back when there had been a Berlin Wall and everything – but all I could remember were the tigers. Genuinely nothing else had stuck in my mind. The tigers had lived on an island but you could walk through a tunnel built through the middle of it and look out at them through thick perspex windows built into cave mouths on the island's central peak.



Arriving at the Tiger Island as an adult, it turned out this setup was still in place thirty plus years later. The tunnel was shabbier than I remembered, but the perspex windows were still there. And there, curled up next to one of them like a giant housecat, was one of the tigers. I looked through at her but she didn't stir. I wasn't going to start doing anything crass like hammering on the window, so I carried on exploring the tunnel. None of the other perspex windows had tigers by them though.

By the time I returned to the original window the tiger was awake!

Unfortunately this was because there was another tourist in front of the window so I couldn't get closer. He'd obviously tried to attract the tiger's attention. I'm sure you know the type. Rucksack, sandals, baggy khaki shorts. Exactly the kind of galoot that enraged me during The Worst Thing That has Ever Happened ten years ago. This was seven years ago and this instantiation of the backpacker had an enormous expensive looking camera (of course) with which he was snapping away at the tiger.

But even though she was now awake – and furthermore facing into the tunnel – the tiger was completely ignoring him.

She was staring at me. As I walked back and forth behind the happily snapping traveller she was craning to see around him in an almost comical manner, huge round eyes fixed on me. It made me shiver. I had her attention. Was this a good or bad thing? You know when your domestic cat has their eye on something? It was that same fixated, intent stare. Was I potential prey – or just a diversion to relieve the boredom of her confinement, the equivalent of a piece of ribbon dangled to excite a kitten?

I wanted to know more, but tourist guy was clearly not going anywhere now that he had a front seat at the tiger show. This meant I couldn't get any closer to indulge the tiger's interest. Besides, I had a train to catch. So I left.

But the memory of the experience has stayed with me. It's of some comfort to know that while I may sometimes get overlooked or ignored by my own species, I was nevertheless interesting enough to fascinate a tiger and hold her attention, at least for a short while.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Weird Case of Weirdcase

Image
This may well end up being one of the oddest and perhaps most anal-retentive blog posts I've ever written, but it's an anomaly I noticed early in life and have never been able to find a satisfactory answer for.  Perhaps unsurprisingly it involves the London Underground tube map. As I've discussed elsewhere the iconic tube map captured my imagination at an early age and it was at this early age that the anomaly itself was in full swing.  It was all to do with the way the stations were labelled. Up until the end of H C Beck's reign as tube map designer the station names on the map were all written in uppercase. Presumably all the better to read you with – although not if you have dyslexia. Unfortunately at that time accessibility wasn't high on the list of London Transport's priorities, as can be seen from the fact no stations had step free access – despite the fact that so many of them had been originally been built with lifts. Nevertheless, the all uppercase pa
Read more

Talking shit

Image
One of the things people say about me is that I'm quiet. Sometimes this is a criticism, other times not. I've already explained that part of the reason for this is because I find small talk difficult . Well, not just difficult, I find it pointless. If there's something worth discussing, I'm quite capable of amputating the hindquarters of a member of Equus africanus asinus with my garrulousness. Some people just can't help themselves though. As Douglas Adams once said " if they don't keep exercising their lips, their brains start working ". I usually come across them whilst I'm out and about, on public transport or in shops. You can hardly call it eavesdropping; to avoid overhearing these types you really have to be listening to Napalm Death on your iPod. Its incredible just how much you can overhear without picking up any genuine content. It's all filler, conversational fluff designed to prevent the other person getting a word in edgeways and
Read more

The Invisible Sign

Image
For a long time I was conviced that I was simply rubbish at life. Throw me into a social situation with a whole bunch of humans and I didn't have the first idea how to even begin to attempt to join in. People would seem to collapse into these stable little groups of two or three leaving me floating around like a stray electron. Against my best instincts I often tried attaching myself to these groups but joining in with the conversation was impossible. Besides, I really felt like I was interrupting. It was rude . Even if I did dare to say something I'd get odd looks. I still consider my crowning achievement in this Biggest Outsider Challenge to be when I ended up spending time standing around on my own at the very bash being held for me leaving a job I'd been in for 16 years... Now that was impressive. Of course well-intentioned people kept telling me to try harder, giving me tips and tricks, but nothing really seemed to work. I'd hear variations of "We all feel aw
Read more