Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus was in town. One of the days it was there I was scheduled to work.
When I arrived at work I received my assignment; to guard the tiger cage near the third ring and prevent people from getting too close.
"Hey!" I thought, "I'm going to be in the circus!"
My team leader directed to stand a few feet in front of the tiger cage. Inside were several huge tigers. They were so big it seemed as one of their heads was the size of my whole abdomen.
< Warily, I took my position in front of the cage, hoping the 1 inch diameter steel bars were strong enough to prevent any of the huge felines from choosing me for their next dinner. I took a couple of extra steps farther from the cage, not that that would do any good if a tiger broke through, but I had to do something.
I stood there silently, gazing out over the crowd. The show was performing flawlessly and I watched in turns of awe, amazement and enjoyment at some of the performances and the antics of the clowns. But something was wrong.
All through the evening I felt someone staring at me. I wasn't supposed to turn away from the crowd, but there was another group of people in the stands behind me and I was certain someone was staring at me.
As the night wore on I grew increasingly uncomfortable with this staring, I had to turn around and see who it was!
Finally, I did so. Slowly I turned back to look over my shoulder to see who had been staring at me all evening.
As I turned around, there! I saw. I saw one of the huge tigers sitting just behind the steel bars of the enclosure, staring at me. I turned fully around to look at this huge tiger. Sitting down, it's head was even with my own. The tiger was staring at me! I peered at this awesome creature looking at its mouth. It could easily swallow my head in one gulp! I didn't know if it thought I was dinner or just a good-sized appetizer.
Quickly, I turned back around to face the crowd.
No comments:
Post a Comment