The Tiger-Driven Generators

The Tiger-Driven Generators

Marie D. Jones

Sami is the biggest of the four. He is well over six feet tall, and weighs at least 2,000 pounds. He is the leader, but there has never been a time when the others felt they had to follow him. He is the kind that makes others want to follow.

I think of Sami a little more before I lay my head to rest. When I do find sleep, I dream of Sami and the other tigers. It is 3:00 in the morning when I awaken, as I do most nights. Rising out of my bed, I walk to the window and open it to listen.

All is silent, but for a gentle night’s breeze. The north-eastern moon waxes full, its ghostly beacon shining down upon my backyard. Some of its eerie light is reflected off the pens, and I feel its gentle glow on my face as I lean out the window and breathe in the cool air.

From this angle, I can see the second moon, only a sliver in the north-western sky. “When one shines, the other pines,” as they say around here.

I hear it now, as the wind dies down to a whisper. The whir and clunk of the generators, far off in the fields beyond my property line. I can hear Sami and the others groan and roar as they pull with all their strength. The sounds lull me back to my bed, and soon, to sleep.

In the morning, I care for the newborns and feed the older cubs before riding out to the generators on my favorite horse, Misheene. When I arrive, the noise of the generators is but a gentle murmur. The machines run full-blast from evening until dawn, then ride on low power until the next evening. It has always been this way.

Sami rests with the others. I stroke his black and orange fur, sleek with the sweat of his labor. His muscles ripple beneath his thick skin as he lifts his face to me.

“You look well this morning,” I whisper, feeling his positive response inside my soul. This is how we speak, Sami and I. Soul to soul.

He is well-bred, the most beautiful tiger on any planet in the galaxy. The people praise me for the job I have done raising him and the others. I raise them all, the tigers. It is my job. But Sami is by far the best I’ve ever bred, and my favorite.

My back yard is filled with the goofy, energetic cubs that will someday take the place of these four – Sami, Mora, Tor, and Adar. From my pens will come the great tigers that will one day run our generators, and be supplied to other planets to run theirs.

The generators are a mystery. I can be hypnotized by their gentle hum during the day, and mesmerized by the whir-clank of the full-tilt shift at night. These generators were built by our ancestors thousands of years ago to supply us with energy. They pump our planet’s life’s blood. The people have come to worship the four huge metal cylinders. No one has ever seen inside the thick, steel coverings. No one has ever seen the generators themselves but for the original builders.

Only the tigers have seen inside the generators. They are not telling. I see the changes in my animals when they are chosen to run the machines. They become calm, filled with an inner peace and strength. These must be machines of peace, I consider. Only the finest bred tigers have the honor Sami and the others have, and they will never reveal the secrets within, for their own eyes have been blinded by the sight of it, replaced by a strange blue glow that emanates from within.

Sami will rest until evening, when he and the others are again shackled and tied to their posts. They could run free if they chose, but they choose to do this. It is a calling to them. Sami has told me so.

I leave and ride back to the center green in town. Several people stand waiting. I knew they are waiting for me, but I don’t know why.

“We love the tigers,” someone tells me as I walk by. “They are so beautiful.” I sense something is amiss. My good friend Alex approaches and smiles at me. “It can wait,” he says. I feel the tension in his body as he walks with me.

“The tigers are doing well. They run our lives. They feed our planet,” he says. I nod, but I sense deep inside my heart he wants to tell me something. “It can wait,” Alex says.

It is well into the night as I sit and watch as Sami strains against the pull ropes. The law of the land states that no human shall attend the workings of the generators past the midnight hour. I obey that law and rise. As I walk away, I hear the machines purr, then rise to a clatter as the tigers assert their strength. I turn and catch Sami’s blinded eye. I believe that although he has no sight, he sees more than I do. He sees me.

I wonder about their love of this place of holiness, of reverence, and the job they are chosen and bred to do. I wonder if their muscles ache and burn as their sinewy bodies strain to pull the ropes and turn the rods inside the cylinders. When Sami looks at me with his bright, blue eyes, deep into me, he lets me know this is his life, their lives, their purpose for being, but I hope he is telling me the truth.

I turn and walk away.

I sit in a chair outside my kitchen door and listen. They are faraway sounds, the clank-hum-whir of the generators, the roars and groans. I can also hear the cubs frolicking in their pens. They are night creatures, like me.

I feel myself becoming more and more like them. Preferring little human interaction, quiet, patient, introspective. Alex tells me I am even beginning to look like them. “Your eyes are orbs of blue, broken by a yellow spark like a tongue of fire, and your hair is wild, untamed. You walk slowly, with hidden power and purpose.” This is what he says, and I am never sure if he is teasing or serious.

I do feel more like them. I sense what they sense. I now sense something is wrong.

Through the blanket of a star-studded sky comes a moving white light. The distant drone of a craft reaches my ears and I watch with curiosity as the small transport ship lands in the fields beyond my fence. From here, I can still hear the generators clanking away, but something new screams in my inner ear, like a siren. Like a warning signal.

The transport is not one of ours and I am worried because my cubs have stopped playing and sit alert, ears pricked and eyes wild. I wonder if Sami and the others are okay. I hope he remembers what I taught him, that the generators are to be protected at all costs, from all threats. I believe they are safe, guarded by such powerful and noble protectors.

The transport sits idle for a long time, and soon, I fall asleep in my chair.

It is 5:00 in the morning when I awaken. The light of dawn glows on the horizon. The transport is still there in the field, but its engine is silent. The cubs are huddled together, eyes wide with vigilant concern.

I think of Sami. I always think of him first. I then notice the silence. The generators have stopped completely.

My first reaction is one of dread. Our life’s blood has been cut off. Was the transport an invader? Without the generators, we will soon have no heat, no water, no life. I quickly wash up and dress, then saddle Misheene and ride to the center of town. A large crowd awaits, people milling about on the grass.

As I ride up and dismount, I sense shame and guilt in their downcast eyes. Alex approaches me and says something, but I cannot hear him. My mind is screaming. He repeats himself. “We love the tigers, but they worship the generators,” he says. I don’t know what he is trying to tell me.

For generations, our ancestors had worshipped the tiger, considered a symbol of strength and power to our people. To them, the tiger was a god, a deity. Now the people worship the inanimate metal generators that are driven by the living, breathing tigers. I try to tell them that it is the tigers, it is they who turn the rods, who pull the ropes and drive the wheels.

“Listen to me!” I yell, but all eyes are focused on something behind me. I turn and see a man. He is tall, beautiful with dark hair and eyes that are golden and bright. He is not one of us. He looks at me and I feel as though he sees through me. I must not give in.

Sami comes before me, his shackles and ties broken and dragging on the ground. Our eyes meet and I know what is going through his mind.

Alex puts his hand to my cheek and gently strokes it. “This man has brought us dogs,” he says. “Please listen to him.”

I turn and see them now. Four of them, each twice as tall as the man and thickly muscled. Their fur is pitch black, their heads finely shaped like jackals. Their ears are huge and alert, their eyes chunks of black coal with glints of fiery red. These dogs are beautiful, but I do not understand them.

The man speaks to me in a low, confident voice. “I am from Cyrix, and these are my dogs. They have come to replace the tigers.”

I reel, shocked. I turn to look at the people gathered on the green. They look away, not willing or able to face me. The truth between us hangs in the air like a thick, choking fog. Sami watches the dogs. I cannot believe he is truly blind, he sees all things. He knows all things. The dogs will not meet his gaze.

“Why?” I ask quietly, although I already know the answer. “Why?”

The man towers over me, smiles down at me. “I am not from your world, but I have been told of it. The people are not happy and reached out to me. They want change.”

“Not happy? How could this be?” I shout. “This planet has been free of violence and crime and pollution for hundreds of years, no, thousands of years. No suffering, no conflict, ever since the tigers were chosen to run the generators.” I am screaming now. “And the generators are the tigers! We don’t want or need your dogs.”

But the people behind me only murmur amongst themselves. No one comes to my aid. They have chosen poor Alex to speak for them. He is of a high position in government. He approaches me with sadness in his eyes.

“The people have spoken. They are bored and restless with such a calm, peaceful existence. They want the generators sped up to full shift all night and day.”

The man nods. “Your tigers are wondrous animals, but they are too slow. My dogs have been bred to pull with greater speed. They are stronger and have the stamina to work longer shifts. It is what your people have chosen.”

Sami stands near one of the dogs, and the dog is trembling. The animals always know the order of things.

I level my gaze at the growing crowd in the green. “You have chosen to end this peaceful, quiet life? You have chosen adventure and speed? Action? Then take the man’s dogs. You deserve them.”

The people look back at me and laugh. “Our Gods are the generators. They give us life. We are not replacing them, just upgrading them. Life will be faster, more exciting, more fun, so full of fire with these incredible dogs at the helm,” one woman says. I turn and walk away. I can hear their enthusiastic musings behind me.

Sami and the dog face each other, silently conversing. I think I know what Sami is telling the big, black animal. But I wonder if it will do any good. Alex stops me as I brush by him.

“We want you to breed and raise the dogs,” he says, “and care for their pups like you do with these tigers.” I keep walking.

“I cannot be a part of this. I cannot stay here,” I yell over my shoulder. Perhaps he, like the others, does not understand. I am the tigers now, and it is their blood that flows through my veins.

***

It has only been a month since Sami and the others were released. The dogs have replaced them and are now shackled and tied where my tigers had been for countless generations. Things have not been going well since the dogs came. The black beasts move too quickly, bursting with energy, moving life along at a fast pace. Things are beginning to unravel. People are becoming hostile, even violent. Crime has sprung up again in the cities after centuries of peace. Men roam the streets at night, filled with a newfound fire in their veins they cannot extinguish. Homes are being broken into. Buildings burned to the ground.

When all you have known is calm and peace, more energy and speed disrupts the equilibrium. Everyone walks around as if drunk on some substance, but I know what it is, and where it comes from.

My shuttle is due to arrive in the morning. I am all packed up and my home has been finally sold. I have been offered a position on a small and quiet planet far from here. The people there are in trouble, they want to slow life down. I will load up my tigers and go to their planet with my offering of peace. I ask Sami first if he and the others would rather stay behind and run free. They all choose not to. They are honored to do what they were bred to do.

It is 3:00 in the morning and I am wide awake. I go to the window and notice Sami and the tigers just outside, sitting facing the generators, listening. The machines no longer sound so far off in the distance. The grind and clunks and clanks permeate the night air, much louder than before, and the howls of the dogs send chills up my spine. How can the people sleep with so much noise? Perhaps that is why they have grown so hostile lately.

I cannot listen anymore. My shuttle approaches and lands in the field. It is unmanned, and powers down to await my boarding. I am about to load up the tigers when Alex comes up behind me. He stands in the light of the north-eastern moon and in the eerie glow, he looks like an angel surrounded by a halo. His bags are at his side.

“I want to go with you,” he says. I will take hm with me, for he is, in his heart, one of us. But first, there is something we must take care of together.

“Come,” I say to Alex and I call Sami to my side. The huge animal moves slowly. His blinded blue eyes are alive with some glowing, inner fire.

We arrive at the generators and listen for a while to the grind and shudder of the overdriven rods and wheels. The dogs strain against the ropes, their muscles bulging beneath black, sleek skin that reflects the moonlight. The largest dog growls as us and looks at Sami. I see its eyes and notice they are not blinded. They are still black as coal!

We are disobeying the law, I know, being there past midnight. Sami walks confidently to the lead dog and speaks in a silent tongue. Suddenly, the four dogs lower their heads and drop to the ground, rolling over submissively. Alex and I rush forward to loosen their shackles and binds and they run free off into the trees. They cannot witness this.

I have no key, for there are no locks. Sami is the only one who knows how to open the seemingly impenetrable metal casings. Not even the strange man with his dogs could do it.

I watch my tiger pace in front of the now silent generators. Sami makes low, guttural sounds that seem patterned, like a chant. He drops to his belly and bows his forehead to touch the ground.

A loud crack shatters the stillness as the metal casings rise to reveal what only the builders of these machines and the blind tigers that run them have ever seen before.

The light is white hot and brighter than a burning star. My eyes melt with the intensity, but I cannot look away. It is this light that has blinded my tigers, and now it slowly takes the vision from me and from Alex, who stands beside me and holds my hand.

The metal casings continue to rise until they screech to a halt. In that single moment before my eyes are turned into useless masses of tissue, I see what I have known all along.

There are four of them, one larger than the others. Their bodies are solid gold fire and their glow is like that of a thousand vibrant suns.

We stand there, the three of us, caught in the power and the glory of their presence. My sight is completely gone, but I can finally see. Just like Alex. Just like Sami.

It has always been the tigers.

END