He stalks in his vivid stripes
The few steps of his cage,
On pads of velvet quiet,
In his quiet rage.He should be lurking in shadow,
Sliding through long grass
Near the water hole
Where plump deer pass.He should be snarling around houses
At the jungle’s edge,
Baring his white fangs, his claws,
Terrorising the village!But he’s locked in a concrete cell,
His strength behind bars,
Stalking the length of his cage,
Ignoring visitors.He hears the last voice at night,
The patrolling cars,
And stares with his brilliant eyes
At the brilliant stars.
— Leslie Norris, A Tiger in the Zoo
Are you running from man's delusion
Majestic madness and your exclusion
To where the lamb lies down with the lion?
— Joyce Moreno, Run, Wolf Warrior, Run
Maybe if he went back. Maybe the answer lay in the past, in some obscure crevice of memory. Go back, then, he told his mind, go back.
It tore his heart out to go back.
— Richard Matheson, I Am Legend
The tendrils of my hair illuminate beneath the amber glow.
Bathing.
It must be this one.
The last remaining streetlight to have withstood the test of time.
The last yet to be replaced by the sickening blue-green of the future.
I bathe. Calm; breathing air of the present but living in the past.
The light flickers.
I flicker back.
— DDLC, Ghost under the light
My expectations...
My loneliness...
My fear...For you, my child...
I will put them aside.
— Undertale
"The real thing about evil," said the Witch at the doorway, "isn't any of what you said. You figure out one side of it— the human side, say— and the eternal side goes into shadow. Or vice versa. It's like the old saw: What does a dragon in its shell look like? Well no one can ever tell, for as soon as you break the shell to see, the dragon is no longer in its shell. The real disaster of this inquiry is that it is the nature of evil to be secret."
— Gregory Maguire, Wicked
"I hated you so much," she said softly.
— James Reaney, The Box Social & Other Stories
The tiger
He destroyed his cage
Yes
YES
The tiger is out
— Nael, age 6, The Tiger