Tiger Tiger Burning Bright...

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

A response to Girl in the Glenn's call to post an entry on the theme of building upon a moment. She tagged me, so now I'm it.

This story focuses on Illya's thoughts while caught in a near deadly moment during...

                                         "The Tigers are Coming Affair."

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Illya Kuryakin was not feeling happy, here he was relegated to playing the part of the photographer again, while Napoleon dallied with a beautiful blonde.

 

They had few words together, and perhaps with his mood being what it was,  it was better that he had kept his mouth closed for once. The feeling of being overheated and dirty in this sweltering Indian heat was almost too much to bear, while Solo, dressed in layers of khaki and wearing that awful neckerchief barely broke a sweat.

He and Napoleon were partners, but this was one of those times he felt like he was an underling, being bossed around.  When Napoleon told him,"Try and look busy, all right?" He couldn’t even be bothered giving him one of his smart mouthed retorts, he was feeling that disconnected. It was as if his presence hardly mattered on this mission.

And that French woman Suzanne, he was getting a strange feeling from her even though they had barely spoken. Her endless state of helplessness was a source of annoyance to say the least and he had little tolerance for such women. He normally liked hearing French accents, but with her, it felt like nails grating across a chalkboard, giving him shivers, even in this heat.

At home in Russia, women learned to be self-sufficient and brave....

All these thoughts filled his head as he lay bound beneath the stand, with a black cloth covering his face. He smelled the goat tethered nearby to be the lure as it bleated in fear, that very sound calling a tiger as he heard the deep, rumbling growl approaching them.



He was going to die, and wondered why he had such strange thoughts about Napoleon and Suzanne in his head at this particular moment.  He should be afraid, but he wasn’t. Still being the pessimist, he knew his time had come.

The words from the opening stanza of William Blake's poem suddenly popped into his head...

"Tyger, tyger, burning bright. In the forests of the night. What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry."

Then he froze as something touched him. Realizing it was hands undoing the bindings.  It was Suzanne...maybe she was not so bad after all?