Kellie Elhai 

Tigress 
In between the tall, towering spires of the concrete jungle the predators stalked, signalling the 
start of their nighttime hunt. Hunters hunched beneath flickering street lights, and those who 
passed by clutched their purses a little bit tighter. Across the city, stars sparkled from office 
building windows and the click-clack of high heels on pavement reverberated for miles. 

W​hen Anne-Marie looked in the mirror inside of her brand-new, 13th story New York apartment, 
she saw a tiger. She saw a graceful, feminine strength, claws that came out when she needed to 
fight for what she wanted most, and senses that could sniff out the slightest idea of an 
opportunity. She felt like she was on top of the world. 
 
Her mother taught her to be a tiger from a young age. When Brandon was pulling at her pigtails in 
the third grade, her mother’s claws came out and showed Anne-Marie, a mere kitten at the time, 
how to be ferocious. Her mother raised her without a father, but she never felt his absence. She 
learned at an early age that she would have to fight her way through life, and that’s what she has 
been doing ever since.   
 
Anne-Marie moved through her world with the confident ease that comes with being at the top of 
the food chain in her small Midwestern town. She believed in the principle of hard work paying 
off, and her determination to follow through got her far in the professional realm once she 
graduated early from the local university. A few years into her career, she received a job offer she 
couldn’t refuse, at a top-name marketing firm she’d dreamt of for years. Everything in her life had 
been leading up to this point. Everything she had worked for had finally come to fruition. After a 
moment of boisterous celebration, she pounced. Anne-Marie packed her bags and said her 
goodbyes, hugging her mother a half-second longer than usual and giving her a backwards 
meaningful glance as she entered the airport. 
 
On the eve of her 25th birthday, she migrated to the concrete jungle- New York City. 
 
 
 
 
 
Anne-Marie was in awe of her new home. She appreciated the fast-paced lifestyles lived beneath 
the metallic overhead canopy, and the way the sharp points of the buildings around her seemed to 
claw at the sky. The stark class divides that had ruled over her childhood home seemed to be 
blurred here. Wealthy business sharks swam through the sweeping pedestrian currents of the 
pavement, commingling with the harsh squawking endorsements of the knock-off designer purse 
salesman fighting for space against his next-door competitor. People of all species coalesced 
underneath the almost animalistic appeal of street shawarma and perfectly timed subways. 
Anne-Marie felt invigorated by the biodiversity of the concrete jungle, welcomed, even, with all 
its bustling excitement that seemed to rock the very sidewalk she stood on. 
 
On her first day at her new job, Anne-Marie paired a striped pantsuit with some sensible heels for 
a look that said something between “High class” and “Boss-ass bitch.” She confidently cat-walked 
down the gum-covered runway leading to her subway stop, narrowly avoiding a missed train. 
 
She wasn’t nervous. If she had been, her mother would have materialized on her shoulder to slap 
some sense into her. She was a ferocious tiger, and in her fierce striped outfit, she felt strong and 
exhilarated to turn over a new leaf, leaving behind her pack back home to join a new one of 
like-minded people and go-getters like herself. 
 
She finally arrived at her shiny, unfamiliarly modern office building and hurried through the 
sliding doors, overpriced latte in hand. As she picked up her pace to make it to the closing 
elevator doors, their progress was stopped by a mysteriously handsome hand. Sliding back open, 
the doors slowly revealed the man connected to the hand, and a friendly smile invited Anne-Marie 
in. “Hey, I’m Matt. I think you’re my new desk neighbor.” 
 
“Oh, hi, I’m Anne-Marie. Nice to meet you.” 
 
“Likewise.” Another smile. “Come on up, Anne-Marie. I’ll show you around.” 
 
 
 
 
 
Anne-Marie, exhausted yet contently satisfied with her performance on her first day, was about to 
leave the office for the night when she was stopped by a hand on her shoulder-the same one from 
that morning. She turned around to see Matt, flashing the inviting smile that he does so well. Her 
acute senses had caught him shooting glances her way from his nearby desk, and furtively looking 
back at his laptop or whispering to a coworker whenever she looked back towards him. Up close, 
she noticed that the tips of his canines were pointier than usual, giving him an almost vampiric 
appearance. “Hey, Anne-Marie, right? A few of us are headed to the bar across the street for a 
couple of drinks. We’d love to have you there. I​ ’d​ love to have you there.” The smile again. Or was 
it more of a smirk? Anne-Marie couldn’t help but grin back. “Sure, I’ll be there.”  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
That night, Anne-Marie learned that tigers are not at the top of the food chain. In fact, she 
realized that the evolutionary features that tigers had grown into to protect themselves were 
pretty much useless. Her acute senses, sharp and aware, couldn’t detect the foreign substance that 
was slipped into her drink when she looked away for a brief moment. Her claws, as shiny and 
manicured as they were, did nothing but cause a few scratches when she was dragged to the back 
alley of the bar. Her ferocious roar was silenced with a gag, and her furs were stripped off her 
body, her identity gone.  
 
That night, Anne-Marie went down to hunters as most tigers do: to a tranquilizer, hunted for her 
skin. Predator becoming prey. 
 
When they were done with her, she was left to be finished by the scavengers. 
 
She limped home that night, too paralyzed to lick her wounds. Her worldview was changed. The 
streets that had been so exciting earlier, the buildings of the concrete jungle were now cold and 
lifeless, echoing how she felt. She was catcalled by a voice bleeding out from beneath a flickering 
streetlight. 
 
She was different now. Her acute senses were dulled, and she could hear nothing but her racing 
heartbeat, see nothing but darkness, and smell nothing but the scent of invasion lingering on her 
body. Her claws were broken at the stubs, so she held her car keys between her two knuckles for 
self-defense. Her ferocious roar was a whimper. Her furs, striped and bold before, were now dirty 
and wrinkled, no longer a display of her identity. They didn’t represent her anymore. How could 
they?  
 
Finally, she returned to her cave. When she looked in the mirror of her brand-new, 13th story New 
York apartment, she didn’t see a tiger anymore. She saw a housecat. Small, branded, weak, and 
alone. How could she face her mother?