What It Was

Jansen had a keen and powerful desire for things: big things, small things, rounds things, dripping things, things in the sky, man-made things, ticking things, things you could open, even lists of things. Any thing, really. And you knew Jansen wanted a thing when something incredible happened: at the moment he gazed at the thing he wanted and before he even knew it, a paw or sometimes the entire leg of a tiger would reach out from his eyes, swiping at the thing. No matter what was in the way, no matter who was around, regardless of any time, place or event, the paw would flash out from his eyes at the sound of a growl!

Commonly, when this happened among people, notice would be taken immediately, as women shouted in disbelief and men leaped in fear beneath tables. When it was over, they would begin shouting:

“Someone must learn to control that boy!”

“No!” someone else would shout, “that boy must learn to control his self!”

This arguments over Jansen’s behavior would take place any time the paw appeared; and in the end, nothing would come from the bickering.

That is, until one day, when something else happened. Jansen was with his mother in a store filled with the finest china dishes and crystal glasses. She was choosing new dishware for the house, when Jansen spotted a dish full of candy on the cashier’s counter. Before Jansen even realized he was looking at the candy, a flash of orange and black fur was tearing through the air with a growl. After the commotion, the candy was gone, four large claw marks were left on the counter, and three thousand dollars worth of china were shattered and laying in pieces of blue and white on the floor.

“Jansen, what have you done?!?!?” screamed his mother, wishing she could disbelieve what she saw. “I’m sorry, sir, but I do not know how to teach my child how to control his self! I will pay you for everything.”

“Madam,” replied the clerk, who was surprisingly calm, “can’t you see that until the boy learns to control his self, that you must control him?” But before she could reply, the clerk noticed something.

“Wait . . . “ he whispered, deep in thought. “Madam, don’t you see?” Jansen’s mother was confused and followed the clerks eyes to see what he was seeing, and he was looking at Jansen. “Look there, deep in your boys eyes.”

She looked, from the side at first, and saw nothing. She moved directly in front of him and looked past his eye lids, between the blue gates of his irises, and down into the bottomless ocean of his black pupils. At first she saw nothing, but as she adjusted to the darkness, she saw a small orange tiger, sitting patiently, liking its lips from just finishing the candy, starting right back at her more intensely than she looked at it.

“Oh my!” she screamed. “How did she get in there?”

“Madam, I do not know; but that tiger is the source of your boy’s troubles.”

“What shall we do?”

“We must remove this tiger from this boy! And I have just the idea.” The clerk went into the store room, but returned quickly with his hands behind his back. He smiled at Jansen and stood to the boy’s right. Suddenly, the clerk threw candy into the air—but it did not even begin to fall down to the ground before the tiger’s paw had caught it. At the same moment, the clerk grabbed for the tiger’s leg, but was too slow.

“This tiger is much too fast for me to catch just the arm; we must lure it out further. Tell me, what does the boy crave beyond any other thing?”

“Well,” replied Jansen’s mother, “I can’t think of one particular thing, but I know he would take the whole world if he could.”

An idea struck the clerk. He ran, again, into the store room, only to emerge with two mirrors and a globe. He placed the two mirrors so that they would face each other, and placed the globe between them. He then called to Jansen:

“Jansen, do you see here? I have an infinite amount of worlds for you!” Jansen peered over, and it suddenly began to happen.

Slowly, lured by the idea of endlessness, the tiger’s arm stretched out of Jansen’s left eye; never had the mother seen the tiger move so slowly or so deliberately. She could see every hair on the tiger’s long, slender leg, brush up against the air; she could see every muscle contract and ripple beneath the tiger’s skin. Then out from Jensen’s right eye came the other paw, just as slow as the first. The clerk watched, and couldn’t help noticing the mother, who was almost hypnotized by the movement of the animal.

The tiger’s paws started clawing into the carpet, clutching the ground and then dragging Jansen towards the mirrors. The clerk knew it was his time to pounce and grab hold of the tiger. But just as the clerk began to move, the tiger stopped, and the clerk froze, afraid that he had been spotted.

Then the strangest thing happened: more of the tiger came out of Jansen—and Jansen begin to disappear. The clerk suddenly realized what was happening.

“Madam, look!” he whispered, “Your boy is turning inside-out! You cannot take the tiger out of your boy because they are one and the same!” Jansen’s mother let out a gasp as the final bit of Jansen disappeared. The tiger—now a full tiger with legs, head, tail and lean body—continued to creep towards the mirrors, with eyes that mixed a strange look between which was determined yet completely hypnotized.

Jansen’s mother and the clerk did not know what to do, so they let the animal approach the mirrors. It crawled between the two mirrors, looked at them, then seemed to look past them. It sniffed the globe, then batted it with a paw which set it spinning slowly. The tiger looked back into the mirror with a demeanor so calm that it almost made the animal seem as if it were stuffed, dead, unreal. The tiger then stood up and walked through its image into the mirror.

“Madam, did you just see what I saw?”

“Jansen!” screamed the mother, and she ran towards the mirrors. Looking directly into the reflection, she saw a tiger very, very far in the distance, walking away into what seemed like nothing; the clerk moved the mirror from behind Jansen’s mother and the image of the tiger vanished.