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Tiger paused in his pacing; he turned then and insinuated himself into the back of his cave, rippling as he walked, like a fur rug over hydraulic springs. He padded back until he came to the carcass of an ox, and he said, in a quiet voice, “I beg your pardon.”
There was a scrabbling from inside the carcass. The tip of a nose protruded from the rib cage. “Actually,” it said, “I was, so to speak, agreeing with you. That was what I was doing.”
Little white hands pulled a thin strip of dried meat from between two ribs, revealing a small animal the color of dirty snow. It might have been an albino mongoose, or perhaps some particularly shifty kind of weasel in its winter coat. It had a scavenger’s eyes.
“Whole world and everything used to be mine. Moon and stars and sun and stories. I owned them all.” Then he said, “Would have been mine again.”
Tiger stared down at the little beast. Then, without warning, one huge paw descended, smashing the rib cage, breaking the carcass into foul-smelling fragments, pinning the little animal to the floor; it wriggled and writhed, but it could not escape.
“You are here,” said Tiger, his huge head nose to nose with the pale animal’s tiny head, “you are here under my sufferance. Do you understand that? Because the next time you say something irritating, I shall bite your head off.”
“Mmmph,” said the weasely thing.
“You wouldn’t like it if I bit off your head, would you?”
“Nngk,” said the smaller animal. Its eyes were a pale blue, two chips of ice, and they glinted as it twisted uncomfortably beneath the weight of the huge paw.
“So will you promise me that you will behave, and you will be quiet?” rumbled Tiger. He lifted his paw a little to allow the beast to speak.
“Indeedy,” said the small white thing, extremely politely. Then, with one weasely movement, it twisted and sank its sharp little teeth into Tiger’s paw. Tiger bellowed in pain, whipped the paw back, sending the little animal flying through the air. It struck the rock ceiling, bounced over to a ledge, and from there it darted, like a dirty white streak, to the very back of the cave, where the ceiling got low and close to the floor, and where there were many hiding places for a small animal, places a larger animal could not go.
Tiger padded as far back into the cave as it could easily walk. “You think I can’t wait?” he asked. “You have to come out sooner or later. I’m not going anywhere.” Tiger lay down. He closed his eyes and soon began to make fairly convincing snoring noises.
After about half an hour of snoring from Tiger, the pale animal crept out from the rocks and slipped from shadow to shadow, making for a large bone that still had plenty of good meat on it, if you didn’t mind a certain rankness, and it didn’t. Still, to get to the bone, it would have to pass the great beast. It lurked in the shadows, then it ventured out on little silent feet.
As it passed the sleeping Tiger, a forepaw shot out, and a claw slammed down on the creature’s tail, pinning it down. Another paw held the little creature behind the neck. The great cat opened its eyes. “Frankly,” it said, “we appear to be stuck with each other. So all I’m asking is that you make an effort. We can both make an effort. I rather doubt that we’ll ever be friends, but perhaps we could learn to tolerate each other.”
“I take your point,” said the small ferretty thing. “Needs must, as they say, when the Devil drives.”
“That’s an example of what I’m saying,” said Tiger. “You just have to learn when to keep your mouth shut.”
“It’s an ill wind,” said the little animal, “that blows nobody any good.”
“Now you’re irritating me again,” said Tiger. “I’m trying to tell you. Don’t irritate me, and I won’t bite off your head.”
“You keep using the phrase ‘bite my head off.’ Now when you say ‘bite my head off,’ I take it I can assume that this is actually some kind of metaphorical statement, implying that you’ll shout at me, perhaps rather angrily?”
“Bite your head off. Then crunch it. Then chew it. Then swallow it,” said Tiger. “Neither of us can leave until Anansi’s child forgets we’re here. The way that bastard seems to have arranged things, even if I kill you in the morning you’ll be reincarnated back in this blasted cave by the end of the afternoon. So don’t irritate me.”
The small white animal said, “Ah well. Another day—”
“If you say ‘another dollar,’” said Tiger, “I will be irritated, and there will be serious consequences. Don’t. Say anything. Irritating. Do you understand?”
There was a brief silence in the cave at the end of the world. It was broken by a small, weasely voice saying, “Absatively.”
It started to say, “Oww!” but the noise was suddenly and effectively silenced.
And then there was nothing in that place but the sound of crunching.
THE THING THEY DON’T TELL YOU ABOUT COFFINS IN THE LITERATURE, because frankly it’s not much of a selling point to the people who are buying them, is just how comfortable they are.
Mr. Nancy was extremely satisfied with his coffin. Now that all the excitement was over, he’d gone back to his coffin and was comfortably dozing. Every once in a while he would wake and remember where he was, then he’d roll over and go back to sleep.
The grave, as has been pointed out, is a fine place, not to mention a private one, and is thus an excellent place to get a little downtime. Six feet down, best kind there is. Another twenty years or so, he thought, and he would have to think about getting up.
He opened one eye when the funeral started.
He could hear them up above him: Callyanne Higgler and the Bustamonte woman and the other one, the thin one, not to mention a small horde of grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren, all of them sighing and wailing and crying their eyes out for the late Mrs. Dunwiddy.
