UnCaged
Matilda’s Chariot Captain
I woke sitting in a Tiger’s cage strapped to a tiny silver chair my first day on the job. The Ringmaster was not pleased i think. I had fainted frightfully forward onto my face first into the ferns lining the pond. Suddenly, the strident snarl of a big cat filled my ears with sound that seemed to break the sound barrier my fall to Earth from upright bound. Cascading tingles raced up & down my backbone while the hair on my neck rose to attentive nervous awareness.
Then i remembered this was fall fifty-one or so. Kind of lost count somewhere around number forty. Yes, i was like the leaning tower of Pizza, only all the Queen’s ladies had somehow managed to stitch me back together again after each one.
My hands couldn’t brush the sweat away beading along my brow line as i imagined the fetid feline breath floating on a faint, flow of hot air enveloping my head and ears from behind. No matter how i craned my neck i couldn’t make him out. Then i saw the rusty, iron bars of the ancient cage surrounding me on all sides. I was not pleased. Neither were my lips, beginning to tremble with the beginnings of a plea for freedom or a yelp for help.
Nor could i rise my legs cold, chained in the crippling embrace of Matilda’s Chariot. I recall the snorts of derision, the quickly quieted coughs of contempt from my co-blunderers when i announced…
