The Lady or the Tiger
The princess agonized over the choice in front of her. Below her the arena stood in all its grotesque glory. The stucco walls
were dull and tinged with blood of killings past. Two old
wooden doors were built into the curved walls. One contained a beautifulwoman dressed in wedding finery.
She paced back and forth waiting and hoping that fate did not choose her that day to be
doomed in a loveless marriage to the one beyond the door. The other housed a blood thirsty, malnutritioned tiger. It paced
back and forth in the darkness with the smell of fear permeating its nose from outside the door. fFor in the center of the floor
of death was a handsome servant boy glancing nervously at the doors infront of him and his princess in the royal stands. Her
heart-shaped face contorted with worry as she contemplated her lover's fate. Should send her beloved to his death or watch
his life with another woman while she lived in jealous misery. The youth looked up into the stands and watched his princess
ever so carefully. Her face wasetched with confusion.Dark and ominous clouds rolled in over head stretching out with giant
claws across the sky. The princess's pointer finger twitched on her right hand. The youth took a step towards the door on the
right. Seeing the look of shock and fright on her face he stopped. The crowd was getting anxious. They wanted a mauling or a
wedding it did not matter which. The only entertainment was the arena. However demented and sick the king's way of justice
was. the law of the land; let fate decide innocent or not. The princess glanced at her father the king. He was busy eating the
grand meal before him. She glanced at the boy she had come to love standing alone in the arena his face full of
apprehension. A peal of thunder roared in the sky. The arena shook with the sound. Suddenly torrents of rain fell down to the
arena floor creating a ring of mud. Everyone groaned as the event was canceled due to rain. The youth's fate left for another
day.