The Last Tiger in Glasgow
as featured in

‘Glasgow Tales: a collection of short stories and poems.’ (2024)
published by the Battlefield Writers Collective

I can see how proud he is of this thing, so, even though I don’t know what I’m

looking at, I’m acting like I’m impressed by it just the same. All I can see is the two

slats nailed together, and some elastic bands strung between the nails that pierced where

Jesus’s hands would’ve been.

Then Tiger pulls out the clothes peg – one of those old wooden ones, with the

big hard ball on top – and he stands up, and tucks the cross under his arm like so, and

hooks the peg over the elastic bow, and draws her back, tight as she goes, and just

unloads the wooden bolt blindly into the unlit room.

I hear the peg zip off in the dark and shatter something in the mess, then I hear

the peg still, zipping back, and stopping with a yelp, like somebody stood on a puppy’s

tail, before the room fell silent again.

I’ve lunged for the locked door at the noise of the shattering, and I’m just stood

with the handle in my grip, my heart thumping in my ears, and watching Rabbit show

Tiger where the peg hit him. A big black circle has appeared on the bony wee ribs, and

was getting bigger and blacker already, but Tiger tells Rabbit he’s fine.

It could’ve been worse, Tiger tells him, retrieving another peg from under the

bunk, holding it up before Rabbit’s eyes, it could’ve been wan ae these, this peg having

sprouted from its wooden top, as if by some miracle, the long steel point from a

throwing dart.