I dreamed about the tiger tonight -- approach of handlers and veterinary physicians to the great cat into whom, across species, the invisible worldwide celebrity had perilously entered. Some of those managing the beast were young enough to have partied at close range on sun-speckled beaches with mammals, on the whole, more lethal than this cat they observed at a respectful distance, or tranquilized first before nearer approach. Some were old enough to fear far more the infinitesimal creature within, that may make it under sedation a greater threat than it would be awake, charging, thoroughly pissed as perhaps it has every right to be: you nearly eliminate my kind in their natural state but save specimens of us for show; granted, you care for us in these sheltered unnatural places until suddenly we come in contact with a danger unknown in the wild (where with all due modesty, we were for long ages the principal danger, a crown we've ceded a good few of your generations now); you lift us for our safety out of a habitat you've made inhospitable for us and our prey, and what happens? an invisible enemy, bred by the same genius that makes civilization, war, prisons, discotheques, casinos, air conditioning, jet exhaust, books and films and music and such, bunker style luxury condos and zoos, slips without being seen through these sheltering bars as easily as it leaps across borders from nation to nation, and lays me low. Your safety is another name for danger.