Blast | March 03, 2023

BLAST, TMR’s online-only prose anthology, features prose too vibrant to be confined between the covers of a print journal. In “I Have Eight Stripes and One Mother,” artist and novelist Jade Song blends symbol, legend, and contemporary media in a story about mothers, daughters, and legacies of power and danger.

I Have Eight Stripes and One Mother

Jade Song

 

The First Stripe

We live in an 88 house: 88 on our mailbox, 88 on our door plaque, 88 on our bills. My mother says the mortgage is worth it. She insists living at 88 is lucky.

8 and 88 are her favorite numbers. On my 8th birthday, she bakes me a black sesame cake shaped like an 8 and gives me 8 hugs. She says I will be lucky this year, and the only other year I’ll have even more luck will be when I turn 88.

“Why?” I ask.

She wields a dry-erase marker, touches the tip to the whiteboard. It squeaks with each drawn curve.

“Huh?” I squint at her scribbles.

“Eight, 8, ba, 八, sounds like fa, 发, which means wealth and fortune. And double eights, 88, look like shuang xi, 囍, which means double happiness,” she says.

“Oh,” I say. I do not understand.

“Anyway, what should we do on my 88th birthday?” I ask. I am a mere child and do not understand the improbabilities of my mother living for another 80 years.

She caps her marker and hugs me.

“Whatever you want to do.”

I squeal. “When I turn 88, I’ll have stripes too, so I’m going to roar like a tiger, and you have to roar with me.”

She laughs. “How do you know you’ll have stripes?”

“Of course I will,” I sniff. I am a mere child and still desire a personhood resembling my mother’s.

“Maybe not.”

“Can you show me again?” I beg. I love my mother’s stripes. They make her tough. They make her beautiful. They make her my mother.

She lifts her shirt, exposing her stomach, where her stripes rest like shallow crevasses dug to unearth fertile clay from the golden ground. They begin where her belly folds over, at the top of her thigh and pubic bone, and grow upward like vine tendrils, past her belly button. The eight stripes are jagged, like how I draw lightning bolts in art class, but instead of yellow scribbles on paper, they are red smears on skin.

I stroke the first stripe. It feels feverish, hotter than the surrounding skin.

“I can’t wait for my stripes,” I say jealously. “I can’t wait to be 88.”

She laughs. “Patience,” she says. “Don’t rush. Each stripe is a sacrifice.”

 

The Second Stripe

One night, like many other nights, my mother and I plan to eat dinner in front of the television. We argue over whether to watch cartoons, my choice, or the local news channel, hers. Like many other nights, my mother wins the argument.

We pay attention to the news anchor instead of each other. He is a manicured man wearing a tailored brown wool coat buttoned to his sharp chin.

Abruptly the coat disappears, hidden by a long news ticker blaring: BREAKING NEWS.

“We have just gotten wind of a tiger who has escaped from its animal handler at the traveling circus. The tiger is on the loose. Emergency services have been called to search the area; police are advising everyone to find shelter, stay inside, and lock their doors. If you glimpse the tiger, please notify local authorities of your whereabouts.”

My mother turns to me. “Isn’t that the circus you wanted tickets for? In town for a week?”

I nod. The topic is awkward—I had begged her to let me go with my friends, but she refused, citing unreasonable ticket prices and ethics. Furious, I had wished her dead as I stomped to my room, fuming at missing another friends’ outing.

The anchor continues: “We will alert you of changing conditions; again, please stay inside and stay safe.”

The program cuts to shaky camera footage of a street I recognize as close to my school, though night vision renders the surroundings eerie. I biked down this street yesterday to my friend Ji-ho’s house. Ji-ho deemed the circus show incredible, claiming her favorite part was when the tiger jumped through the flaming hoop.

The television cuts back to the TV anchor, who touches his headset with a pained expression. He clears his throat, collects himself.

“The police have interrogated the circus owner and learned that the tiger may have escaped in search of her lost cubs, who were sold last week to laboratories, farms, and private homes. The newborns were taken from her while she slept. We warn audiences that this tiger mother is in distress and may be ferocious if approached.”

We glue to the broadcast. It alternates between footage of our area and the reporter, who calls in zookeepers, firefighters, and animal rights activists. He asks them about the tiger mother’s danger to humans. He asks them about circus safety conditions.

He does not ask about the tiger mother’s grief. He does not ask about the cubs’ chances of survival without her.

I curl against my mother. We clasp our hands and hope for this tiger mother’s escape.

“Do you think she misses her babies?” I ask.

My mother says yes.

I am sleepy. I close my eyes despite wanting to stay awake.

8 hours pass.

My mother shakes me. Our half-eaten dinner is on the floor, cold, forgotten.

“What happened?” I ask groggily, sitting up. “What time is it?”

“It’s around 4 a.m.,” she says. “They shot her. She’s dead.” My mother’s eyes are red-rimmed and bleary.

In horror, I turn to the TV, where the reporter looks exhausted, his formerly neat coat wrinkled from 8 hours of constant broadcasting. He chatters on:

“The tiger was struck in the chest five times, dying after the fourth bullet. She was killed by the circus owner in an alleyway between a bowling alley and a coffee shop. Police are investigating the circus facility, and the owner has now been taken into custody. The tiger mother weighed over two hundred kilograms and was born in captivity at a tiger farm notorious for breeding wild . . .”

 

The Third Stripe

Article from the State Herald / SCIENCE / Published August 8, 2008:

RARE TIGER BRUTALLY KILLS HER OWN CUBS, GOES VIRAL

KANCHANABURI: Four men were arrested near the Myanmar border this week after a video of them hunting a Bengal tiger mother went viral.

Filmed by the hunters’ tour guide using his cell phone, the heartrending video shows the cornered tiger mother’s haunted expression as blood drips from her jaw, her cubs’ dead bodies strewn around her. She is unreactive as the poachers encircle. The video ends when one man cocks and aims his gun.

“We suspect the tiger mother killed her cubs rather than have them suffer at the hands of poachers,” Binh Nguyen, Southeast Asia director of DEFEND, a wildlife trade monitoring group, told the State Herald. “She knew the poachers would prolong the suffering, so she chose a quick, effective death for her kids instead. She protected them the only way she could.”

The tiger mother went viral on YouTube, the video then copied onto TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter, where it gained further traction. International outrage encouraged the park officials and police to investigate.

“I’ve helped hunters find prey for years, but this tiger mother was different. I’ve never seen anything like her. She broke my heart. I risked my job and my livelihood, but I couldn’t stand by and let the mother’s plight be unknown. I pray that streaming this video will redeem my past actions,” [name redacted for privacy] told the State Herald.

On Thursday, the head of the Thong Pha Phum National Park thanked viewers for alerting its office and stated that the police intend to charge the poachers for violations of the forest reserve law and the Wildlife Protection Act.

The suspects’ names have not been released, though they are suspected to be American citizens and members of an illegal poaching tourism group.

The World Wildlife Fund notes that only 88 critically endangered tiger mothers are left in the wild.

 

The Fourth Stripe

I am 18 and a newly graduated high school student. It is a hot July summer; I will head to college in August. My mother insists we visit Beijing before I leave her den. Who knows when I’ll find the time again to jump twelve hours across the ocean? I am soon to be busy: drinking underage, failing midterms, kissing ugly boys.

Beijing is raucous in some areas and quiet in others. The city seems trapped in a loop of liminal development. I like it. I can imagine a life here.

We sit at dinner with the relatives I know by relation or Wechat user ID, not by name: nai nai, biao ge, lao ye, CWX_88, rambutan978. I recognize their faces from the selfies they’ve sent. They tell me I’m prettier in person. I smile.

I spin the canzhuo zhuanpan and stick my chopsticks into every passing dish, ignoring my mother’s disapproval. I tune out the chatter, helping myself to heaps of green stems, cold noodles, spicy tofu—I like the city and I love the food, but I cannot participate in the language. My mouth chomps on nutrients while other mouths chomp on gossip.

The waiters bring out a cut fruit platter. I ignore my stuffed stomach in favor of dragon fruit slabs, watermelon slices, cantaloupe smiles. The chatter around me gets rowdier as the er guo tou and maotai bottles empty—my family prefers alcohol on varying ends of the price spectrum. Bored, I progress to grapes, uncut and unsliced.

I swallow too quickly: a large seeded grape catches in my windpipe.

Oxygen leaves me.

I clutch my neck and gasp for air as I furiously attempt to swallow.

I flap my hands trying to catch someone’s attention.

My head begins to float.

My chest throbs.

My relatives’ red drunken faces blur. The restaurant room decor becomes wavy, surreal. Black edges encroach on my field of vision.

I resign myself to the void.

Suddenly my mother, two seats away from me, looms close. Everything is unfocused in my delirious near-death, but she is sharp. Her almond-shaped eyes puddle into mischievous circles; the wrinkles around her mouth stretch into whisker-like lines; her ears jump from the sides of her head to the top; the brown streaks in her black hair glimmer orange—I experience a brief sense of wonderment at my mother’s newfound felinity before everything goes black—then I feel her punch my gut—her warped, violent version of the Heimlich—and the grape flies out of my throat and onto my plate, where it lands above the gnawed cantaloupe-smile rind like the face of a one-eyed monster.

“Eat slower. Always chew,” she lectures as I wheeze. The chatter around us, which halted in deference to my accident, resumes.

I regain my senses; my vision rushes back. I see that my mother is not a tiger mother like I hallucinated, but a human mother still.

 

The Fifth Stripe

Article from the Morning Star / NEWS / Published August 8, 2018:

Rare Sumatran tiger cub takes first steps outdoors

On a sunny Tuesday, eager zoogoers witnessed Rudi, a Sumatran tiger cub born one month ago, take its first steps outside.

Rudi was seen wobbling forward as his mother, an 8-year-old Sumatran tiger born and raised at the zoo, rested inside their den. Spectators hollered and whooped as Rudi’s muzzle emerged. Rudi paused, half in the dark and half in the light, until he overcame his hesitation and ventured fully out into the fresh air. Rudi then stretched and proceeded to explore the enclosure.

“We were waiting for Rudi to stumble and fall, which would have been funny, but the cub seems to have done alright,” said Katy Smyth, a local resident who visited solely to watch the monumental occasion.

Zookeeper Marlee Kim said, “We were ecstatic to watch Rudi find his tiger footing. Typically, cubs wait for the tiger mothers to guide them in first steps, but we’re sure Rudi was drawn to the sunshine alone by a desire for independence and natural curiosity. We look forward to Rudi’s first checkup in a few weeks to ensure optimal health.”

The Sumatran tiger is a critically endangered subspecies. Deforestation and poaching are the main reasons for the predator’s ravaged population.

 

The Sixth Stripe

I have been gone for 8 months, and in that time I have blacked out 8 times, failed 8 tests, and kissed 8 ugly boys. I have only called my mother 8 times. We talk for 8 minutes, then hang up because I have to go. She seems lonely, but I do not ask her how she feels because I am lonely too. It is more bearable to be lonely in solitude than to admit loneliness to someone else.

I visit for spring break. We flail for topics and activities all week.

At her suggestion, on my last day, we go to the zoo. She says she wants to see the new tiger mother and her cub.

The weather is humid. Strollers and harried mothers abound. I’m sweating. She asks if I want a popsicle from the vendor, and I grimace. Does she think I am still a child?

We stop in front of the tiger exhibit. The sign detailing their names and personalities is faded, peeling, every other sentence unreadable.

The pen is empty. The tigers’ cave, impenetrable.

“They’re probably napping inside,” I say. “Shall we go to the polar bears?”

My mother does not respond. I turn to her.

Her face is wet, blotchy; her mouth turned inward; her chin quivering. I touch her, gently, on the small of her back.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

My mother shakes her head.

I pat her shoulder. I do not understand. But I can be here. For now.

Will that be enough? I don’t know.

I will leave again tomorrow.

I am ashamed as I comfort her. My mother is just a mother, and mothers do not have feelings.

 

The Seventh Stripe

Article from the Overlook Press / NEWS / Published August 8, 2028:

Rare Tiger Mother Dies at Zoo Weeks After Giving Birth

An 8-year-old tiger named Harima, famous around the world for being one of the last surviving tigresses, died yesterday due to birth complications.

The news of Harima’s pregnancy caused a ripple of excitement around the world, many eager to see tigers rescued from near-extinction.

Rahul Chawla, director of the National Zoo, stated that Harima did her best to repopulate her kind, but ultimately the burden was too much. “We are currently undergoing further postmortem examinations to ensure no other tiger mother will die from similar conditions,” he said.

Harima’s death has sent the world into mourning. Grieving admirers have created a makeshift shrine of candles, poems, and tiger drawings at the zoo entrance.

Harima’s cub, 8 days old, is suffering from several heart defects, including a hole between the main chambers and a key blood vessel coming from the wrong side of the organ.

“We are doing our best to ensure Harima’s cub, yet unnamed, will live long and thrive,” Chawla stated. “The cub is currently being hand reared in the veterinary hospital by an expert team.”

 

The Eighth Stripe

On the 8th anniversary of my mother’s death from cancer, I am 8 months pregnant. My feet hurt and my breasts ache. Everyone says my skin glows, but I look in the mirror and see only bloat.

Naoto has always wanted a family. He said so on our second date. It’s what drew me to him. If you don’t want kids, we can end this now, he said, staring at me intently. I was already naked, sitting on the kitchen counter, my legs spread open, he in between. I pulled him into me. I found his forthrightness sexy.

He says he cannot wait for our child. A baby girl. He twists the ring on his finger when he says this. He has not touched me under my clothes, has not seen me without my clothes, since I showed him the positive test result. He believes I am too delicate to be caressed in this state.

My stomach looks and feels like my mother’s now. Eight stripes of my own, seared into my skin. I count them every night in the shower.

These crimson gashes, how I adore them. How I adore this burden.

I do not know how Naoto will react when I give birth and he finally sees my bare stomach. He likes me unblemished, unmarked. Will he hate my stripes?

I do not care.

Naoto touches my swollen stomach eagerly, not on my skin, but on the outside of my sweater. With this fabric barrier, he cannot feel the heat emanating from my stripes.

He pretends he feels the baby kick, but I know the baby kicks only for me.

I do not warn him that when the baby comes, I will be not a wife or a woman but a mother.

A tiger mother, like mine.

***

 

Jade Song is an artist, art director, and author of CHLORINE, her debut novel about a swimmer-turned-mermaid, which Publisher’s Weekly calls “visionary and disturbing.” It will be out on March 28, 2023 from William Morrow. Until then, say hello at jadessong.com/. 

 

SEE THE ISSUE

SUGGESTED CONTENT