I've always been a silent observer. Forever stuck on her wall, nestled between flowers and thick tangles of vines painted across our pale pink room. I was bound to my position by paper and gloopy paste. My stripes twist and curl, bringing my ferocious mane to life. My front legs are permanently stretched upward, and my claws gently spread as I grip the painted jungle around me. My ears perked, my muscles tightly taut beneath my sleek coat of orange and black stripes, and my eyes gleamed with keen awareness. I am prepared to leap from the wall at any moment to defend her.
To anyone but Elle, I was merely a part of the wallpaper, an insignificant piece of this maximalist puzzle, just an image of a tiger frozen in time, but to her, I was Timber The Tiger. Despite my eternal silence, I saw her, and she saw me.
I watched her grow. She was once a young girl with a wide, toothy smile and feet that could never seem to stay still. She loved to dance. She would twirl across the room, her tiny hands grazing my skin, leaving a trail of quiet laughter and song. She would press her tiny Paws against mine, whispering, “My Timber, how I love you so, Timber, the tiger!” Her voice echoed like music through the walls, bringing life to my still eyes and making my flat body feel 3D. She would thrust open her curtains, inviting a stream of sunlight to pierce through her windows, casting shadows and illuminating every part of her.
Every day, we would play together. She would tell stories, and I would listen. She would build forts and castles from quilts her grandmother had made for her and pillows she hand-sewed in class. She was the leader of every world and game she created, but she always invited me to rule by her side. Her confidence was radiant, and her happiness and hunger for life felt like they fed both of us.
“What do you think, Timber?” She sachets out of her closet, wearing a lime green boa, cheetah print tutu, gray sweatshirt, and sneakers that came to right above her kneecaps.
“Mom doesn't really like what I wear this stuff, but I knew you'd like it, right?” She walked over to me and sat down, staring deep into one another's eyes.
“You're right. I should go to school looking like this, what else would I wear” flipping her hair over her shoulders dramatically
“But you're right next time, I'll get a tiger-printed tutu”
In these moments, I could feel her believing I might spring to life off this paper, but deep down, we both knew that I never would.
As Elle grew up, I watched her become more than just an imaginative young girl; she was a storyteller and a dreamer. She expressed her beautifully complex and racing mind through stories, drawings, and art pieces all around her walls. She would burst through the door after being out all day and belly-flop onto her bed. The legs of her bed frame rattling and radiating a soft creek. She would lie on her bed surrounded by the vibrant spill of crayons and paper, bringing all of her imagination and fantasies to life. Drawings of the Cheshire cat and a magically Fantastical Wonderland that only belong to her. With green rivers and yellow clouds, the extension of my body, and the jungle, we're not filled with decorations and ornaments of love. She was growing into something I could only describe as the flowers that filled her walls. She would look up from her drawings, the joy in her eyes met mine, filling them with a proud gaze of love.
But as the days pressed on and the seasons began to change, little Elle grew taller. Her once tangled blonde curls grew into soft brown waves she obsessed over in her mirror. The scribbled stick figures and boy band posters on her walls were ripped down or covered out of embarrassment.
This wasn't like Elle, it was like a subtle darkness creeping into our once vibrant world. It began like a whisper but grew so incredibly loud that it made me sick.
Her stuffed animals began to vanish, crammed away in boxes, and she stopped dancing around her room like she did. But even when she would prance around her room, it was only to film herself. Afterward, she would snatch her phone from her window sill and slump into her bean bag chair. She would sit there staring blankly at her screen for hours. Sometimes out of the trance that this phone intoxicated her with, she would throw it against her carpet and mumble or sometimes scream ugly things like “Again, only 30 likes!” or “Of course, Mia did it first, I'm so stupid.” I had not felt the touch of her warm palm on my mane in years. It was as if I had become another trivial flower painted on her walls.
But what hurt the most was that she stopped looking at me. She stopped saying good night or asking me questions throughout the day.
Our world grew darker; She never wore bright colors anymore, and the piles of clothing in her room grew taller and taller. I couldn't feel her joy like I usually did. The thick cloaks of dark fabric she wore every day were like a force field, the mounds of clothes felt like valleys between us. I couldn't break through to feel Elle. She had forgotten about me. My days grew pointless. I was no longer a protector, and I was no longer a friend.
—
When she turned 17, I had gained some hope. She was beginning to spend more time in our room. She never talked to me, but she was in here much more. Seeing her hazel eyes every day reminded me of the old Elle. I could feel my orange and black coat rising with joy. Her presence gave me hope that one day she would call on me again and that I would fulfill my duty as her protector and sidekick. But she still didn't see me.
The sunlight that once coated my skin daily with a warm blanket was much more rare these days. Her curtains never opened, and I miss those moments of possibility that gazing through our windows brought me. The days and nights morphed into one, and although the natural sunlight no longer filled our room, the radiant and artificial glow from her computer screen kept me awake at night. She would lay in her bed, her quilts and purple polka-dotted comforter twisted around her like chains. She would stare for hours into the glow. I didn't know who was speaking, but from what I could gather, it was stories of pain, tragedy, and loss. I heard her refer to them as Coming of Age stories, but they all seem to end in the same way. unable to reach the final destiny of growing to age, but simply falling apart in the process.
The only way I even knew she was awake was when her pillow began to darken; she would start to cry. They were never loud sobs, but the tears would fall silently down her face. Sometimes, her gaze would shift toward me. I yearned for a way to call out to her so she could see me, but her gaze was always hollow. It was as if she didn't even recognize me. I had just become a shadow that filled her room.
—
Elle had never scared me before. We played games where she would jump around the room and startle me, but she never scared me. Today was different. She swung open her door, and in her hand, she tightly clutched three long sticks and what looked like a large tin can balanced against her hip.
Her face was pale, and her eyes were rimmed with red. As usual, her body was draped in a cloak of darkness. She walked towards the wall parallel to me with a purpose I hadn't seen from her in years. It felt like she was drawn to the wall by something unknown or invisible. She dropped her belongings on the ground, revealing a can of jet-black paint and some paint brushes. But there was new frightful energy about her today. It was overflowing, as if it was going to spill over at any time.
With her back facing me, she plopped herself into the criss cross applesauce position she had always loved as a kid. Picking up a paintbrush, she dipped it into the black sludge. Pressing it against the wallpaper, she slowly glided it along the branches of the jungle. The strokes swallowed the pastel colors in a single swipe. She seemed peaceful, moving in a way that reminded me of how she used to drag her feet along the rough carpet, painting imaginary murals. They were slow and almost careful. I watched, puzzled but afraid, hoping she would not make her way toward me.
But her hand began to pick up speed. My body grew tense, and I couldn't understand why she was doing this and why she was destroying my world. Her left knuckle pressed against the carpet, driving itself deeper into the wool and forcing her hand to glow white.
She was standing now, and the lines turned to jagged marks, and her strokes grew messy. Her hand was moving at lightning speed. Her back began to stiffen. The lines were frantic as if she were trying to force something out or bury it underneath the layers of black.
The paint was dripping down the wall, staining everything in its path. It reached the cream carpet, seeping into its fibers and infecting it with its darkness. She hadn't seemed to notice.
She was lost in the motion.
The brush slashed across the wall with so much emotion it was frightening. I was frightened.
She reminded me of all the hysterical flies I had watched buzz around our room, trying to avoid Elle's whack of her Vogue magazine. Her eyes were wide, and each line seemed to be running from the one painted before. Her breath became faster, her fingers trembled as she gripped the brush tighter.
She started muttering words to herself, “Stupid, Stupid, Stupid” “is this better, huh?” All I could hear was that they were short bits. They were nothing like the extensive and innovative stories she told me many years ago. These felt like fragments of anger fastened together sloppily.
The paint began to splash against her skin, dark streaks staining her hands and arms, but she didn't stop, it didn't seem like she could.
And then it all did.
She pulled the brush away from the wall and stared at her creation. Her chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. She dropped the paintbrush. Its bristles hit the ground with a wet splat, leaving a dark puddle next to her heel, like a wound against her rug. She stood there, staring.
I was relieved, she hadn't come near me, she was not mad at me, and it was all over.
Suddenly she lunged towards the paper.
She dug her chipped navy nails into the wall and dragged them down. At first, she couldn't find a seam or edge, so her fingers slid around the freshly painted wallpaper. Her fingers gilded around aimlessly and pushed harder into the paper, rubbing her fingers raw. She finally found an edge and tore it. The first pull broke our room's silence with a jagged sound that echoed. That piercing noise of paper ripping made my ears perk and my tail curl. She kept ripping. Her paws clawed at the walls, ripping strip after strip until her nails were broken and bleeding. Her blood left streaks on the wallpaper and the freshly uncovered blank wall. Her red against the jungle felt like I was bleeding with her.
My heart ached for her. I felt helpless in my silence.
Why was she acting this way? Why do I? Doesn't she know I am here, woven into the fabric of her room, willing to protect her from whatever this was?
The small shreds of wallpaper scattered on the floor, remnants of the world we once knew. I watched her helplessly. Her pain rippled through the walls infecting my body. She tore until her strength seemed to leave her, it fizzled out and left her gasping for air.
She stepped back and looked around the room at the chaos she created but was unfazed. She swirled her head and gazed at me. Our eyes locked. My heart sank, filling me with terror. Without a word, she turned and walked towards me, leaving the wall behind her in shreds and my extensions feeling mutilated and vulnerable.
I was confronted with her face turned twisted with anger. There was a scream building in her chest that she didn't release. She rasped the cold metal can with two hands. In one quick motion, she thrusts the open container at my body. I panicked, my body was so consumed by questioning and fear that a sense of Stillness came over me. I watched powerlessly as the world around me disappeared, and I was consumed by the darkness. my limbs began to grow heavy, and the lively colors we had always lived among disappeared beneath her thick black ink.
Gone were the flowers, trees, and forest vanished beneath the black. Now lost in the darkness, she had spread across our walls. I was covered. She took her hands and stuck her palms to my body, dragging them around and connecting with the wallpaper one last time.
The paint was everywhere.
She started to cry as the low hum of pain flowed with the rhythmic drag of her hands. They swirled around my body. Her movements stopped, and her head hung between her arms, which stretched high on the wall. She was sobbing. Her moans were raw and gravelly, unlike anything I'd ever heard from her before. In trembling bursts, her gasps came like a wound being healed and suddenly reopened. Her shallow breaths between each cry Felt like it could rip another hole in the paper. She couldn't stop the flood, it was beyond her control.
Why was she doing this? Was it to protect me? Did she love me? Did she hate me? Now more than ever, I wanted to reach out to her, to roar or growl or leap out of the wall to chase away the darkness circling and consuming her. But I was only Timber the Tiger on the wall, frozen, silent, and helpless.
Her fingers began to dig into her arms, leaving deep red marks on her skin.
Suddenly, everything stopped. Elle wasn't making any noise.
The door slammed, and her footsteps faded down the hall. I was left in the darkness. My world now felt the weight of her sadness more than ever before.
Heavy and suffocating.
I waited, the quiet that followed her absence was so unsettling. I was used to feeling the stillness of our room, but this black ink painted a new portrait. It was draining yet empty.
Days passed, then weeks, then months.
Her mother was the first to return to the room. I remember hearing footsteps approaching the door and feeling my body pulse with excitement. But I quickly realized those weren't her footsteps.
All I could make out was that her mother was crying. She was crying in a similar way to the last time I saw Elle. She whispered her name and kept repeating and repenting, “I tried, I tried to help her lord. Please forgive me, forgive her.” Her voice traveled around the room.
In the following days, her family came and went, and the room was soaked with their words and tears.
I realized that Elle was never coming back. She had left me here. Timber the Tiger left to guard the place that never again would hold a new laugh or whisper or dream of Elles. The life source was gone, and the candle had burnt out.
But I was still there. Beneath all this darkness was the jungle and life that we shared.
And so I sit here, in a silent jungle, as your silent protector, but I am not angry.
I am still here and always will be. Watching over the parts of yourself you left behind.
Rose Cultraro is an English and creative writing student at Fordham University, Class of 2027. With a passion for blending whimsy with darker themes, her work usually explores childhood innocence, mental illness, and the inability to confront what is truly there.
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