“There must be a clue…”

The old man was searching for his wife in the wild land early morning.

Under his arm was a semi-automatic, and parked a stone’s throw away was an all-terrain pickup.

He and his wife landed here yesterday to experience an African safari tour, but she had disappeared from the lodge this morning.

Since her day clothes were still untouched, she should have still been in her pajama gown.

The old man followed a lion trail to a bunch of trees, and to his shock, there was his wife.

Lying asleep next to a lion cub, her gown was ripped, and part the cloth was bandaged around the cub’s rear leg.

Its lion parents gave a low growl of warning behind the old man, and he slowly retreated while gently calling his wife’s name.

“Linda…wake up. Linda, it’s time to go.”

Linda stirred from the mixture of growls and propped herself up achingly.

“Oh, honey?” Her dry rasp indicated that she did not drink any water for many hours.

She pushed herself up to a sitting position slowly as the lion parents watched her attentively.

Stirring awake, the cub licked the back of her hand before closing its eyes again, flicking its tail back and forth a couple of times.

Linda stood up carefully and walked slowly towards her husband under the watchful eyes of the lion parents. Although her grey and white hair was messy with grass, the sparkle in her eyes shimmered like the surface of a lake at dawn.

Smiling and waving goodbye to the lions who watched her, she grasped her shaking husband’s arm and they made their way back to the safety of the pickup truck.

“Do you have water?”

Linda’s throat was parched and she looked for a water bottle in the car while her husband gave her intense side eye.