ILLUSTRATION: ZOHEB MASHIUR

Harun walked into the office space while pulling up his trousers above his hips even though he had a belt. Yawning, he opened the door and looked at the man sitting behind the small wooden desk. The room was sparsely decorated with just a frame above the desk, a filing cabinet and two wooden chairs. 

"Hello, I'm Harun. Mr. Tiger Belal?" asked Harun.

"Yes, please have a seat," said Tiger Belal, pronouncing it as "sit."

"I've come here to verify your personal information. You drew a separate box here and checked 'Tiger' in the gender details. Why?" inquired Harun. 

"It's because I am a tiger," said Tiger Belal with one eyebrow raised.

"No, you're not." came the reply. 

The two men stared at each other for full 10 seconds.

Tiger Belal scratched his cheek and continued to stare. 

"Tiger isn't a gender, Mr. Belal. We can't have that at this stage of the selection process," said a deadpan Harun. 

"But I am a tiger," came the reply.

The two men stared at each other for full 7 seconds before Tiger Belal slid open a drawer.

"That does not make you a tiger, Mr. Belal. You need to stop this." 

The two stared at each other for full 5 seconds until Belal took off his plastic tiger mask.

"But I am a tiger," he said. 

Belal let go of his mask and let it slide down onto the floor. 

He stared into Harun's eyes, leaned over and held Harun's face in his hands. The two of them were 8 inches apart from each other. 

"This is inappropriate," said Harun slowly.

The two stared at each other for full 3 seconds. 

"But I am a tiger," Belal said. 

The two stared at each other for a full second. 

"Yes, you are, my big boy," said Harun. 

Tiger Belal smiled. 

Rumman R Kalam is a Sub-editor at SHOUT and when he's off-duty, he likes to be a goat with opposable thumbs at Rantages. You can send him hate mail to: tehgoatlord@rantages.com