Closure by Jacob Ross

animals he’d been forced to eat as a young boy, during the colonial wars. He had been seven and wondered how he had not died from diarrhoea.
    When he returned to the present, he found that Devon Derbyshire, unsure who had carried out the asset-stripping in Africa, had signed off and returned the broadcast to Harry Cook.
    Harry Cook started to describe the apparatus involved in the art event as he moved past the rows of seating George had put out around the glass room. He entered the main glass chamber where Professor Draper stood with his assistant, an intensely composed and small woman called Helen Preston.
    They had taken two days to set up a complicated arrangement of measuring instruments, attached to a clump of elephant grass that circled a mature tree, itself held upright by a series of strong wires secured to the floor and ceiling. They had changed the atmosphere in the chamber, reproducing the heat and humidity of the tropics. Harry Cook was impressed. He marvelled at the technology of a hydraulically powered platform from where they would record the data, and a five-foot high secondary glass wall enclosure with an electronic door that circled the tree and the elephant grass. Both structures would contain the tigers when they arrived.
    Harry Cook commented, in passing, on the condensation on the glass enclosure, and so George Mbewe picked up the window-cleaning tools and let himself out of the store room, closing the door softly. He would be needed in the Great Hall after all. He left his little radio behind in case of feedback. Now, he would be able to see and hear everything first-hand.
    He entered the room through the small door behind the great tapestry. Harry Cook was talking to the professor. George discreetly watched the interview from behind the assembly of dignitaries and the radio station technicians.
    Professor Draper, now as relaxed and avuncular as a scientist could be, described what his instruments would be measuring.
    The specific tests were divided into three sections, he said. Firstly “friction”, where he and his assistant would be examining paw-to-dry-grass contact ratios i.e how much friction could four tigers create on the amount of grass it was possible to grow within such a localised area, considering they each weighed approximately 500 pounds. The second set of instruments would consider “spontaneous combustion”, i.e. would the heightened emotions of the tigers along with their hot breath and the reproduced heat of their habitat contribute to a conflagration; and finally, “liquidisation”.
    Just as the professor was about to describe the conditions required for liquidisation, George dropped his squeegee and the metal handle clattered on the granite floor. He had been trying to signal to Susan, the curator, to ask if he should clean the main glass enclosure of condensation when it slipped out of his hand. Harry Cook gave him a sharp look but the moment was saved when Tom Wright, the head keeper from the Zoo, radioed the Great Hall, informing everyone that the tigers were ready and waiting in the wire corridor, specially constructed to get them through to the glass enclosure, now dripping with moisture.
    Professor Draper and his assistant took their positions and Harry Cook left the enclosure, continuing to talk to his listeners. The process of getting the tigers into the Hall would take a few minutes and because the glass was soundproof they would not hear the felines approach. Harry Cook continued to enthuse about the workmanship of the construction, and George, patiently standing in a corner, found himself fixated on a slow but steady drop of water meandering down the thick glass.
    As a side panel in the main enclosure rose, Harry Cook informed his listeners in a voice that was louder than usual: “The tigers are here!”
    They were magnificent beasts, standing at least four feet at the shoulder and over eight feet in length. They prowled into the space,