-
"A little paper tiger stood on the table, the size of two fists placed together. The skin of the tiger was the pattern on the wrapping paper, white background with red candy canes and green Christmas trees.
I reached out to Mom's creation. Its tail twitched, and it pounced playfully at my finger. "Rawrr-sa," it growled, the sound somewhere between a cat and rustling newspapers."
Ken Liu's "The Paper Menagerie" is just a lovely short story. Sad, deft, minimal, very much worth your time. Might have had a little sniffle.