The Bull

By David (from time in Ronda, Spain in September)

The bull charges out into the arena with a ferocity that sends even the bravest matadors cowering behind their blockades. Snorting and stomping as it charges at their paper-thin defenses; the bull is terrible and beautiful at the same time. The matadors step out from behind their wooden armor, but only on the opposite side of the arena, and stay just long enough to infuriate the bull even further. Slowly, ever so slowly, the bull wears down. Finally some matadors even are daring enough to play a game of cat and mouse with the bull, swinging their long pink capes back and forth, coaxing the bull to charge and stabbing short, jagged, and colorful knives into its flank. Only when the bull is worn down to a phantom of its former self, does the real matador come out. With a toy sword and a smaller, brighter cape, he tempts the bull into a beautiful dance that can only lead to death. Sending the bull in circles around himself, the matador is playing with a force too powerful to handle and finally gets struck. The bull throws him into the air and the matador rolls over its back to fall on the ground beside him. Covered in the red blood of the bull, the matador crawls on his back away from the bull as his fellow matadors distract the bull with yet more capes. Gathering his sword and cape from the sand of the arena, he faces the bull again. More twirls of his cape and the bull is back to chasing his impossible prize. With great ceremony, he exchanges his dull toy sword with an actual sword and prepares for the inevitable. He raises his sword and as the bull charges again, he jumps forward and plunges his sword into its collar, sinking to the hilt. The bull runs past the matador and turns around before swaying. Once so ferocious and terrifying, the bull suddenly becomes as weak as an old dog, walking towards the matador but unable to chase him. Slowly, the bull lowers itself to its knees and lies down, too weak to move. Finally more matadors come out and mercifully stab the bull with a short knife in the back of the neck, severing its spinal cord. The bull, who thirty minutes before ran mad about the arena full of life, is now reduced to a shattered husk that has to be pulled out by horses. Only five minutes later, a brand new bull is introduced, and it starts all over.