Man vs. Bull

August 22nd, 2009: Sitting high up in an arena, I look down and see a man standing in the center…a flamboyant man in his tight red pants with his pink cape strutting around the ring as if he was some hero, calling himself a matador. Staring at him from 12 feet away, stands a massive bull…heavily breathing with steam literally bellowing from his nostrils as blood flows down his back. He charges the matador as he quickly steps aside, the crowd yelling, “ole!” The bull does a series of passes, unfortunately failing to gore the man.

At the final stage of this execution, the matador pointed his sword at the bull…aiming the cold piece of steel that is about to skewer the gargantuan piece of meat, attempting to place the blade between it clavicles and through the aorta. The large crowd of adults, kids and babies becomes silent as if they all simultaneously had their larynx ripped out of their throats as they wait for the final blow. The matador lunges toward the exhausted animal, impaling the sword into its back, missing the sweet spot thus prolonging the bull’s death. The bull stands there, looking at him with a sword in its back as blood is dripping down his body…thinking, “I just wanted to stay out in the field today, why are you doing this to me?”

The matador was beginning to grasp that he has poor aim and the bull was not going to go down. Minutes go by as the sword begins to work itself free. He grabs another sword from behind the wooden wall and flips the ineffective sword out. Again he plunges the sword in its back, as the bull still does nothing. The Matador is no longer strutting around the crowd as people leak noises of disappointment. I was hoping he practiced Japanese traditions, realizing he embarrassed his family tonight and would turn the sword onto himself. At this point, even the blood thirsty crowd wanted the animal to be put out of its misery.

After being stabbed in the back not just once but three times this evening, the bull that must have been in excruciating pain, as he finally drops to its knees. The matador’s assistant quickly went up to the disorientated bull and drove a knife in the back of its head, rotating it…letting the bull go back to the field he was pulled from and to his friends that were about to join him after their barbaric execution.

More today than any day, I wanted to see a man get gored by the bull. Not a grazing wound that would cause a minor injury or major scar…I wanted to see the bull hit the matador so hard, that he too would join the bull in that field.