ISSUE SIX: December, 2020

POSTHUMOUS GLORY

by KIM FARLEIGH

The bull turning in half circles follows a cape, raw enthusiasm moulded into smooth choreography, the matador’s cape sweeping over searching horns, the crowd delighted by brave elegance, bull now still, flanks squeezing, puffing, contracting, rough-sea heaving, black-crater bull nostrils glistening like the sweat on its flanks…….The matador, rising onto his toes, aims his sword at the bull’s back, white banderillas reddened upon a black now red……Man and bull unite in haphazard delicacy, the blade striking, pink capes flying in the bull’s face, capes thrown to accelerate death, the bull attacking pink, then……wobbling…..legs now looking strangely thin beneath a bulk that now seems unmanageably vast….the arena orbiting around the bull, blurring colours whizzing around the bull’s eyes, unfocussed spinning orbiting the bull, its front legs folding, resting on its front knees, body sloping down, back legs straight up, the matador gingerly shaping to plunge a dagger into the bull’s spine to finish it off, the bull like a boxer gyrating its head to avoid the dagger, the matador drawing back as the bull rises onto its front legs, the crowd gasps–death rising!–the matador awkwardly stretching forward, puntilla in hand, the bull resting on its front knees, bucket loads of blood bursting out from its mouth in one-point-five-second intervals and breaking up like swells smashing into rocks, drops flying because of a pumping heart, horror obscuring the wisdom underlying unsavoury facades, the matador raising the dagger, the bull rising onto its front legs, the matador jumping away, pumped-out red stopping the crowd from seeing these events’ universal ramifications, the creeping-forward matador trying to line up the bull’s spine with the dagger, the resisting bull’s head moving like a boxer’s, the matador unable to line up the spine, the crowd’s whistling screeching around the ring in shrilling shrills..…..The puntilla plunges, strikes, the bull shakes, leaps, lunges, pray-mantis matador jumps away with ugly, jerky care, previous elegance eliminated by unforeseen resistance, the crowd gasping at death’s unexpected rising, the bull falling onto its front knees, back legs straight up, body sloping down, someone shouting: “Shoot it!”, a crowd wincing at ugly survival, detesting sickly ungainliness, only seeing horror, the puntilla finally finding the spot, the crowd’s applause of waterfall relief revealing multitudinous pitches that epitomise golden balls at different altitudes bouncing upon vertical torrents of water, the dead bull dragged around the ring by horses in a lap of honour….The corrida’s president hangs a cloth over his box’s balustrade to indicate admiration for the bull’s courage, complimenting the breeder. The standing crowd applauds a carcass, told when to appreciate greatness, bull dead before general greatness got bestowed.

KIM FARLEIGH has worked for NGO's in Greece, Kosovo, Iraq, Palestine and Macedonia. He takes risks to get the experience required for writing. He likes painting, art, bullfighting, photography and architecture, which might explain why this Australian lives in Madrid. Although he wouldn't say no to living in a French chateau or a Swiss ski resort. 180 of his stories have been accepted by 105 different magazines.