Wednesday, May 16
Tuesday, May 8
Con La Misma Sangre
She was attractive rather than beautiful, an olive complexion and jet-black hair in keeping with her Latin origins. The merest kiss of polio had visited upon the beginning of a life otherwise blessed.
We meet in my recurring nightmare, a personal and perverse interpretation of La Guernica, where I am the unfortunate centre of attention in the bullring, a picador has just probed his lance between the shoulders of my unwitting and unwilling adversary and the blood is running.
The fight it is not a vocation, for it was not my choice of work, but rather, under peer pressure, I was invited to enter the ranks of brutality and bullying, under the thin veil of glamour and bravery.
The sun is in it’s zenith, seemingly contributing to expectation, and she is there again, as always, up in the stands, waving her white handkerchief, signifying dis-satisfaction at the below par performance of her torero, for I belong to her.
But, am I a coward, or simply tired of this cruel spectacle? My pink cape, a tool of the trade to attract the wrath of an injury-weakened bull, is unfurled as I begin the last tango in this dance of death. The animal advances as anticipated, in a choreographed shamble, breathing heavily, snorting confusion…. I haughtily simper forward, only to slip on the bloody sand. As I go down, the animal seizes the surprise opportunity and I am gored just above the spleen…………
It is at that point sleep, hand in hand with nightmare, trip over conscious horizon, leaving me wreathed in perspiration, and an ache in my gut. There is no girl, although the smear and smell of blood is in the air, and a white handkerchief lies at the foot of an untidy bed.
The battle has been lost, and will be lost again during tonight’s return, when she will again be in the stands, handkerchief in hand.
We meet in my recurring nightmare, a personal and perverse interpretation of La Guernica, where I am the unfortunate centre of attention in the bullring, a picador has just probed his lance between the shoulders of my unwitting and unwilling adversary and the blood is running.
The fight it is not a vocation, for it was not my choice of work, but rather, under peer pressure, I was invited to enter the ranks of brutality and bullying, under the thin veil of glamour and bravery.
The sun is in it’s zenith, seemingly contributing to expectation, and she is there again, as always, up in the stands, waving her white handkerchief, signifying dis-satisfaction at the below par performance of her torero, for I belong to her.
But, am I a coward, or simply tired of this cruel spectacle? My pink cape, a tool of the trade to attract the wrath of an injury-weakened bull, is unfurled as I begin the last tango in this dance of death. The animal advances as anticipated, in a choreographed shamble, breathing heavily, snorting confusion…. I haughtily simper forward, only to slip on the bloody sand. As I go down, the animal seizes the surprise opportunity and I am gored just above the spleen…………
It is at that point sleep, hand in hand with nightmare, trip over conscious horizon, leaving me wreathed in perspiration, and an ache in my gut. There is no girl, although the smear and smell of blood is in the air, and a white handkerchief lies at the foot of an untidy bed.
The battle has been lost, and will be lost again during tonight’s return, when she will again be in the stands, handkerchief in hand.
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