My brother was 4 and I was 6 when we went out to the field, behind my Father’s barn, to tease the bull. The bull was one mean machine with a ring in his nose, and horns that stood high and mighty. He was not a bull to toy with, yet we crawled under the fence to make faces at him. We weren’t worried, because we thought he was tied tight, from the ring in his nose, to a stake in the ground.
We called him names, made faces and acted like monkeys in front of a banana. We watched the bull grow mad, in anger he kicked his hoof in the dry ground, and blew hot air out of his nostrils. His glaring eyes fixed upon us, as he prepared to charge.
We stood still… in a split second I noticed there wasn’t any rope, nor stake, nor anything holding him. In that moment I knew we were about to be dead meat. I grabbed my brother’s hand and ran. (I can still hear the bull as he charged from behind us…his hooves pounding the ground: Boom, boom, boom!)
My brother and I ran for our lives, throwing ourselves under the fence, a mere heartbeat away from the bull’s raging threat. Looking up we saw the bull’s head peering over the fence, saliva drooled from his mouth upon us. The bull was that close! A fence separated us from his frustration. We couldn’t breath let alone scream, nor could we run and cry to our parents. It was my buried fear, nightmares haunted me for years to come… a black bull chased me often in my dreams.
From that moment on I knew I would never again play with the god of horns, nor with physical danger. I decided dolls, mud cakes and dancing in front of the mirror were fun enough.
Photo: This weekend my nieces and nephew checked-out the new bull behind the fence. The pounding memory of "The Bull," came charging into my mind. I shivered.
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