Cape Town Bullfight, was Re: MDMD(4): Taurean (fwd)

[the Robot Vegetable]

	'Once there was a bullfight at the Castle, it was a
Sunday afternoon.  They partitioned off the courtyard and
chased in a bull, an enormous animal, all black, with great
shoulders and wild horns.  I can still remember the muscles
moving under its skin, it was like hares running. And how
it snorted and kicked up the dust and stormed the partition
with the sound of wood splintering and women shrieking.
And then they chased in the dogs and they charged the bull.
As soon as they grabbed him by the nose he would fling them
into the air like old rags.  But there were too many of them,
they attacked from all sides.  His shoulders, his thighs, his
belly, his tail, his nose, everything. The noise was quite
deafening, all that barking and yelping and bellowing. Once
he stumbled and fell down.  Some of the dogs tore pieces of
flesh out of him.  It was terrible, and the people seemed to
have gone mad. Then he got up again. His nose was all torn and 
bleeding.  But he kept on swiping at them. Once or twice he 
caught a dog in his horns; their guts wrapped around his head
and there was blood pouring into his eyes. I wanted to leave,
I simply couldn't bear to look any longer, I thought I'd be
sick at any moment.  But my legs were too lame to carry me.
I began to cry. They were all shouting and screaming so much
that nobody even heard me. And when I looked again, after a 
long time, the bull was on the ground and they were fighting
one another and tearing him to pieces.  There was nothing
left of the beautiful black skin and all those moving muscles,
everything was covered with blood and sand and dung.  I never
knew dying could be so sordid. And so unnecessary.  he'd been
so powerful, his muscles had moved so.  But in the end it was
just a mess, that dung and sand and blood, nothing beautiful,
nothing strong, just a horrible mess.'

	-Elizabeth Larrson 1727-?  as imagined by Andre Brink
	 in _An Instant In The Wind_