The Bullfighter's Curse

Aleandro Villega has his eyes locked on the prize. With both hands, he holds a large and thick cloth adorned with beautiful and colorful embroidery in the style of traditional Spanish artistry along the edges, and with red as its predominant color; so heavy, it makes the wind work hard to make it move majestically. His stare is calculating, methodical.

Over to the end of his gaze are the oversized, black pupils of an enraged creature. At its snout, large nostrils let out what looks like steam from the atomized snot as it blows air with incredible pressure. The creature tenses its muscles throughout its body, flexing them like a world bodybuilding champion. Its right hoove is scraping the dirt aggressively, digging with immense force, and carving a small but deep trench with just a few strokes.

The matador bends his hips and begins whipping the cloth in perfect form, making it snap at the ends as if it were a latigo, taunting the beast, making it angrier and angrier. He grins with utmost confidence. He wants the beast to charge at him. There is beauty to the silence between them. The wind makes waves of the looseness of his shirt and jacket and makes the short hair on the beast’s fur look like the dancing grass when the gusts hit a field.

The packed colosseum lets out their cheers with almost the same passion Aleandro has for fulfilling his part of the tradition as the greatest matador that ever lived, but his sheer determination is greater than anything; so great that it makes all the noise muffle to a mute, silence so absolute it becomes he and the creature and nothing else.

“Alright toro, let us see how much you have left before we end this with you laying on your side,” he threatens the beast, believing for a moment that the creature will heed his words.

Dirt mounds fly to the air from the powerful lunging of the bull’s massive rear legs. An unstoppable force with a direct path and no change in course is set to destroy its opponent

“Show me what I need to know, toro. Show me your weak spot,” Aleandro whispers while scanning the bull with his perfect vision.

The beast reaches Aleandro’s position and its large, sharp horns barely miss his body by a few inches, snagging and letting a rip on Aleandro’s short jacket. As this happens, he swiftly brushes the bull with the cloth along the entire length of the animal’s backside and smoothly turns his body in the opposite direction, and steps backward, switching places on one another. The crowd goes wild, hungry for more of the death-defying spectacle to soothe the pain caused by the lack of excitement in their own lives.

He slides his left hand’s fingers to the center of the width of the cloth and lowers his right hand ever so slowly to grip on the handle of his sword’s silver and gold hilt. He pulls it from the heavily decorated sheath that hangs at his waist while making sure he hides it well under the cloth.

This bull is one of the largest ever seen in the local bullfights, Its origins are unknown, but he only cares to make it the biggest trophy in bullfighting history. The picadors have tried their best to weaken the monstrous animal but no amount of lances to its back seem to have much effect on its health and stamina. They worry it is unkillable, indestructible, but Aleandro believes that no creature is a match for him, having demonstrated that in the past time and again with his incredible skill of delivering the final blow with his sword. He was named “El Matador Sangriento” -“The Bloody Matador”-. Aleandro enjoyed the sport too much. For him it was rarely about the bull at all, but about perfecting his craft. His target could be anything at the other end of that blade, as long as he could perfectly pierce through it with absolute precision.

The tip of his blade peaks out the cloth like a sneaky snake peeks out from its snake hole, waiting for the right time to strike and collect its prey. The bull has scar tissue, perhaps from an old wound, right above the shoulder blade, making this a perfect spot to bury the blade, straight to its heart.

“It is time to meet your maker, beast.”

The bull is facing him and begins pawing again, digging a new trench on the ground, even deeper than the one before.

This is the grand moment of truth. The exciting moment everyone has come to see; the end of the third act… the kill. The bull looks like it will be making its move very soon. Aleandro looks deep into its eyes and then something unexpected happens. The bull squints its eyelids. Animals do not show facial expressions, but this bull does, and Aleandro notices. It completely throws off his concentration for a split second, more than enough time to get in trouble.

The bull charges forward and Aleandro attempts to recover but, by the time he tries to regain his focus, it is too late. It hits him with its head with great force and lifts Aleandro, carrying him with the strength of its thick neck and galloping towards the solid walls of the arena, smashing through the thick wood planks with Aleandro’s body, and a large dust cloud lifts, covering them in a smokescreen.

The crowd gasps loudly in unison, like a church quire, and this is followed by absolute silence for the following few seconds. People begin reacting, some making noise in support of Aleandro and others asking questions loudly in disbelief of what was witnessed.

Within the dust cloud, the matador lies on a pile of rubble, severely hurt, and his whole body beaten to a pulp. Aleandro, squirming and grunting, slowly tries to open his eyes but the pain is unbearable even for the simple task.

He has not noticed it yet but the bull is right on top of him, staring down at his body. Raising its neck, it draws air into its lungs and drops its massive head with a powerful swing downwards, inches apart from Aleandro’s face, and lets out the most terrifying bellow he has ever heard from an animal. It is such a loud and frightening noise that it would probably make the dead awaken from their graves. Aleandro opens his eyes and reacts by screaming back in terror and, upon realizing what was happening, he connects his eyes with the bull once more. Once again he notices how it squints as if it knew what it was doing; as if it was intelligent and was planning its moves. His pupils move downwards, now looking at its salivating snout and see what he believes looks like a grin. The bull bellows again and opens its jaws and bites him on the shoulder, tearing through his skin and crunching on his bones. He screams with what air is left on his lungs and passes out.

The dust begins to settle and the desperate crowd tries to make out the current situation. A few women closest to the area notice Aleandro’s passed-out body, bloody, gnarled, and beaten, on the ground. They yelp at the sight of the gruesome scene.

All the toreros run to Aleandro’s aid. Martin Sevilla, one of his closest friends, runs through the masses to reach him first.

“Oh dear God, no! Aleandro, are you ok? Can you hear me?” Martin asks while pulling his body over his lap, trying to confirm his friend is still alive.

He puts his fingers at Aleandro’s neck and feels a pulse.

“He’s still alive. Bring the medics immediately. My friend, you will survive this. Just don’t stop breathing, don’t stop,” Martin yells optimistically.

“Wait a second. Where is the bull?” asks Ramon, a picador in the event.

The other toreros search the perimeter but the beast is nowhere to be found. It is as if it disappeared out of thin air. They decide to pay less mind to the bull’s whereabouts and concentrate on making sure Aleandro stays alive. His body is lifted and taken to a local hospital.

The doctors and nurses rush to stop the bleeding on his shoulder but also notice bones pulverized to dust within the twisted muscles of his pelvis and right leg. Aleandro wakes and screams again, but this time because of all the excruciating pain.

His veins raise and thicken. The Holter monitor goes haywire, beeping fast but irregularly. His heart beats so hard and loud the medical staff observes as it wants to pop out of his chest. It is a bizarre scene. They try to pin him down as he convulses vigorously. His right arm hits one of the nurses with incredible power, her body flying off in the air hitting the wall next to her, knocking different trays with drugs and surgical tools all over the floor. As they all struggle to contain the situation the head doctor instructs the rest to administer Benzodiazepine, with a slightly higher dose than the norm. The convulsions stop but he loses consciousness and goes into cardiac arrest. The doctors continue to try to resuscitate him but the surroundings fade to black.

It is all pitch black and nothing can be heard but the echoes of his own voice. “Hello? Where am I?.. What happened?” he asks, trying to come to his senses. He walks around. He can see himself in the third person while seeing what is in front of him at the same time. He sees an orb and closes to it. He sees moving images and he concentrates on them trying to make out what they are showing. It is a memory of him and his girlfriend Isabella.

“Aleandro, please listen to me. We cannot use our savings to buy that car. Please stop being so selfish. The car is not important.”

“Don’t you ever shut up? I saved this money and I want to get the damn car. I don’t care what you think. Besides, I’m calling it an advance from the money I’m going to make from next week’s fight.”

“How can you be so careless? Why do I even bother staying? Can you answer that for me, Aleandro?”

“More questions from this woman. Why don’t you go cry to your friends.”

He pulls his head out of the orb and three more appear. The light on them draws Aleandro like a butterfly to a bug zapper and he goes to one of the neighboring orbs.

“Hey brother, let’s call it a day. I think we’ve had enough to drink tonight. Samuel can drive us home,” suggests Martin.

“I don’t want a ride from that moron. Besides, I’m good to take myself back home. Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been saying about me behind my back.”

“Hey, I don’t know what you are talking about but no one is saying anything about you, especially if I’m there to say something about it. Let me at least call Isabella and have her pick you up. You don’t want to crash your new car, do you?”

“You would love to call Isabella right now, wouldn’t you? Don’t act dumb. I know how you two look at each other when you think I’m not watching.”

“Aleandro, you are drunk and you don’t know what you are saying. None of that is true. I would never…”

“Whatever, Martin, I’m leaving this joint. Leave me the hell alone.”

He steps back from the second orb, confused, unsure if to feel like he was correct in his actions or if he was completely out of line. He shifts his head to the left, staring at the last orb. He is afraid of what he might see, but the orb has a power to it, attracting Aleandro towards it. He walks through it and experiences another reel but this time it is not a memory. This time the orb is showing him what happened, what he doesn’t know.

“Martin, thank you for saving him,” says Isabella, bawling while observing Aleandro on the ICU bed.

He is bruised all over from the car crash. The car she asked him not to buy because of the tight economic situation, the car he told her to butt off about, the car that symbolized his unwillingness to think about anyone else other than himself.

“Isabella. I am very happy to know he is going to survive this but… why do you put up with it? Don’t get me wrong, I love him like my brother, but I see how he treats you and he also now has it in his mind that you and I have something going on behind his back.”

“I know it looks bad, but I also know he has goodness in him. It is just shadowed by recent events. I know he can change back to the way he was and we can get to how things were. I have faith in him.”

“I get it. I just don’t want to see you get hurt and I don’t want him to get in any more trouble.”

“Martin, your relationship with him helps ours. Please continue to be who you are to him. Please”

“I promise I’ll stick around. I want to see you both get better too.”

Aleandro draws his head back from the third orb. While the images are causing him to think about things of his past, he also realizes that the space he finds himself in cannot just be his subconscious showing him things. There is something strange going on. Something external is showing him these things.

“What is this? Where am I? Who is doing this?”

Then he feels something looking at him but he cannot see what it is. He knows something is there but it is covering itself with the darkness of the space.

“This is not funny. I want out of here.”

He walks toward whatever is there and he hears and sees air shooting out from two adjacent holes. This makes him turn stiff. A hoof becomes visible and it starts digging. Aleandro now knows what it is. It is that forsaken bull. It bellows and charges with murderous intent at him. He is not prepared and all he can do is cross his hand in front of him and scream. *Poof* the bull disappears right before it ran Aleandro over. Suddenly a deep, unrecognizable voice starts speaking.

“You’ve been a heartless and vile person, Aleandro. You have constantly put those who love you in a bad spot and have driven most who care away from you. This is good for me though. I have been searching for someone like you for a long, long time and finally met you. Well, we never actually met but, even though I’ve taken this form, I still have my consciousness and while I still exist, I refuse to die. That is why I am passing my curse to you. I was once a terrible person, just like you. And just like I am doing to you now, the curse that turned me into a damn bull was given to me. You see, it can only be passed to another with absolutely no hope of changing. Those who remain around you believe you will change but we both know this will never happen. In three nights total, you will become what I am now and I will be free. Last night counted as the first. Tick Tock, Aleandro, Tick Tock. Time is running out.”

The voice starts laughing maniacally, in the evilest way. Aleandro regains his consciousness and screams again, leaps off the hospital bed, runs, and uses his body to break the glass of a window and jump through it. The hospital staff, guards, and both Isabella and Martin run after him but they cannot find him. He has disappeared, just like the bull did at the arena.

Four days later, Martin and Isabella ride around in his car, with the faintest hope of finding Aleandro. They pass a beautiful field with some hills, and on top of the tallest one, under an old tree, there is a bull.

“That bull looks just like the one Aleandro fought but it's not ,” he tells her, but her mind is too deep in her thoughts.

Martin gently puts his hand over her hand on top of her thigh. She is startled by this but looks at him and sees the goodness in him. She blushes and smiles at him. He smiles back.

In the background, He, now turned beast, sheds a tear. Outside he acts just like a domesticated farm animal but inside his head, within his consciousness, he is still Aleandro. He is now a prisoner of this curse and he knows that he will be captured by people and if he does anything strange, anything out of the ordinary, he will be put down in one of many horrible ways, like any other farm or ranch animal.