The Bully.

Sharp pain in my right ear woke me up. I reached for the ear in question and felt a tag on it like I was an endangered animal and they were keeping a record. My face was in a field of grass and it is dark outside; midnight, if I had to guess a time of day. Now on my feet but feeling woozy and the smell of feces is making me want to vomit. There have to be multiple cuts and bruises on me because I have pains all over my body. I step forward with my left foot and the movement triggers a field light to brighten a section of the field or forest; another field light turns on and then another in succession, 10 lights in total. The lights were arranged in a criss-cross fashion on the field, each light shone on a small barn. I was at the head of a 10-barn farm.

I am standing in the shadows of the lights waiting for the next thing to happen, I begin to inspect the area and my eyes find the guard rails; at this point, I am not sure if they are guarding animals or prisoners. There are three huge steel rods that are separated by small electroshock wires. The railing wrapped all the way around the farm and stood about six feet high. I was the sitting duck. I take one step forward and hear rumbling in one of the barns. My eye direction south, the rumbling came from barn six. All of the lights have dimmed and the light that was focused on barn six has gotten brighter. The rumbling gets louder and the barn doors fly open, releasing a pissed-off American Brown Swiss bull.

The Taurus is LIVID, beyond rage. He is still bucking even while being in the open dirt. I recognize the bull is male from the massive horns, point tip massive horns. My only hope of not being torn to shreds is banking on the bull’s anger stemming from elongated close captivity and not a man-made concoction. The big guy makes a few turns as if he is trying to locate himself; he finally stumbles his eyes onto me. It was basically smoke that came out his nose, that fire-the anger that filled him now had a source. I turned to him, presented my full body in front of the bull while crouching; he blew his smoke again, I took three quick steps towards him, I had to move before he decided to charge me. I would have known if he was gonna charge me by the winding kicks and the tail swipes. After a few more steps towards him, I was able to get him to switch from aggressive offense to aggressive defense, which he indicated by taking two steps back and retro haling. Luckily, I was raised with bulls.

This bull is prideful; he demands control of this unknown situation. I am a barn away from him now which is the SAFEST place to be just in case I need to dodge. I am assuring him that he is in control, he huffs and I respond with a slow bow. He huffed again and I bowed again. “We are okay, I don’t know where we are but we are okay..”, I explain slowly to him while rubbing my hands in front of my chest, a breathing tactic. I can tell that his rage is beginning to settle; he is still not my bull so I won’t be safe until I am far away from him. Suddenly, an alarm went off and red lights on top of the barns were flashing. The bull started back bucking and something in the first barn is rattling something crazy. I turn my back to the bull to see what caused the rattle, and a grizzly bear was charging out of the barn doors. I know nothing about bears.