Morante didn’t have to jolt his cape-holding hands and huff to make this bull charge. Six harpoon banderillas in the beast’s flanks only magnified its willingness to fight. It straight-line charged, head steady, perfect for skillful killers.
Morante had already received official recognition from the bullfight’s president for a fine performance on his first bull. Two such recognitions in Madrid on the same day only happened about every two thousand bullfights. It meant being carried from the ring amid admirers. Morante had never received that homage in Madrid.
Now, he thought, is the time.
Six-hundred-and-thirty-kilos of horned hazard, sprinting at him from thirty meters, blasted tranquillity from the silence. Calmness before fast danger creates amazement. Only moving his cape-controlling hand, Morante watched the bull rushing past. Invisible water cascaded from an arena-sized throat.
The puffing bull stood still watching pendulum red swinging behind Morante’s arching back. Blending bull with red heightened hopes of seeing history. Witnessing history reveals life’s glamour.
Morante’s dark face and long sideburns resembled Dracula’s. His dark-blue suit enhanced that legend of a king who hunted glory by administering death. Pursuing glory by administering death is humanity’s story.
The cape-pursuing bull orbited Morante. Minimal Morante effort yielded smooth taurine arcs. The arena-sized throat roared.
The bull’s courage crushed concerns caused by being before a strange humanoid insect with an elusive red wing. It charged that wing with the same gusto shown when charging into the ring ignorantly fifteen minutes before. Strange beings wounding it only magnified its determination to kill.
Morante made peril grace. Front hooves rose, horns pursuing ascending red. Sharp-tipped, keratin-coated bone missed Morante by inches. The arena-sized throat depicted falling fluid. Morante raised a triumphant fist, the bull oblivious that glory awaited it. The more remarkable things are remembered, the more life we have. The bull, unconscious of history, unconsciously approached greatness.
You could only hear hand-held fans swishing as Morante raised the killing sword. A bird’s shadow swept over the ring’s solitary man. The open roof exposed eternity, exactly what the crowd hoped to see below. They wanted to feel what Morante wished to feel. They sought the affirmation Morante pursued. They sought exaltation by seeing successful risk-taking, to make that success partly theirs. They sought surrogate glory, a life made worthwhile, if only fleetingly.
Morante placed red against his left shoulder while turning to face the threat front on. The sword, like an electrified fang, gleamed gold in the arena’s lights. The silence reflected early, metaphysics-free, geological epochs. Anticipation roared silently above that ethics-free quietude.
The bull attacked. Left-hand-held cape fell across Morante’s body, attracting the horns. Morante’s right hand plunged steel into the hide near the bull’s spine. Only the hilt protruded from the bull. Thunderous gratification erupted from the arena-sized throat.
Morante’s raised, right-hand fingers flickered before jittery, misaligned hooves. Increasingly thin-looking legs sustained a wobbling weight that looked increasingly heavy. Finger flickering, anticipating death, fell with the bull’s collapse.
Waving white scarves in spectator fingertips implored the bullfight’s president to award Morante the ear that would create history. People screamed, incensed the president had not reacted. The president faced his advisor.
“The sword just missed the right place,” the advisor said, “but give it to him because everything else was so perfect.”
Belting delectation roared from the arena-sized throat when the president’s white scarf touched the presidential box’s balustrade, indicating an ear be cut.
Morante buried his face in his sword handler’s left shoulder. Tears streamed from Morante’s eyes. Last time in Madrid he got booed for alleged cowardice.
Six red-shirted men attached the bull to a harness connected to six horses that leather straps connected together into three rows of two. The crowd’s standing ovation wasn’t just for Morante. They accoladed the bull as the horses dragged it from the ring. Its bravery had helped Morante fulfill a dream.
One noble being had consciously achieved glory in life, the other unconsciously in death.