Bulls of Spain

Piercing creak of floor boards sang through the hall as old man Aaron, buried alone in an unstable cabin of rotten, damp planks, paced up and down the gloomy room with arms crossed and united behind his back, as most old people relentlessly tread in pensive, forlorn moments of isolation.

As snow hurled down ceaselessly, while frigid air slashed the cabin walls and seeped through stacked moss amid wall logs, Aaron reflected on most distant, nostalgic and painful memories.

He glanced at a gleaming blade of a royal sabre that was hung on the wall, sign of his father's bravery proved in war, bravery that provided nothing to Aaron and a war that meant nothing to the lone one old man.

"Leaving your family and taking a bullet to head. What bravery that is!", Aaron exclaimed silently to himself, bitter with his father's 'glorious' death. He then proceeded with further observation of wall relics and comprehended a pair of boxing gloves hanging hoisted on a rusty nail. These leather gloves, cracked and wrinkled from excessive use, belong to Henry, Aaron's son. Aaron, upon heeding these gloves, sighed deeply, visible indignation in his every move as he grasped the gloves and felt the letter squeak under his fingers. Under the gloves there gleamed a letter framed in glass.

Dear Father,

How are you old man? I heard you bought some cabin far into forest. Go have some good time sometimes, don't be there alone. I found a good hotel, cheap. I'm training diligently, and yesterday I won my first battle. You should have seen blood and teeth over the ring. I'm telling you, there's something here, and coach says I'm by far the best boxer he had ever seen.

Your son, Henry.

Aaron sighed again, and found no consolation or cordial words for which he so longed, and with his weary eyes continued further scrutinization over the wall.

Next to the gloves, there stood a portrait of a young woman, Aaron's wife. Unexplainable pain engulfed his should as he glanced at the dazzling visage of that young lady. Those fervent eyes and a smile glaring above all, 'how mesmerizing!' - thought Argon, a searing pain lacerating his heart.

Enveloping his weary body in a rustling jacket, Aaron decided to go for the escape from this cabin, this forlorn cage, and venture out, where consolation could be found in many amusing matters. "I should eat something.", he thought, but no food, no matter the texture nor the lurid smell could provoke any feeling of healthy appetite, even if hunger was present. He went out and upon acquiring his dog, Griselda, ventured away into the relentless snow.

Half an hour of heavy treading through snow, and Aaron suddenly felt snow vanishing below his legs, and upon losing ground he fell and plummeted down a snowy slope, and lost conciousness upon hitting ground. Griselda, greatly terrified by the old mans desperate, falling shriek, much disturbed ran away and lost way among gloomy trees.

***

Concealed within a cloud of thick fog, walls of trees stand straight and silent. Embraced by the night, strong and colossal forest lingered dark, and no sound echoed between its rows but one: „Griselda!“, the shout rang loud and clear. 

Aaron, now when he regained his conciousness staggered heavily through snow, slow and tired, until he stumbled to a lone larch tree. He faltered and fell to the ground, scoffed and placed his back against the rugged bark of a larch. „How you doin’ old boy?“, he said and thumped the rigid monstrosity and a multitude of snowflakes vanished to wind. In the coldest hour of the bleak and long night, he longed for company above else. The tree proved nerves necessary for his trouble, with no will or wish, with life but no mind. „You’re perfect to converse with. You listen and you never complain.“, he let out a muffled chuckle.

With sharp pain still stabbed in his chest, he groaned and desperately called: „Griselda!“, but no bark echoed back to him. „She must have got scared when I fell down that slope“, he exclaimed and leaned on the quiet friend again. The large larch tree endured alone on a mound, with schools of bushes rustling on its sides, and further away patches of smaller trees abide the hostile ground. „This forest almost grows on solid rock. These trees are stronger than normal ones, yet they look the same. Can’t ever know its strength ’till you dig deep enough.“, Aaron thought as he scrutinized the environment but to no avail. Exceptional landmark worth of noticing was the larch tree, and countless roads led to it, and in the same fashion, far away. With anguish, Aaron accepted the fear he received as he acknowledged his location to be familiar, yet unknown. „You’re like Rome. All ways lead to you.“, he whispered in admiration to the monstrosity, when he nuzzled his red nose into the woolen scarf and tucked his arms in the warm, coated pockets. 

Larch plunged high and into dark, the sharp top merged to fog with its silhouette ceasing beyond the haze. Higher branches remain unseen and carry frozen snow atop on needles. Swollen roots sprout long and mighty through dirt and stone, leaving rock clusters gaze wide and receive bundles of snow.

„I’m talking to a tree. I must be freezing.“, Aaron suddenly shook and thought and felt his heart throbbing hard, and pressure slammed his ears from within. „Even if I warm up, I can’t find the way home without Griselda.“, it flew through his mind. He rubbed his hands together but still found his pockets to provide the warmest comfort. Dismay of freezing was yet to be brought upon his thoughts, with his biggest concern still the missing dog. With his faithful companion lost, the trail leading home remains unreached, with only a dim, yet uncertain, contour of the map stamped in his mind. Dark pressed from all sides and grew endless. Stars flickered countless and wind slashed sharp and bitter, squeezing tears on his eyes. He felt the bristles on his beard grow stiff and his fingers freeze to grey and hard. Chances of stumbling upon the shack he called home grew slim as dark ambushed him, and his biggest effort of getting up was a loud groan supported with a haul forward, followed with a reversed slam which resonated in a dull thump. „I felt my ribs align.“, Aaron exclaimed as his back muscles twisted.

He pushed and turned his head to the larch again and forced muttered words from his cracked lips: „I remember, sixty years ago, when I dug a tiny hole with my rusty little hoe, and planted your sapling in it. I pushed back the dirt with my rubber boots and giggled in joy. I also carved a shallow, curvy „A“ in your slender trunk, through your thin, young and green bark. I used my folding knife I secretly carried with me…always hiding it from my mother; he-he! I bet that „A“ still remains somewhere high up there, now that you’re above other trees. Everyone told me trees can’t grow on places like this, but it looks like you don’t care, do you?“ 

His thoughts continued calm and silent. „Not only that I can’t stand up anymore, but I don’t even want to do it anymore. It feels…nostalgic…to die in a place like this…“, his thoughts grew tired and drifted apart. Another one sparked in his mind, formed as an image for he was immensely tired to collect ideas together. He saw his late wife, shaking and waving like a thin branch constantly slammed by wind. He caught her smile shine in the void of his now scarred mind. Her wedding dress burned to flames and she fell to dark and vanished, all in a blink before his eyes. „Why must I think about my dead wife in my last moments? Why did she burn horribly like that...when she died in snow? Probably because she…suffered hard.“, he clung his arms to one another in despair. "And because she is buried under this tree.", he continued yet more deprived of joy.

Events of Aaron's wife disappearing made many scratch their heads, and the moment of her death remains unknown, exclude only Aaron. Prolonged whimper of that night follows through his dreams and stays along, hidden, always ready to cry anew and chill.

„Why must I think about that now, while I die?“, he thought with slight exaggeration on the state of his health. Frostbite fed slow and sure through his flesh, shredded his skin and bones, and hours could pass before it sculptures a stiff corpse from his old and weary body.

His brain grew dazed and dim, and thoughts vanished and drifted with no chance of staying.

„I’m dying…like I lived. Like…a…pathetic…coward. I’m deprived of any honor. When people…die, their body stays warm, but my corpse will…be…ice-cold. Maybe its better if I die. I caused so much pain…to others. Do i really mean that, or is it…this cold? I always desperately cling to things yet they always escape.“, Aaron closed his eyes and gave in to the silence. No strength shook his muscles and his body rested tense, yet relaxed. „I’ve got half an hour at most…and then…i wont open my eyes…ever again.“

Aaron's legs burned with pain, with a thunder of needles stabbing cold from beneath, and his lungs were hissing tight, crumpled from gelid breath. He bent his knees and tightened his cramped arms together, folded in damp sleeves causing horrific pain. No warmth remained and his limbs grew numb, and an owl hoot blew from afar along with wind.

„Why did i hide so many things?“, a thought appeared. 

Before he could faint, a glimpse of dazzling moon glaring solemnly at him from great height sparked yet another thought, or rather a collection of thoughts in a shape of verses from Aaron's favorite poem:

"In what distant deeps or skies,

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare seize the fire?"

The moon, that regal body of glittering white, smooth and cold rock, so distant yet seemed so close, resembled in its dazzling glory a faint amiable smile of Henry, Aaron's son, at least to the old, freezing man.

"Ah Henry! How have you ruined me!", he shrieked desperately, with coarse palms of his hands concealing the twisted, painful countenance confided beneath, and he continued, "Ah Henry! Why have you left us? Why? Why did you never write to us? To your old, worried man, to your desperate old mother who so much grieved after you departed. If only I had known how to console myself, or at least her! Damned be that wretched day, that cursed night when I drank so much, and when I made her drink too, as if it would soothe our sorrow. My son! The sorrow didn't dwindle, not the slightest from that bitter, cursed drink. And here...yes, exactly here!" - he confirmed as if he didn't talk to himself - "here she froze and here I buried her. And never told anyone, not even you."

The train of thoughts, in such disorder and utmost discord here flew off from its thin, fragile rails and plummeted to menacing abyss.

With eyes firmly closed and head drooped, a last dream, or rather a nightmare, appeared to him most vividly.

Forty years ago in Spain, when Aaron's poise shone with excessive vigor, when he stood strong two meters tall and when in his eyes still burned that blazing fire, that youthful enthusiasm and sense of careless adventure present in every young man's spirit, he recalled the thunderous roaring of rabid bulls emerging from behind, the tumult of the crowd and excitement of the runners escaping before the ferocious beasts in a chaotic bull-run.

There he vividly recalled running through cobblestone streets, the jumping and climbing up the ship masts all while he now sat helplessly freezing, unable to stand let alone walk or run.

His dream passed on, in all its unceasing glory and profound breath of joy, yet he still felt endless waves of sharp bull hoves digging into his back with searing stings, the hot breath emitted from wet, wide nostrils right behind his neck, the magnitude of a muscle mountain pounding right from behind, closer and closer, rushing in a rabid race of screams of both fear and joy - all after him. The Bulls of Spain, what glory, what happiness and carelessness!

"Griselda...Griselda...at least you don't have to leave me when everybody else did.", the old, weary and wretched man faintly whispered, but neither a whisper, nor a shout, not a bark came back to his frozen, strained ears.