The Trike Returns:
Root
Vanitha Sankaran
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Pamplona
I am standing in the crowd. The air is electric; the people are charged. The music is loud, and the sangria flowing. Someone pushes me. I smile back. We are all compadres today.
I look at the sky. I wonder what she will witness. My gaze falls to a man further up the street. He is dressed in white, with a red sash in one hand, a rolled up newspaper in the other. He is unremarkable. He is my hero. The first rocket fires. The man doesn't flinch. The second follows. He still stands unconcerned. A dull roar builds in the distance.
The man starts running, casual at first, then picking up speed. The bulls are right behind him. The crowd is eager for lust and blood. I see only the man, the sheen of his muscles, the hand's-breadth that separates yellow horn from brown skin. The power of his chasers is awesome.
He beats his newspaper against their heads. They inch closer. I don't know who to root for. Man against beast, naked power against fearless bravery. Will he make it? Should he make it? I cannot choose, there is no time. The bulls are headed my way.
~Vanitha Sankaran
Vanitha Sankaran is a fiction writer and an editor for the literary e-zine, flashquake. Her recent work can be found in Eleven Bulls, Fiction Inferno, Midnight Mind and others. Email.
© 2002 by Vanitha Sankaran. All Rights Reserved.
© Copyright 2002 by Cayuse Press. All Rights Reserved.
This page updated August 31, 2002.