Another picture prompt, this time from Nicole. I'm not sure if it's the building or the flowers on the window sill or simply the calm and quiet ambience of this picture, but I just couldn't resist...
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“The gate opened and the most beautiful bull I had ever seen ran wild, like a raging storm in the night. The matador stood still, studying the bull’s every move. The crowd waited in bated breath. The silence was deafening; you could almost hear a pin drop. The bull circled around, in search of something. The matador blocked its every move, and before it found its querencia, he moved in and pierced the bull’s neck with his sword.”
“What’s querencia?” Jack asked, his eyes wide.
“That is the spot where the bull feels safe yet is most dangerous. Every matador knows he shouldn’t let the bull find this place or he faces great danger,” Tom explained.
“Can I watch? Please?” Jack pleaded, even if he knew he couldn’t.
“Maybe in five years,” Tom smiled, ruffling his son’s hair, “we’ll come back and you can watch all the bullfights you want.”
Jack sulked. He threw the Island Escape puzzle on the floor. He had wanted it for his birthday but as he heard more stories about bullfights in Madrid, he suddenly lost his desire for it.
“¡Devuélvamelo, es lo mío!”
“No, lo conseguí primero. ¡Es lo mío! Los encargados de los descubridores.”
Jack heard voices outside and wondered what the scuffle was about. He went to the balcony of their hotel room and looked outside. He saw two boys, both in dirty rags, arguing.
“¡Pero lo vi primero!”
“Bien, usted no era bastante rápido.”
“What is it, Jack?” Tom asked, following his son to the balcony. At the sight of the kids fighting, Tom immediately dismissed them and asked Jack to go back inside.
“What are they fighting about, Dad?” Jack asked.
“Those are street urchins. Madrid is full of them. Better stay away or they’ll follow you wherever you go,” Tom explained.
“Why? They’re just kids... like me,” Jack was insistent.
“They’re not like you. They live on anything, like a country mouse. They beg and prowl on tourists to be their Saviour for the day.”
“I don’t understand...” Jack walked back to the balcony. Again, Tom followed.
“See what the taller boy's doing?” Tom pointed as the older boy pleaded with a young lady to give him some coins.
When the lady stopped to talk to him, the younger one slipped his hand in her purse and expertly took a thick wad of Euros.
“Uh-oh,” Jack was stunned, “They’re stealing from her!”
“That’s what they do,” Tom said, shaking his head, “while the bull looks for its querencia, the matador moves for the kill. Remember, Jack. When you think you are safe, it is also where you can be at the greatest danger.”
“I get it! It’s like that verse I heard at church,"Jack’s eyes beamed. "Many enemies surround me like bulls; they are all around me,” he happily recalled what the priest had said.
Tom proudly placed his arm around Jack. “You wanted to watch a bullfight, son? There’s your fight down there. It’s enough for now.”
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