The Day the Bulls Chased Bears

Jason saunters into the festival hall, his right hand jammed into his pants pocket, jingling a fistful of coins. The rest of us swagger in behind him, super-cool, super-casual, showing our moves and our disdain for the snowflakes awaiting their turn to perform.

We are Bear-hunting, gonna skin some Bears. We show no fear, we take no shit, the world is ours. We are the Bloody Bulls.

Ten feet in, Jase frees his hands and stops. He gestures left and right, telling us to spread out. We move as he directs, stepping three feet apart into a line of solid menace across the back of the hall. We raise our horns, each a foot of curved, razor-sharp steel on either side of a leather-bound handle. With these, we will slash and stab and gore. We are the Bloody Bulls.

Jase looks around, I think in confusion. We had been told that the Killer Bears had been working security at the festival, and we'd come to make the point that they don't work on our turf. But all we can see is little kids and parents and music teachers at a piano recital.

We've been silent so far, and everybody is watching some little twat play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. But when she finishes she stands up to bow and sees us at the back, all evil grins and flashing steel, and she gives this little hiccup-shriek and hides under the piano. The whole crowd turns, gasps, half-stands. Then it hits the fan, with curses and squeals and screams and scrambling bodies and falling chairs.

Suddenly some old biddy slips onto the piano seat and bangs the keys and these huge dramatic chords swell out and she's playing this dark, dramatic thing - dum da dum da dum-dum-dum, dum-dum-dum, dum-dum-dum* - and the crowd just kind of freezes, watching us warily.

Now, Jace, he's a ham, and so he starts marching to this music, head up, chest out, like it's the Imperial March and he's Darth fucking Vader. He motions us into line and we march behind him up the aisle, leering at the ladies and slashing our horns at the snowflakes who shrink away from us in terror. Fucking-A. We are the Bloody Bulls.

As we walk through the hall, the music gets faster and higher, the pianist still banging away for all she's worth, and the music makes me think of hurricanes and dungeons and trolls digging for diamonds in dark tunnels. At the top of the aisle, Jase motions us to split left and right around the outside of the hall while he stands there, a king surveying his subjects. The music gets even faster, even higher, more broken and discordant and I think of trolls rioting against their masters and slaughter and fire and blood. The music drives us down along the walls and people cringe from us into the center of the hall. As the last dramatic chords sound, Jase strides down the aisle to join us at the back.

"Face the snowflakes," he whispers in the sudden silence. "Bow". We do, jabbing and waving our horns as viciously as we can.

To my amazement, people applaud like crazy. I mean, they fucking stand up and clap their hands. Snowflakes are nuts. They think it's part of the show. We should have cut a bunch just for fun.

Jason leads us out of the festival hall...right into a forest of Killer Bears. I'm not sure who was most surprised, them or us, but we're armed and we're already moving so we give our war bellow, raise our horns and charge in slashing. Do Bears shit in the woods? I dunno, but they sure as fuck shit in their pants!

We show no fear, we take no shit, the world is ours. We are the Bloody Bulls.


Written--as are most of my Writer's Cramp items--just for fun, straight through in 40 minutes with no edits until later. 639 Words

* Enjoy the music at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSY-wD4l5DM