The goring, the work of Fernando Botero, 1988. Source
A few days ago I went fishing and I found a huge bull eating on the river bank. In front of that presence I felt a little afraid, but noticing that it was just a peaceful giant, I stayed calm in that place, where I sat down to cast the hook with the help of my rod. After a while I felt as if they were watching me and I noticed that it was the bull that was staring at me while chewing the cud. In that he told me:
-Good afternoon sir.
I was deeply surprised and for a moment I thought I was going crazy. But the animal insisted:
-Good afternoon. You are not mute, are you?
"Good afternoon," I replied. No not at all. I rather think that I am too talkative.
-I think that if he throws the line towards where those rocks are, he will do better.
I listened to him and indeed. There he bit the first trout of the afternoon. I dragged the fish to shore, took a picture of it, and returned it to the water.
"I don't understand," said the bull. It is supposed to be fished to eat.
-Not necessarily. This is called sport fishing. If in the future I want to have fish to catch, the proper thing is that I leave them alive. And if I want to eat fish, there are fishmongers for that.
"Oh, I didn't know," said the bull.
-And what are you doing here?
-I'm a royal bull. A few days ago I ran away from the farm where I lived because I felt that they despised me.
-Their owners did wrong. They should have left him as a stallion.
-They have other bulls. They said that I had genetic problems and that I was not good at bullfighting, perhaps because I am cross-eyed, nearsighted and too fat.
-Well, you better not go to finish for steak in the middle of a bullring.
-Precisely. I was close to kicking the bucket in the bullring. It turns out that because I was cross-eyed I saw the bullfighter double and I took him ahead. His name was Toribio de La Chancleta. The great Toribio they called him.
-Oh yeah. I read the news in the newspaper. I saw the photo of the bullfighter's corpse, but I didn't see blood on it.
-Apparently he died of fright. He had a heart attack when I headbutted him. It was that the guy was fat as a pig, with triglycerides and blood pressure at a million.
-He was not going to be fat, if he was one of the mobsters of the gasoline smuggling.
-Well, I left him dead on the sand and the most curious thing was that nobody applauded me. On the contrary, the public was enraged and shouted: Give me back the dollar! Give me back the ticket! Then all those in charge of the bullring ran away scared and left me there alone.
Did no one applaud? -asked-. But let me applaud you, because you deserve it.
-No man. I don't want applause. I am satisfied with living in peace in the middle of the mountain. After all, around these parts food is free and plentiful.
That's when I pulled out another trout, as big as the previous one. But before returning it to the river I kissed it.
"Life and liberty are priceless," said the bull. The world needs many people like you.
-Not so much, Mr. Bull. Nothing is perfect. Everyone walks with their sins on their shoulders.
-And speaking of sins, the old man who was my owner, a man of almost ninety years old, said not long ago: "Because of this stupid bull, now I feel as if I had a dead person on me." And the grandson who was next to him said: “Undoubtedly, grandfather. You carry a dead person on top. But for that they are not going to put him in jail."
Forget about those people. Enjoy and live free for the rest of your years. That they raise you with the aim of ending up in the middle of a horrible and bloody death, that does not make sense.
-I think it is true. But the most appropriate thing is that one should not be in a place where they do not want it.
-That makes me remember the years in which I lived close to my mother-in-law. I felt that they were looking at me like a chicken in salt. That's why it's better that you ran away. And you didn't leave a girlfriend over there?
-Yeah. I had an intense relationship with Lola the cow.
-And then what happened?
-Everything went down for a matter of horns.