x Tx: Billie the Bull

The retaliation at the park wasn’t so much revenge as it was a reckoning.

In her grief, Billie got big.

So big.

When the attack came, it was fist in glove; her mother’s blood fighting to adhere her to some maternal semblance of sanity. There was a halting, prey not preying, but enough release that brought the terror she wanted. Needed. The bull, unafraid. She drank the fear from them, nourishing her loss. In the end, it filled nothing. She left as empty as when she came.

Billie got big.

The children ran, this time, from her. Finger guns empty and clawing. For once the mothers took care. Now suddenly concerned for the feelings of the giant, they screamed and ran to gather their own.

Billie plucked and placed, laughing at their horror. She relished the stirring that unleashed from every part of her, an unburying. Where one ran, Billie stomped and stopped, every hiding place gutted with a swift pull from Billie’s fists, scattering children running like bugs. Her feet kicked the equipment, crushed the benches, tore the trees.

“WHERE IS MY SON?!”

Her roar, a mother’s roar among the roar of mothers.

When all was ruined and the war had been won, Billie fell exhausted among the wreckage. Her tired, her weakness, her sweat, her sorrow, watching them run with theirs. The exhaustion reminded her of the aftermath of her growings; how they’d leave her completely broken and vulnerable with weakness. How her mother tried so hard to hold her strong there, and how her mother failed.

How Billie had failed her mother.

Young Billie knew that any more length would mean that there would be no place for her, so she had tried to hold back the growing, that time. Had fought to contain it. Willing her bones to comply, her muscles to retract, her skin to be strong. Not only to keep her in a home but to protect her mother. But her mother could not contain the unbridled strength of Billie’s growing and Billie’s attempt to shut it down was futile. Her flailings crushed; spasms killed; her horror devastated.

She was chased out. The forest. The punishings. Her penance. Her sorrow.

Splayed across the wreckage of the park, in the new horror of her now. The absence in her heart. Tiny screams fading into the dawn, the bull within her rested with slim satisfaction.

The news of the park finds the Finderman, and the Finderman finds Billie. The church is old, abandoned and burned. Inside, he discovers her; broken and weak with grieving.

He tells her, in his softest voice. She simply nods.

“So, you will come with me now, without a fight?”

“I have no fight left, and you have my son.”

The Finderman motions towards the smaller one, who lies still, eyes blank, on a dirty blanket.

“What about him?”

“He can stay. He can belong anywhere.”

The Finderman wrestles his hands, weighs the strength of his feet, nods.

They go.

She wakes (or she does not) in a dream room (or is it real) and she thinks of her mother (and winces, her father) because that was the last time her feet ever fit into a bed, and yet, here she was.

Billie does not want to wake from the dream room, so she keeps her head still and only explores with her eyes. Yes, those lumps under the pink comforter are her feet and yes, the comforter runs all the way up to her neck, and yes, she feels the pillow beneath her head. (The smell of lavender. Her fists curl the sheets tight and squeezing; the taut bunching of her muscles slightly edging out the disappointment of slumber.

Billie releases the sheets and snakes her hands up. When they reach the air, she throws the covers back. They flip and fall soft; the air brushes with lavender again. She sees herself covered, comfortable, in the cleanest gown that fits her like a little girl. She gasps, pulling her breath into a smile that she is not aware of. A gown! Lace! Delicate embroidery across the bodice. Her hands feel and fawn. She remembers her dolls.

Her eyes roam. There are paintings on the wall, big enough that she can name the eye colors of the people depicted within them, and yes, she can tell that if she were to remove herself from this dream bed and stand on the dream floor of the dream room, the paintings would be level with her eyes. No need to position herself like a dog to admire them. Yes, this is a wonder, she thinks.

Furniture! She accepts the dream for real, trusts and jumps. The floor takes her feet and the dream room remains. A step. Real. Another step. Real. The plush of the carpet accepts the crush of her feet without a single creak or groan. She can see the weave. And now the couch. And now the chairs. The table. The fireplace. All of this that pulled her from the bed, she explores it all with the excitement of a child.

How does she know she is not dreaming? Perhaps she has grown small in her slumber? Or did everything else grow big? She looks for flaws, but cannot find any. The logs in the fireplace fill its hearth, without excessive numbers. The couch is not many put together, but one. She sees its seams, its bulk. Its solidity. She tries and cannot lift it. The table! The chairs! Billie runs from one to the next, jumping onto, lying on. She sits in the chair, can almost swing her legs. Swing her legs!

There is a music box and a mirror. The underside has a knob that fits fine with her fingers. She turns. It plays. Her eyes dim in the dream that is not a dream. She spins around and around, hands holding her gown out and away. The mirror tells her she is a regular woman. She dwarfs nothing in its image. All around her a stature she knew so long ago. She spins and begins to hum.

From behind the mirror, The Collector sweats, overwhelmed.

(Normally it takes the matador 2–3 stabs with the sword before the bull is killed; puncturing and slicing the bull’s heart and lungs, which result in the bull vomiting large amounts of blood while the matador’s cape unfurls and furls to the crowd’s encouraging cheers.)

“I have tried and failed to leave things behind in my life; painful memories of things that can never be changed and thus are rendered useless but carried along by me like little burdens. They are heavy, they are many and they stab. In my trying I continue to fail. The fear of the bull still stirs the anger I can never fully release. One might say that you can never leave these sorts of things behind; that the scars they made are permanent. Scars that stay with you no matter if you choose to leave them where they lay, or if you hold them tight so they can remind you of what they make you think you are. Maybe these things can never be completely left behind, but perhaps in the trying you are lessening the weight of the burden they bring. You are fighting. Forever fighting. Futile and tiring but persistent; at the least, an attempt, an effort. Good intentions. Some of the things I have left behind are recent and tangible; that’s true. And yes, this brings regret, but there are choices made in life that are not easy; perhaps made easier by having a lack of choice. For example, when your Finderman came to bring me here, I had no choice but to go with him. What else could I do? You had my son. Leaving behind the smaller one was less of a choice and more a result of the lack thereof; difficult made easy. But was it? Yes, I have regret; after all, he was my son, no matter the resentment or the burden he brought. His perfect size, the world so easy for him; I have no worry that he will find his way. I gave him less love so there would be less loss; a tiny suffering so that he would never suffer the way I did, the way I will never let my larger one suffer. I am not the mother for that one. I never was. He should’ve gone with the filth in the river. Or inside me, his brother should’ve taken every bit of him as I took from the ones I grew alongside; absorbing the entire essence and not just enough to leave a meager boy. These are not a mother’s words and I see how your face has changed. But how can you judge anything of mine without condemning yourself? Taking, always taking no matter the cost. These, what you call, “playtimes”, in which you do all the playing and I am simply forced; the weight of my larger one the chip of bargain; the shame it brings. But, no matter, as it is what you want, right? Only your wants matter, yes? I am simply one of your many things. Things. This land so full of them. Does it even end? What can you do with it all? Is it simply to fill your endless need? Do not answer. I do not care. No matter. I understand you. I know what it is to want. To want and want and want, but I only know the never getting; the never full, the empty, the void. The cape that brings anger that wants to stir the bull. The cape that urges the bull to lift its head, level its horns and target its captors. My wanting never fulfilled. You would never know this feeling, or maybe in your endlessness you do; your bottomless pit; your scroll that never fills. You talk of your dreams of women like me. Do you not think I have had my own dreams?