The bull spent his lonely days in his pasture bordering a quiet country road. His heart longed to be free, but at every turn were clear boundaries. The memory of each one was burned into his flesh. There was no escape. Stray too far afield and… Pain.
When he saw her then, walking along outside the boundary, as if freedom were a thing to be taken for granted, his heart filled with pure unadulterated hatred. He longed to charge the fence, break through it, gore and trample her… But he stood still. He was powerless, without hope. He knew himself only as a prisoner, a victim.
The woman walked slowly, watching him, as he watched her. He had the strangest sense that she could feel his wrath through the buzzing of the electric fence. Her innate fear was palpable, but there was something else. He felt it wash over him, like a wave… Love.
She stopped and smiled. She had received his hatred and sent back love and understanding. He felt, in a flash, her own sense of helplessness and then, a change, an opening… An idea, “We’re both trapped in this system until we have the courage to face the pain and break free.” She looked straight at him and he saw himself, breaking through the pain, through the fence into the unknown… Perhaps a complete and utter failure, leading to his death, but also, perhaps, something else. Something new and free…
“Only you can choose for you, just like I can only choose for me.” She gave him one last look, one last smile and began walking again, the new lightness in her step, echoing the new lightness in the air between them. He watched her for a long time as she meandered away into the cold darkness, the mist from her breath trailing behind her.
Perhaps tomorrow he would make a different choice…
Natolie Webb 