The Raging Bull

The front door slammed open with an irritable sounding ‘thud’. They forgot to pick me up...again. A teen that bore more of a resemblance to a wet cat than a person stalked in, tracking muddy footprints through the house with each sodden step.

Normally this would have provoked a sound scolding from her mom and a judgmental look from her dad, urging her to clean her mess. Things hadn't been normal with her family for a while now though, and her small act of defiance was met with nothing but distant yells and thuds emanating from her parents room. The unfortunate teen, whose name happened to be Anna, rolled her eyes and sighed exasperatedly.

“Annnnd they're fighting again...shocker.” She muttered bitterly, her dark eyes coming to rest upon a poorly made mug with three misshapen handles on it. (“So we can all drink it together!” A much younger Anna exclaimed with a gap-toothed grin.) Anna scrunched up her nose at the saccharine memory, turning abruptly away from the mug and trudging down the hall to her room. Everything was so great back then. The exhausted teen mused as she laid in her bed, not even bothering to change out of her soaked clothes. The shouting from across the hall abruptly increased in volume and Anna grimaced, popping in her headphones and turning the music as loud as it would go. What changed? Was her last thought before sleep took her, worn out from walking the two miles from her school in the torrential rain. Though she slept deeply, Anna’s dreams were anything but pleasant.

The rain pounding on their tin roof was what woke her, her earbud blaring tinny music from where it had fallen in her sleep. Anna rubbed sleep from her eyes, listening closely, but all she could hear was the rain and the sound of her own breathing.

“So what did they just leave? Without even checking on their kid? Stellar parenting, 10/10.” She muttered under her breath sarcastically. The sharp needle of irritation pricked at her, worsening her already foul mood. Anna shook her head pushing the familiar feeling away, knowing that if she copped an attitude later it would just be another thing for her parents to argue over. What was the use of getting angry anyway? It's not like it would make any difference.

Suddenly, an ominous rumbling began to emanate from her closet, the door shuddering violently as if some great force was pushing against it from within. There was a horrific crack as the door gave way and Anna jumped screeching from her bed as the closet door was reduced to splinters by the horns of the rampaging bull that was, apparently, trapped inside.

Her first thought, absurdly, was of how something so ridiculously immense could have possibly fit in her modestly sized closet. Anna had seen bulls on T.V. of course, who hadn't? But a screen cannot properly express just how massive something truly is, as she was discovering first hand. The Bull’s hooves pawed at the carpet as it’s bulging muscles twitched and strained under its sweat-slick fur. She even thought she could smell it, the pungent musky odor reminding her of her uncle's stables. Just as that thought crossed her mind, Anna met the Bull's eyes; black as the void and filled with rage. This was a mistake as the Bull immediately lowered its head and charged leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.

Anna tried to run but her room was pretty small without an uninvited guest the size of a bull and the enclosed space provided little to no shelter. Anna’s last look before she was trampled was of the bull’s maddened eyes, dark and still as pond at night.

Anna awoke with an aborted scream in her throat and tears in her eyes. “What was that? A nightmare?” she asked her empty room rhetorically, her voice hoarse from sleep. She impatiently dashed the tears from her reddened eyes and hurriedly stood from her bed, looking nervously in her closet for any belligerent bovines but thankfully there was none to be found.

At the sound of the knob clicking, Anna turned her attention to the entrance of her room where her mom stood in the doorway. “You’re home from school late, why didn't you take the bus if it was raining? You're soaking wet!”

The school recently changed the bus routes so they no longer come this far out of their jurisdiction. Anna had told her parents this when they first implemented the change. Reminding them multiple times when she was forgotten at school. Anna smiled, the expression sitting strangely on her face, It must have just slipped her mind...again. “It’s okay Ma, I wanted the exercise.” Her mother’s frown deepened, the worry lines becoming more prominent. “Well next time you ‘want some exercise’ make sure to call me or...your father beforehand. What if something had happened?”

Anna simply nodded her assent, biting her tongue hard enough to taste copper. The image of the seven unanswered calls to her mom’s cell earlier fresh in her mind's eye. She entertained the thought of bringing it up but as she did her gaze fell upon her mom’s haggard features, worn from stress and all of her angry words dried up. Her smile felt like plastic on her face, garish and fake. She was sure any moment her mom would see right through it like the paper thin disguise it was and ask her what was wrong but the moment never came. As her mom went on to let her know they'd be having leftovers for dinner again Anna nodded and smiled, feeling impossibly alone even though there was someone right next to her.

Each night when Anna went to sleep the Bull was in her dreams waiting patiently. Chasing her through endless hallways, each more narrow than the last to reach the inevitable conclusion. Each day the bags under her eyes got darker as her shoulders slumped more and more. There was no respite in the waking world either, the Bull an ever present shadow in the corner of her eye. Clomping down the halls of her school, looming over the shoulder of her teacher as he lectured; there was no escape anywhere she went.

Anna’s twitchy demeanor did not go unnoticed by her friends and they questioned her sudden change in behavior. She brushed them off not wanting to burden them with her issues. Doing the same to one of her more perceptive teachers who had noticed her grades slipping recently.

At the end of the week as her call to her dad’s cell rang out without answer for the fourth time, she sighed and began her two mile trek home. Each step jostling the newly formed blisters on her heels from excessive walking in her beat up converse. A car drove by, for a second it took the shape of a bull and she flinched away in panic, terror overtaking her worn features. It was nothing. Anna assured herself as she rubbed her eyes. Just a car.

Her blisters throbbed with each step, irritation frothing up from where she bottled it, her fear stirring it to new heights with the intangible Bull stalking her steps like a threatening ever present shadow. By the time she reached her doorstep Anna was inches from bursting into tears from the sheer frustration. Why wouldn't the damn thing just leave her alone? She sighed. At least today can't get any worse.

As soon as she opened her front door Anna was met with a wall of noise, her parents were arguing again in the living room this time. She immediately cursed herself for tempting fate as her parents turned their attention towards her.

“And just where have you been, young lady? I told you to call me when you wanted to stay late. So inconsiderate, she must have gotten it from her father.”

“But Ma I di-”

“Well I just hope you’re happy with the example you’re giving our kid.” Her mother continued her tirade, over-speaking Anna.

“Going out at all hours of the night, that's why she thinks it's okay-”

“Who would want to be here with you anyway, this house is a prison and you’re the warden.” Anna’s dad cut in angrily, smirking at his wife’s outraged expression. “Good for Annie for not having to be around you!”

“How dare you-”

“CAN YOU BOTH JUST STOP!” There was a loud ‘crash’ as Anna flung the three handled mug that her younger self had worked so hard on into the window, shattering the glass into hundreds of shards.

In the largest of the shards Anna saw her own eyes reflecting back at her, dark and livid. Then the light shifted and it was the Bull looking back at her. Or was it the other way around?

Anna’s breaths started to come in gasps as she came to the horrifying realization that she and the Bull were one and the same. Tears welled up in her eyes. All of her anger, hurt and frustration towards her parents that she kept bottling up had taken the form of the Raging Bull. Literally chasing her down until Anna confronted her issues directly.

“Anna what-”

“I told you both weeks ago that the buses don't come here anymore!”

“I don’t rem-”

“AND I’ve been calling you both non-stop when I was left at school but neither of you ever answered because you’re both too busy arguing!”

“Annie sweetie-”

“Why don’t- why don’t you-” Anna’s outburst devolved into tearful sobbing, her small shoulders hunched forward and shaking.

Both of her parents exchanged a deeply concerned look, on the same page for once as they knelt down and embraced their daughter.

“Annie, sweetheart, we're both very sorry for how things have been recently.” Her mom said solemnly as she stroked her hair, her dad nodded firmly in agreement.

“Our...issues with our marriage doesn't mean we love you any less.” Her dad asserted as he rubbed her back, soothing her as she cried. “From this point forward I think that we as a family should attend counseling during the duration of our divorce, so your mom and I don't make a mistake like this again.” He said sincerely as her mom nodded her assent. Anna relaxed in her parent’s arms as her eyes focused on their reflection in the window. The Bull was gone.