The Raging Bull

Ethan’s family had had more than their fair share of struggles. They had started off well as his father had a good job when he married his mother. His mother herself had finished college but did not continue in the workforce as she became pregnant right away. First came his oldest brother, Pablo. Then his sister Mayra. Then his other sister Jacqueline. As his parents considered permanent forms of contraception, he was lastly conceived, unplanned. His parents began to feel the burden of their large family. His father took a second job as his mother could not continue working. Soon the everyday struggles pushed his father’s strength to its limits. One of those nights, he was so tired he fell asleep operating some machinery and had injured his back. As a result, he went on disability but what he received was not enough. His mother took care of the father at home while they were all in school. She would make dinner, then leave for a new job she got at a market. She relied on friends to help care for her kids.

One of those evenings after homework and dinner were through and before they went to bed, Ethan peeked inside his parents’ bedroom. The news was covering a tourist hot spot that stood on Broadway just north of Bowling Green in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. It was the Charging Bull statue, which represented “Aggressive financial optimism and prosperity” as the newscaster said. Ethan was impressed! The bull was a statue indeed- but it looked strong and beautiful. Its bronze finish shone under the sun. An idea lit up in his little ten-year old head. “I think I have found the solution for my family’s financial problems!”- said he triumphantly. The next morning, they all got ready for school as usual. “Be good and do good!”- called out his mom as she dropped off his three siblings as well as himself at the school’s front gate. It was the first period of the day, and all adults watched; teachers. staff and school security. How could he leave without being seen? “Think Ethan! Think!”-said the boy to himself.

The school was large enough to make the pupils seem like a human river flowing into the hallways after every class was over. As everyone was walking the halls to their next classroom, he ran into one of the bathrooms on the lower floors, which he had observed days earlier that it had no guards on the windows. He climbed onto the sink, as quick as a cat, disengaged the locks and pushed the windowpane open. An early Fall breeze blew in from outside. He had left his light coat in his locker, as to not raise suspicion. He grabbed onto the ledge and pulled himself up. As he crawled outside, a piece of metal that was sticking out from the window’s frame scratched him on his leg. “Ouch”- said he, quietly. Thankfully, the cargo pants that were part of the school uniform were thick enough so he was not too hurt. He shook himself off and darted from car to car, across the parking lot, as not to be seen or detected by the school’s security cameras. He ran across some grass on the side and then up a fence. As he jumped down and onto the street, curious passer-bys going about their day looked at him, then looked away and went on about their business. This was no surprise to Ethan, as indifference seemed to be a permanent trait of the people in the neighborhood.

He looked on his cellphone for a way to get to where the statue of the Charging Bull was. With the few dollars he had saved from his allowance in his pocket, he hopped on a train and a bus. Soon, he would be there. But nervousness was still churning within as he planned in his mind: “Homeroom marked me present-they have no reason to call my parents”. Or the other argument: “If I am not in my other classes, I have until the end of the day, which is when they report absences from classes”. He had paid close attention to the school system and was now trying to use it to his advantage. Indifference continued being his cloak of invisibility for his escapade, as no one bothered to notice a young, unaccompanied boy who should be in school. The people riding the train stared at their cell phones in a zombie-like manner and the lady at the subway booth gabbed and giggled away in her phone. The MTA officers just stared into the air or at their phones as well. No one noticed. No one cared. “Good!”- he thought.

When he finally arrived at the statue, he was far more impressed. “Wow”- he exclaimed. “You are beautiful. And powerful. You give people power to make money. Give me this power. Please. I don’t want my parents to suffer anymore. I know I’m an accident. I was not supposed to be born. I was not planned. I messed up my family’s economy. It is up to me to fix it. Please help me”. He hugged the statue and left three one-dollar bills at its feet. Then he looked on his cellphone. “Oops! Look at the time! Gotta go!” He saw the bus he needed to take to get to the train station that would take him back to his school and ran across as fast as he could. In his rush, he dropped his cell phone in the middle of the street, and he noticed as soon as he got to the other side. “My cell phone!”- he yelled out. He noticed someone else running over to the street to grab it as the cars were moving across. “No!”-he yelled. “Leave it! It is MINE!”. In the commotion, Ethan had not noticed the vehicles coming across as the light had changed while he ran to the middle. He reached for his phone on the floor in the middle of frenzied screams around him, and the surprised look of the other boy who had lounged for the phone at the same time. Then everything went black, and the voices grew distant…fainter.

He felt himself falling into a deep abyss. Everything continued to be dark until he crossed a great ring of light that was glowing at the bottom of the empty darkness. After he crossed it, he was no longer falling, but now floating. There were millions of sparks glowing around him, shining up an infinite blue space that looked like the universe. Some were very close, others far. They were lights of every color imaginable. “Where am I now? - he thought. “I need to get to school. My parents will worry. I don’t want them to worry”. Then, one of the brighter lights that floated about got closer and closer to him. Its shine grew and extended into a great orb. “Hello!”- called Ethan. “Where am I? Is there anyone out here? Hello?” Something like a light bridge began extending forward from the middle of the greater light. It kept on extending until it reached Ethan. “Helloo”- he called again. “Is anyone…”. He could not finish his sentence at seeing that from the middle of the light, something black emerged and was racing toward him. As it got closer, he noticed that it was, a great bull! A raging bull. A charging bull. A strong bull. As it stopped before Ethan, he was impressed at its massive size. Its skin sparkled with moving swirls made up of millions of lights. It was as if he (the bull) was made up of the universe itself.

“You have called, and I have come”- spoke the bull, in a voice partly human partly windstorm. “I live inside you. I am your willpower. I am your determination. I am the strength you never knew you had. You were no accident but were sent to your family in anticipation of the misfortune that would befall them. You are not a burden- but an asset. Your time is not over. There is much work for you to do. Now, go back child. Go back”. As the last of the bull’s words were spoken, everything began growing dark once more as all the lights went out. The light bridge disintegrated and once again, Ethan found himself crossing the ring of light. Its force was so great that it sucked him in. As he crossed the other side, he began to fall once more. He yelled as hard as he could, but his voice was lost within the vast emptiness of that space. As everything went white for a moment, he had a change of consciousness. Suddenly the falling feeling stopped, and he felt trapped inside of something that did not let him move. Whispers of voices grew louder and became a conversation. He could hear his mother crying. He could hear his auntie having a heated conversation with soneone she called: “doctor”. Something was in his mouth. He became aware he was in a lot of pain and felt the prickling sensation of many needles in his arms. Where was he?

His eyes seemed to be sealed by scabies. He tried to open them, but some liquid had dried hard on them. He was able to partially open one eye. Everything was blurry, but he could make out his mother. “Oh my God! Doctor! Look! He is awake!” Ethan noticed another blurry figure of someone in a white coat coming closer for an inspection. “Amazing!”- he exclaimed. It was concluded that he had suffered some brain damage while he was struck by a passing vehicle on that day, that moment when he ran back to retrieve his phone from the middle of the street. He was not expected to regain consciousness. His mom hugged him and cried some more. “Honey! It’s me! Mom! Can you hear me?”. But Ethan could neither speak nor nod his head. His whole neck had been immobilized. “Move your fingers if you can hear us”- said the nurse in charge of his care. As Ethan endeavored to move his fingers slowly, shouts of joy and cheer filled his hospital room. Then his mom’s cell phone rang, and it was his father. He asked to be put on speaker and told his son how much he loved him and there would be time to discuss what had happened.

As Ethan recovered slowly, he started being home schooled. He was making progress with his recovery, but still had a long way to go. His healing brought healing to everything and everyone else around him. His family grew closer. Friends and neighbors poured their support. His father took away his focus on his condition (which had made him and everyone else miserable for years) and started focusing again on his children and his wife. He gave them much more love and attention, realizing that much like his son, his surviving an accident was a gift. He did not intend to waste any more of it. His parents stopped seeing him as a burden and instead apologized to him for their indifference and callousness towards him. He was not to blame for the hard economic times. He now got to spend much more time with his father, as he remained home for the rest of his recovery. Their lawyer won the lawsuit they brought up against his school, due to their negligence. Although it was Ethan’s doing, it was still the school’s responsibility to keep him safe. This victory brought them another form of relief they had long been needing: an economic one. But they had what they cared about the most: Ethan; who never imagined that every adverse situation would lead up to the changes he and his family needed in their lives.