Tauromachy

Ferdinand was unlike the other young bulls of the field, for while they tilted against each other and butted their heads in fierce displays, he would sit by himself beside a dead cork tree and stare attentively at the sun through its branches.

His mother did worry that he might feel alone, and she once asked him, "Why do you not run and play as the other bulls do?" Ferdinand paused in his admiration, and looked to her with unfocused and light-blinded eyes. He replied, "My father is speaking to me." And then he smiled as though his mother had asked if fire could soak and water could burn. No, he would not play. His mind was filled with terrible visions and the rough lewd voice of the Hanging Bull God.

Ferdinand's mother, a reasonable cow, saw that he was not lonely and left him to his musings, confusing though they might be. She knew that Ferdinand's father was, of course, the great bull of the field and she recalled the day her master bred her to him. It was the same for all the cows, and his children littered the meadow; they were fat and strong.

But she did not remember how nervous she was that day. She did not remember the rains that fell, nor the clouds that covered the sky. And so she did not see, and could not know, that the moon had rolled before the sun and the Hanging Bull God had thrashed himself free. The penumbra grazed across that cattle ranch and she had been Entered that day by the lusty divine.

In time Ferdinand grew. Yet while the other calves of the field developed their mere humps and brute horns, suffered from flies and cracked hooves and lived as dumb meat, Ferdinand seemed to live a charmed life. He did not chew his cud in dim, vapid splendor; he did not know the sting of the fly, nor feel a chill in winter. Instead, Ferdinand was radiant and grew to immense proportions. He was healthy, sleek and massive. Like a titan he could trod the field and water might spring from his step as fresh wells. He bellowed like thunder which rolls for miles. His horns were curved lances that swooped with a wicked grace from his brawny head. The snort of his breath toppled unprepared men.

And yet this giant did not show his strength beyond this visible potential. He did not paw the earth and clash with the other bulls of the field. He showed no interest in these games and no urgency for any cow. His owner and master, impressed by the bull's striking conformation, early and often drew out his seed by hand, seeking to breed with it and turn a profit - but Ferdinand proved to quite sterile. However, he was not butchered for his meat, for there were those locals that would pay to see the spectacle of such a beast.

And it was during one such visit by five men in strange hats, city men from Dis, that Fate took an interest in Ferdinand. "Mad Ferdinand" they might have called him, would that they knew him as did the other cattle of the field. To the others of his kind he remained an outsider, always sitting beneath the dead cork tree and staring into the sun - speaking and laughing to it, and often nodding gravely.

"Father, I hear and obey."

These men came with a wagon. They looked across the field and saw the other bulls tearing into each other fiercely, trying to impress the visitors. It would be a honor to be chosen, for these men were seeking the next glorious champion of Dis, a city known for hosting fabulous and bloody bullfights. To compete as a gladiator was a chance at immortality, for valiant bulls lived on in glory and the most favored were remembered in epic bronze sculptures around the arena.

And the word had spread that here on this small ranch lived a bull like no other. And here the five men in strange hats had come bearing the tools of their trade. One possessed a lariat that never missed. One carried a prod which crackled like a harnessed star. One wore thick gauntlets, as rugged as the hide of the Leviathan. One wielded a branding iron once held to the white-hot heart of a dragon and had yet to cool after a thousand years. The last man, an old matador himself, wore only his red cape. It was this last man, their leader, who spoke with Ferdinand's master. They had brought a chest full of gold in exchange for this rumored creature.

Ferdinand's master licked his lips at the sight of the gold, but he had to confess that they were wasting their time. He led them across the field to the dead cork tree and showed them the titan in repose. Ferdinand did not seem to notice their approach, he was staring at the sun and seeing visions of the world ending in blood and beetles of fire. His father was promising him joyous oblivion; an end to all things beneath a rising tide of blood and beetles. The earth was to crack itself open.

The men in strange hats circled the entranced bull and rubbed their chins. While the other bulls of the field gnashed and collided, this one sat as still as a mountain. Certainly he looked terrible enough, but the glassy eyes and slack mouth were disquieting. Ferdinand's horns did not bear a single scratch and they narrowed to a point that would fit through a needle's eye. His hooves were flawless amber and his hide like crushed velvet. He radiated such calm and inertia that it was impossible to picture him charging across the arena or delivering a lusty goring.

The five men huddled briefly and shook their heads. The chest of gold was closed and latched. And they loaded up their wagon to leave just when Ferdinand blinked and looked down from the sky with vacant, dazzled eyes.

"Mother," he said, "Mother?" He searched the cows of the field as if noticing them for the first time. He stood and called for her again, now drawing the attention of the five men. Ferdinand lifted his head and bellowed the crack of thunder, wailing for his mother who was not among the cattle in the field. He did not know her fate. He awoke as though from a dream and called for her. Was she dead? Had she been sold? He did not recognize those around him and in a rising panic he knocked his horns against the dead cork tree. It splintered down the middle, revealing a nest of termites, a whole inner world of seething vermin that had grown and festered beside Ferdinand all these years. Now disturbed, they swarmed upon Ferdinand, biting him. They crawled into his eyes, his ears and nose, into his mouth and sheath and under his tail. Their gnawing flooded his senses and he could no longer hear his father, he could no longer see his mother.

He snorted and blew out the insects from his lungs like wheat chaff. He cried and they drowned in his tears. They pulped to mash beneath his hooves, and yet still more poured from the ruin of the dead tree. Ferdinand reared in terrible majesty and charged across the field. He ran through a dozen lesser bulls and toppled the fences penning them in. He called for his mother and his mouth dripped with a black insect foam. He was wild and blooded. The end times, the end times.

The five men in strange hats reconsidered the situation.

They found him rolling in the mud by a river. His eyes had swollen shut from the many bites. He looked like a monster, streaked with earth and gore. It was the same image they would exaggerate and use to promote his contest, and as they lassoed him to the ground, held his horns and seared the sigil mark into his hide, they saw in Ferdinand the hand of God blessing them with a gift.

They promoted his image extensively. Ferdinand was introduced to the city as a legendary demon-bull, summoned from Hell. He was painted red and hung with entrails. He was paraded through the city in chains and carried by a hundred men, one hundred when fifty would do. At every opportunity the five men in strange hats presented Ferdinand as increasingly more terrible, more exotic, more godlike. His food was mixed with gold dust, and many in the city formed cults around him. The five men in strange hats spread rumors that Ferdinand was immortal. That he ate mountains. That he could fly. Gamblers slavered.

Outside the area hung a banner showing the demonic Ferdinand and a call went out far and wide for a matador brave enough to face him down. Most were terrified and refused, the more popular suddenly took ill or accidentally suffered a minor but debilitating injury. And then there were those just starting out who saw this as an opportunity to make a name for themselves. The fearless and the reckless. The five men in strange hats would meet and discuss options over dinners around the city, high society events where they were courted by slick young men offering to slay the devil. But not just any matador could do. If they were building up the bullfight for the ages, the hero had to be suitable, believable; he had to merit the challenge of the monster. No amateur would do, no mild luminary.

In the end, it came down, typically - to money. There arrived to Dis a matador of requisite skill, but more importantly considerable wealth due to a fortunate noble birth. Once announced and his banner hung beside Ferdinand's, a score of intrigues blossomed around this new development. Rival noble houses moved to sabotage the proceedings, poisons were prepared, criminals concerned with betting on the outcome initiated their own plots to secure an advantage. Marriages were proposed, friends betrayed, honor sullied - and many, many tickets sold.

Ferdinand was locked away until the fight. He had no idea of the turmoil. He cared nothing for the glory of the area, or the various love triangles his apparent opponent was entangled in. He did not understand why they needed so many chains upon chains to hold him down. He wasn't interested in rampaging through the streets. The red paint on his hide itched when it dried, but even that was tolerable. No, what consumed him to the point of despair was the silence in his head. When he struggled to listen beyond the endless chanting and devout wailing in his honor by cultists outside the arena, when he tried to block out the rattling chains and chuckling visits by the men in strange hats, all he heard was his own beating heart. His father had told him it was time, but had then forsaken him. He could not even look upon the sun, for a heavy iron mask had been bolted to his head. And his mother was but a dim and half-remembered smudge upon his memory. He was alone.

Just beyond the walls of the arena, the plazas were filling. The people had set up tent cities, waiting with their tickets. Fires blazed around the silent bronze statues of past bulls glorified. Rival factions held nightly vigils within their territory. All of Dis concentrated around the arena and the bullfight was at hand.

When the moment came, Ferdinand was listening so intently for word from his father that he did not hear the rustling of his chains. He felt a prod to his flank like a star exploding and he trembled to his feet, moaning. Rough hands worked his horns and he was pushed and pulled and prodded down resounding corridors that opened into the sudden roaring lust of a million people. His hooves scuffled into dust and he heard the creaking of great doors behind him. The weights and chains were lifted away, and finally the mask was undone to fanfare and the report of cannon fire.

Then just as suddenly a deep hush fell around the vast dirt field, and all in attendance leaned forward as one. Those hanging from the pennant poles craned their necks. Every eye was upon the great demon. Across from him stood the matador, smiling thinly. He was just a man, in his tight clothes, posed like a dancer and glancing to various sweethearts in the crowd.

Ferdinand blinked, the light was so bright. He swayed on his hooves and turned his head side to side, sniffing the air. He flickered his ears and circled in place. Each fall of his feet echoed with a deep bass that shook the dust from the rafters. They had pierced his ears and nose with gaudy gold jewelry that hung heavily in raw irritated flesh. He shook his head and lifted his muzzle, looking into the sun and seeing nothing but a light that hurt his eyes. He bellowed a long low mournful moan for his mother and began to pace in an arc along the edge of the arena.

This was not the meadow he knew. The old dead cork tree was nowhere to be seen. Just a high wall and a million faces. And across from him some fool in bright colors. He called out again, crying for home.

The crowd softly murmured at this. Yes, it was an unusually large bull - but hardly a demon. And that sad noise was disconcerting as well.

Somebody spit, and then another booed in disgust. This quickly peppered into more and soon Ferdinand could not even hear his heartbeat over the din. He sat down in the middle of arena and looked again to the sun.

Men on horses came with slim, tasseled spears. They pierced his back and flung salt upon his crushed velvet hide from ornately embroidered bags. Ferdinand did not move. Something beautiful and red rippled before his eyes, but he did not move. He looked up at the sun and he would not look away. He would prove himself faithful. This must be some test. His father would reward him; reward him with more strange visions and that joyfully lecherous voice like honey in his ears. His father telling him of the things he has seen while hanging there above the world; all the lusts and passions. Ferdinand did not hear himself sounding for his mother, though his throat formed the cry over and over again.

A shadow cast across his upturned face, it was the matador. Humiliated, tearful, and trembling with anger he put the point of his sword to the bull's side and lamely drove it home. The cut was clumsy, and it missed the heart. At one point the bull slumped to its side and bled out.

Sunlight is very bright, and looking directly at the Sun with the naked eye for brief periods can be painful, but is not particularly hazardous for normal, non-dilated eyes. Looking directly at the Sun causes phosphene visual artifacts and temporary partial blindness. It also delivers about 4 milliwatts of sunlight to the retina, slightly heating it and potentially causing damage in eyes that cannot respond properly to the brightness. UV exposure gradually yellows the lens of the eye over a period of years and is thought to contribute to the formation of cataracts, but this depends on general exposure to solar UV, not on whether one looks directly at the Sun. Long-duration viewing of the direct Sun with the naked eye can begin to cause UV-induced, sunburn-like lesions on the retina after about 100 seconds, particularly under conditions where the UV light from the Sun is intense and well focused; conditions are worsened by young eyes or new lens implants (which admit more UV than aging natural eyes), Sun angles near the zenith, and observing locations at high altitude.

Viewing the Sun through light-concentrating optics such as binoculars is very hazardous without an appropriate filter that blocks UV and substantially dims the sunlight. An attenuating (ND) filter might not filter UV and so is still dangerous. Unfiltered binoculars can deliver over 500 times as much energy to the retina as using the naked eye, killing retinal cells almost instantly (even though the power per unit area of image on the retina is the same, the heat cannot dissipate fast enough because the image is larger). Even brief glances at the midday Sun through unfiltered binoculars can cause permanent blindness. One way to view the Sun safely is by projecting its image onto a screen using a telescope and eyepiece without cemented elements. This should only be done with a small refracting telescope (or binoculars) with a clean eyepiece. Other kinds of telescopes can be damaged by this procedure.

Partial solar eclipses are hazardous to view because the eye's pupil is not adapted to the unusually high visual contrast: the pupil dilates according to the total amount of light in the field of view, not by the brightest object in the field. During partial eclipses most sunlight is blocked by the Moon passing in front of the Sun, but the uncovered parts of the photosphere have the same surface brightness as during a normal day. In the overall gloom, the pupil expands from ~2 mm to ~6 mm, and each retinal cell exposed to the solar image receives about ten times more light than it would looking at the non-eclipsed Sun. This can damage or kill those cells, resulting in small permanent blind spots for the viewer. The hazard is insidious for inexperienced observers and for children, because there is no perception of pain: it is not immediately obvious that one's vision is being destroyed.