Short story: Mooo!

Mooo! (Copyright of Kris Rodgers)


I look back on my youth with a big ol grin on my face. The things that I have experienced with my friends can get me smiling on any dark day. I give thanks to all my life experiences, because it has been a great adventure so far. But as I get older, the magic seems harder to manifest. Like with my good friend Dave, the world I live in is slowly trying to beat my youthful optimism down. But I’m not going to let it. I refuse to give up and give in like most of my young friends. I see it all the time; people that used to be so vibrant and alive look like they are carrying the world’s burdens on their young shoulders. It shouldn’t be like that should it? Don’t let it. Stay young of mind, and live your life like a great adventure, because that’s what it is.

Anyhow, enough of the preaching. Here’s another odd memory.

Hippies. That’s what we are. Hippies. Hippies with attitude. Hip hippies maybe. Matt and I would grab our acoustic guitars every summer evening, and make our way to ‘The thinky place’. We also used to frequent ‘The thinky place’ when life was getting us down. It was on top of a hill with great view of the whole town. In the evening, the sunset is breathtaking, and you can witness this show in all its splendour. It always felt good that the whole town was down there, moving, stressing, shouting, crying, screaming, and we were up on this hill away from it all. It felt good that we were appreciating the sunset every evening, and we could never understand why we were the only people up there. That was heartbreaking, but at least we were here to enjoy it. That’s another negative thing our world does to us. We forget to enjoy the beautiful world that we live in. There is so much great stuff out there to see and hear, but people tend to lock themselves in front of the T.V and miss it all. Nature is magical, and like the magic in people, we are slowly but surely murdering its innocence.

Anyway…

Hippies…

And proud.

 So, the Thinky place was a great source of musical inspiration, and that is why we used to take our guitars up there. Every evening, we would bang out some new tune that we had written earlier in the day. It was great. A few beers, music, the sunset, and an overwhelming feeling that everything would be all right if we kept living like this. Nature was keeping us warm, and the whole show was there for us to witness for free.

What could be more inspirational?

Bull’s are from nature. Unfortunately, this bull wasn’t that inspirational.

The song had finished. A nice fly-away ending to compliment the setting sun. I don’t think the bull appreciated our style of music though. Maybe he was more of the punky type. Whatever his musical preferences, he didn’t look too happy at all.

‘Matt.’ I whispered.

‘Look behind you.’

Opening his can of beer, Matt turned his head.

Big bull. Right behind us.

Snort snort.

‘O.k mate.’ I whispered.

‘Just pick up the sweets and guitars, and we’ll walk away slowly yeah?’

And with that, we picked up our stuff and made our way down the hill.

It followed us.

Snort snort.

I don’t quite remember what happened next, but I do remember saying ‘Whatever you, don’t run.’ whilst my legs ignored the advice I was giving to Matt. That’s the worst. When you are in a group of people, and you all think something is chasing you. The panic that ensues at the back of the pack is hilarious to witness if you aren’t the poor git that is back there. That’s why I made up the ‘Whatever you do, don’t run’ rule when I was very young. I used to tell people this whilst slowly making my way to the front of the pack.

Once I got there, I legged it.

Worked every time.

So, I was in front of Matt when we started speeding down the hill. At this point, it had got pretty dark, and we had been dropping sweets and beer as we ran. All I could hear was ‘RUUUUUUNNNN!!! ITS CHASING US MAN!!’

I could hear it.

CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP.

‘ARGGGGGGG!’

At one point when we were running, Matt fell silent.

‘Matt!! Has it got ya?’ I shouted back.

As if he would be able to answer me if it had.

Then out of the shadows:

‘ARGGGGGGGGG!’ Matt began once again.

It was still chasing us. Trying to carry a guitar and a bag of sweets, running down a dark pathway with brambles either side, whilst being a little tipsy is not easy, I can tell you. Having a huge bull giving you the incentive to run a little faster doesn’t help either.

Eventually, we arrived at the fence that was keeping the bull from the rest of the world. Screaming, I tried to scramble over the fence in a blind panic. All I could hear as I was trying desperately to avoid the barbed wire was:

‘QUICK! MOVE! ITS COMING!’

and…

CLOMP CLOMP CLOMPETY CLOMP.

Then all of a sudden I was airborne. All I remember was the awkward landing in a graveyard, and my guitar landing on top of me a split second later. A second after that, Matt landed in a heap next to me. A second after that, a huge bulls head smashed through the fence snorting and snotting in true bullish fashion.

Thankfully, the bull couldn’t get any further. That didn’t stop us from running away like two hysterical girls though. We ran all the way through the graveyard, and ended up collapsing in fits of laughter. It turns out that the source of my flight had not been the bull, but had in actual fact been Matt throwing me over the fence. I’m not a light person, and Matt could not lift me, let alone throw me on a normal day. But in this instance (that being-Matt trying to avoid having a bull surgically removed from his backside) he could. In the right circumstances, I believe we can achieve anything like this, but it normally takes a nasty catalyst to get us there. You must have heard the stories of people lifting cars off their loved ones after a crash? Or people demonstrating super-human qualities in times of trouble. Believe it or not, it happens a lot. The power is there within us, but unfortunately, most of us don’t know how to harness it in the world we live in. Yogis and Fakirs have known about this for thousands of years. They know what we can achieve, they know the power of the human mind, and they know what effect it can have on our bodies. Martial artists like Bruce Lee have also been using this power to demonstrate what we can do if we use the right application. His one inch punch could send a heavy man flying, even though Lee was only standing a couple of centimetres away. He demonstrated this on many occasions. The Chinese call this ‘power’ chi. The Japanese call it Ki. Whatever you want to call it, it exists. It is fascinating stuff.

Sometimes I wish I had a bull chasing me all the time. I would get so much more done.