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the Matador Incident
[ home ] I knew that running with the bulls in Pamplona wasn't a good idea. We're just penguins, after all. It's not like we can run very quickly, can we? But Eric insisted. And so we did it. The year was 1952. The Festival de San Fermin was upon us. It was a hot July morning. The kind of hot, humid day where you can cook a carp under your flipper. It had taken nearly a month of negotiations and the gift of a 3 mile wide iceberg to Generalisimo Francisco Franco to get the whole coven into the country. Apparently, he's a great fan of ice water. Although, before this was all over, I'm sure his excellency would probably regret ever having let us in. And there we stood. In the middle of a cobblestone street. Mingling with a group of young, agile men with much longer legs than us, wearing white outfits, red sashes and red berets (the men, not us). We were, as always, naked. There was a rumble. It was distant at first, like a storm slowly coming in. The rumble got louder and men started running. The ground began to shake. Joey, who was at the back of the crowd could see around the corner. "RUN!!!" he yelled. Oh, the horror! The horror! We waddled as quick as we could, and when that wasn't quick enough, we fell on our bellies and started sliding. But have you ever tried sliding on your belly on a cobblestone street? It wasn't... pleasant. The qvacks were deafening. It came from all around. Hoofs came down on slick penguin feathers and bulls started falling all over. One bull, a huge black snorting beast, nearly fell on top of me but I rolled away just at the last moment. The crowds started cursing and yelling. The blind bend in the street became a log jam as bulls kept coming but found they couldn't go anywhere and couldn't stop in time. They piled into the tangle of beef and feathers and pointed horns and pointier beaks. People started throwing things. First bottles and food, and then they began to dig up the cobblestones and pull bricks from the walls. "Let's get the hell out of here!" Eric yelled. Nathan reached down, grabbed my flipper and pulled me up. Before I knew what was happening, I was riding atop an immense 1200 pound bucking bull. "Hold on!" Nathan screamed. He punctuated this with a piercing "YEEEEE-HAWWWWW!!!" "To what?!" is all I could come up with. Unable to get a grip on the bull's fine back hair with my slick flippers, I tried to hold on with my beak. This was definitely a mistake. I bit into the bull and it started bucking harder. The bull plowed into the crowd on the side of the street and didn't stop until it drove right into a stone wall, knocking itself unconscious. Nathan and I came tumbling off the collapsed beast and we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by a large group of very disagreeable Spaniards. I quickly threw up my flippers and went "BLAH!" which frightened off the group. We returned to the middle of the street where the survivors were slowly regaining their feet. Dazed and confused bulls staggered about, the fighting spirit drained from them. I saw Joey's broken body up the street near the bend. He'd probably been the first to fall, causing the pile up. He looked pretty messed up, although he'd probably be back together and in one piece in time for the party tonight, assuming he weren't all ejected from the country before then. I heard whistles from down the street. The Guardia Civil was on its way. Time to go. |