somewhere in the south of spain

we had taken the road south from Biarritz to San Sebastián in late June. the crowds were making their way to Pamplona for the fiesta of San Fermin. a place where wine spilled into the streets and bulls duelled with matadors in the late afternoon. she had always wanted to see them fight, and here was the greatest fight of them all.

the road led through the mountains towards València where we would swim again in the dawn before the sun rose. I could see her blonde slicked back hair, her eyes glistening in the yellow light, her soft cheek against mine, my hands finding hers under the surface of the water. her legs crossed around my waist, my arms holding her gently and she really felt like home.

I remembered our walks after dinner down the gravel path towards the road, wine glasses in hand, the sun slipping beneath the horizon. I remembered her hands, soothing fire, delicate silk, young and a little too desirable to really care. the way she would stroll barefoot in the reeds, picking apricots from the garden with Bach playing gently in the chords of her headphones.

water out of wine glasses, tears in the kitchen, knowing too much yet absolutely nothing at all. a yellow flicker in her blue eyes, a worried expression in the calmest of moments, a disguise of naivety behind a cold soothing heart. blood spilled on the cold dirt of the arena, blood spilled in the depths of my heart.

and then came the silence, something had changed in her almost overnight, she was becoming the matador and I the bull, dancing with death in the moments that seemed to last an eternity, yet this was her first time in the ring.

but I would wait a little longer, for a train that may never arrive, for words that remained unsaid, learning to breathe again in a world where the slow knife turned ever so gently in the shadows. I would find my way once more in the darkness of the Spanish night, which I was beginning to know far too well, and fear nowhere near enough.