Fernando’s greatest wish was to run with the bulls.
He spent years training, running and leaping over obstacles in the alley behind his family’s restaurant.
Finally, after years of pleading, his parents let him off work to finally do it.
He was gored through the chest in five seconds… but, he survived.
After hours of surgery, the doctors determined that if they removed the horn from his heart, it would kill him, so they cut it off the bull and left it in there.
The family asked “Can we keep the rest of the bull to butcher for the restaurant?”
Category: AvaHeart
Overcome
With the deepest, darkest skin
And the brightest, whitest robes
Flowing… billowing, like angel’s wings
The choir director raises a hand, his neck muscles tense as a bridge’s cables
And it drops…
“We… Shall… Overcome…”
Not just sung
But hurled
Like a hammer
Every blow pounding my heart, my soul
“We… Shall… Overcome…”
Over…
And over…
I close my eyes,
And I sing it too
A minute later, lost in the power, I am being shaken.
I open my eyes.
I am flat on my back
The choir director is waving a towel over me.
I guess I was overcome.
While drinking a glass of water…
Marley and Tosh grew up best friends on Jamaica, learning ventriloquism from an old comedian who had retired to the island.
Marley had a dummy that resembled Tosh, and Tosh had one similar to Marley.
But each wanted the old man’s dummy, and when he died, things got ugly.
Marley took out a pin and stabbed it into his dummy’s arm, and Tosh cried out in pain.
Tosh responded with his own voodoo attack, stabbing Marley’s twin in the heart.
Tosh laughed, then felt… warm… burning…
Marley’s cigarette had fallen out of his mouth, setting his dummy aflame.
Tosh screamed.
Anchor
Back when gaslamps lit the streets of New Orleans, sailors would go to sea and their loves would wait for their return.
Most came back to port on schedule, or close to it.
Others were delayed by storms, pirates… so many dangers.
When a ship was due, their loves came to the docks and met them as they arrived, walking down the gangplank, that moment.
Or, if they didn’t arrive, waiting.
Late one day… two… a week… a month.
Sometimes, the harbormaster wrote that worst of all fates: “LOST.”
And their hearts would sink, down… sink below the waves forever.
The Dragon
There was an island north of Scotland that would crown the girl with the purest heart their Winter Princess and send her off to The Dragon Of The Hill.
That’s what they called The Mother Superior in the church’s school, and she’d welcome the girl into the convent and the other Sisters Of Mercy.
Some became nurses in the hospital.
Others became teachers in the school.
And one or two were groomed to become the next Dragon Of The Hill.
Today, the island is quiet, and one final Dragon watches the snow outside her window, waiting… watching, praying silent prayers.
Heart Of Rust
Before the Wizard vanished into the sky, he told Tin Man that a heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.
So, as Scarecrow ruled Emerald City, Tin Man sent the city’s soldiers from door to door, surveying the townsfolk on how much they loved him.
Over time, he expanded the surveys to all the lands of Oz, and the results sank from a grateful love to a weary negative.
“WHY?” shouted Tin Man.
He called for one final census.
“Because of all these annoying surveys!” was the overwhelming response.
Ice Queen
She was the most beautiful woman in all the land, but The Ice Queen’s heart was no man’s to own.
The Sun Prince, captivated by her beauty, asked Merlin The Wizard for advice.
“Take this potion,” he said. “It will melt the ice from her heart.”
The Prince set out at dawn, and made the queen’s castle in a week.
Slipping the potion into her wine, he watched as the Queen’s face turned to shock, then agony.
Merlin arrived the next day, not expecting two corpses.
“Her heart wasn’t covered with ice,” said the Prince’s suicide note. “It WAS ice.”
Painted Heart
She tears open your chest, dips a brush on to her palette, and paints her life upon your beating heart.
The first time you see her, who is that?
The first time apart, when will I see her again?
You hand in hers, as the ring goes on her finger till death do we part.
And as she pulls that ring off and tosses it in your face.
With one final jab, she is finished.
And you are left there, gasping, as the colors begin to run… and fade… and burn.
She is gone, she is gone, she is gone.
When I put your heart in a cage like a bird
When I put your heart in a cage like a bird, I am keeping it from flying away… away…
When I put your heart in a cage like a bird, I am protecting it from the cat’s claws.
When I put your heart in a cage like a bird, I can hear it sing to the breaking dawn.
When I put your heart in a cage like a bird, I can take it to the doctor when it is sick.
When I put your heart in a cage like a bird, I am keeping it from shitting on my furniture.
Goddess
You’re a mess. You’re a wreck. You’re a walking disaster.
And you think the Goddess can help you get your life straight?
When you invite the Goddess into your life, you invite her into your heart.
But like any guest, you must prepare your heart for her to enter it.
Would you invite over a guest to a mess of a home?
Would you invite over a guest to a wreck of a home?
Take power over your life!
Clean up your wicked ways!
And once you have gotten your life in order, you’ll find the Goddess waiting, already there.