Read Online The Storyteller by D. P. Adamov - Free Book Online

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    “Noooo!”
    She saw Mariano being carried from the ring, a mass of torn flesh, silk and blood. In the El Toreo De San Luis, as they appeared side by side, he had forgotten for one fatal second the very lesson he had beaten into his student.
    He forgot to run the hand, and the animal slammed right into him.
    “Mariano?”
    The figures evaporated into thin air, but the message was clear. The ghosts of an empty plaza wished to claim their own.
    “I’m coming home soon,” she whispered as she made her way out from the arena floor and through the doorway leading toward the steps. Ascending, she found herself in the stands, looking down at the circle of sand. Soon all would be a memory.
    She had carried on after Mariano died, fighting for him as well as herself, but that was long ago. He was dead. Most of her predecessors and friends were dead. She had never married either, for how did one replace the solitary love of a lifetime? Soon, however, she would join him. She was one of the last great survivors of the El Toreo, and when it died, she would die with it.
    A step at a time, she climbed past the seats to the top of the bullring. In a moment, she would go over the edge and fall to her death below.
    “I wonder which of the murals they’ll find me under?” she asked the empty ring. “I hope Rafael doesn’t see it happen.”
    In her mind, she heard the slaps once more, as she cried that very first time Mariano punished her. They had never done such a thing again, though they had tried about every other sexual act beyond. They never spoke of the incident to anyone either.
    “Owwwwwwwwwwwwmmmmmmmm!”
    Angela was not sure if it was a groan of pain reflecting upon the savage belt spanking she had received and the humiliation that turned her into a great bullfighter, or the fact that she was about to die. In either case. She started to climb over the summit of the bullring.
    “Don’t do it!”
    She was certain she saw the sleeve of a red and gold suit of lights, like Mariano had been wearing the day he died, reaching across and pulling her back to safety. As she spun around, she expected to see the face of her long dead lover greeting her. Maybe she had jumped and didn’t know it. Was she a ghost already?
    “Are you crazy?”
    Rafael had seen what was about to happen and come to her aid from nowhere.
    Crying, she fell into his arms, but there was nothing erotic about it. Confusion and despair overwhelmed her.
    “Life goes on,” Rafael whispered. “I know what you saw here today. I’ve seen them too.”
    “What?”
    The old man nodded, pointing to the sand.
    “They come and they go, but they aren’t ready for you yet.”
    On the sand, Mariano Flores was taking a lap around the ring, triumphant after giving a memorable show.
    “Up here!” Angela called. “Mariano!”
    “He doesn’t see you,” Rafael explained. “Just for now we can see him. Sometimes they are strong enough to punch a hole back into this world and return. They are never here for long, but sometimes they come.”
    Angela nodded, understanding the way of things. Once again, she had learned a lesson in the El Toreo.
    “Goodbye, Mariano,” she whispered in a soft voice.
    “This is not a goodbye,” Rafael corrected. “We will all meet again when the right time comes. We will do it with or without this bullring.”
    Angela stared at the spot where her lover saluted a crowd only he could see.
    “And then?”
    “The life of the El Toreo ends soon,” Rafael said wisely. “Life, however, will go on.”
    Without another word, Angela started down the stairs and outward into a new world she had denied herself for so long. Before her on the sand, Mariano vanished and the phantom applause was only the wind once more.
    “We’ll see you again someday,” she reminded herself. “I love you, Mariano. I always will.”
    Behind her, the El Toreo De San Luis stood like a giant, but one about to be destroyed. For a long while, its shadow had