The Echoes
An Echo · v1.00
THE HOUSE OF ZAN — Zan
No one climbs onto a bull thinking the odds are kind.
That is not what the gate is for.
You climb because the rope is there.
Because your hand knows where to go.
Because the body has done this calculation before and still accepts the debt.
Not win.
Hold.
What is held is not something waiting to be understood into softness.
It is force.
A living refusal with no outlet.
And still, the rider settles down.
Hand buried.
Thighs tight.
Jaw shut.
Waiting.
Then the gate opens.
The bull fires.
Not starts.
Fires.
Up.
Sideways.
Down.
Hard.
The world stops being a place and becomes a problem.
The body under you wants you gone.
It bucks.
You hold.
It twists.
You answer.
It drops.
You lose the plot for half a second and find it again by the rope.
Your arm burns.
Your ribs move in unfamiliar ways.
Your mouth fills with dirt.
There is no speech in the middle of it.
No theory.
No romance.
No time to make the danger mean anything pretty.
There is rope.
And that old wrong hunger in you, grinning through the dust.
Stay on.
The bull wants you off.
You want to stay.
At least that is what your devil-may-care, flawed logical self says.
That is the whole damn thing.
And sometimes, for one hard second, you meet it.
Not own it.
Not calm it.
Meet it.
Force against force.
The bull says, off.
The rider says, not yet.
That is the sickness.
That is the miracle.
Because nothing fake survives there.
The bull is not lying.
The rider is not lying.
No one is pretending this is safe.
Then it is over.
Not later.
Now.
The rope goes wrong.
The air goes wrong.
The dirt comes up fast and blinds the rider and the force together.
Maybe you make the count.
Maybe you do not.
Maybe the clock says less than it felt.
Maybe that is all you can hold.
A passage of time.
A memory to keep.
You get up.
Sometimes, barely.
You get up shaking.
Alive in a way that feels almost undead.
Not proud exactly.
Not sorry either.
Just aware.
It could have taken more than it did.
You look back once.
Of course you do.
You know better than to take on the same one twice.
But looking back is not climbing on again.
It is not reminiscing, either.
It is looking forward.
Because once the pain heals, you already know.
Same rope.
Same hand.
Different bull.
Different ride.
Different way to find out how long you can hold.
Because it was never only in the ride.
It was in how I could handle it.
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