InsideOut Travel—Bull-Shaped Hole

ON THE PLAINS OF SPAIN


	A Bull-Shaped Hole in the Sky
	by Jay Gitomer In Spain, the highways are fresh black ribbons slicing through yellow hills dotted with olive trees. These highways have been built for me, the tourist, with money that Spain received when it joined the European Union. I submit to the will of the EU, and use the highways to transfer currency into towns all over the country. Everywhere I go, my drive is punctuated by the frequent appearance of gigantic billboards shaped like bulls.				I don't remember the first one I saw, maybe I was reading a map, playing with the radio, or looking at a goat, but after a while, I began to notice the bull everywhere. More than just a rectangular sign with a picture of a bull, it was actually shaped like a bull, with its hooves in the soil and the tips of its horns towering forty feet above the olive groves. “The bull could not come down. The people protested. Riots were rumored to have broken out.” At dawn, it was silhouetted against the fiery sky; at night, it was a bull-shaped hole in the mantle of stars. It was a guardian presence on the deserted highway and the icy mountain road. The bull had a life beyond the billboards. It was honored on tee-shirts. It was in the news when a college student fell off the scaffolding that supports the bull from behind—a four-story drop. more>> << home
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