Running with the Bulls in Pamplona with a tired friend

It strikes me, two minutes into the run, that I don’t know where my friend is, and maybe she never really liked me all these days.

Our memory, or maybe my memory of her, is running fingers along curling plants on a balcony that’s made of marble. Busts of philosophers wrapped up in vines and red wine in July heat. She plays with the end of her hair, all tied around her finger like a curling iron. She vapes now, but it’s still cigarette-shaped, tobacco flavour. When I touch the edge of the balcony, the tips of my fingers sting.

My friend says, I’ve decided to die here, but in a different hotel. Perhaps a balcony overlooking Pamplona Cathedral with a real goddamn cigarette and Italian wine. The Rioja here gives me a headache and I’m allergic to seafood.

I ask if she could wait until the next trip before doing that, and she shrugs.

We just met, darling. I’m not ready for that commitment.

On our morning walk, the whole town is on fire. There’s a half-mile sprint through the streets where six fighting bulls and a group of tame oxen get released, and follow all the runners to the bullring. My friend takes off her high heels and kneads the cobbles with her feet. Shall we? she says.

I ask if I need to take off my trainers, and she laughs.

From where I stand, the streets ahead are littered with men hanging off balconies and singing songs, not even nine in the morning!

My friend says, Imagine dying here, and it’s not even by a bull.

I’m wearing black, and she’s wearing white with a little red scarf around her neck.

But let’s not talk about that. The rockets go off, and I’m dithering alongside a group of middle-aged men, whooping and yelling, and I follow them for less than a minute before an ox blows by an inch from my right side. Then another.

I can’t feel my body anymore, but I get the scratch in my chest each time I breathe in. Up on the balconies, all these men and women throw water and confetti and cheer.

The third bull, he’s huffing too, as if he’s out of breath. He stops two feet in front of me, looks all around and kicks up his hooves the same way my dog back home does it when she’s scared. My heart is beating so fast, and I think of my friend’s red scarf and the smell of her vape. I never learned what to do, but I slow to a crawl and step around it before another loud bang sets it off on its way again.

Once it’s all over, and it’s over fast, I curl up in a ball and hold my stomach. Two paramedics come up to me, but I wave them away. No, no, I’m just fat, I say. Solo demasiado gordo, señoras! I squeeze my eyes as tight as I can like I did when I was a child, then open them to crowds dancing and cheering.

On my feet, I look around for my friend until I realise everybody else is wearing shoes. I’m huffing now, scuffing up dust with my heels and wildly scanning the crowd.

When we first met, it was in my hotel bar and she was the only guest in a cocktail dress. She waltzed to my side and pressed her back against the bar and pulled her vape to her mouth. She said, You look bored.

Are you a theme park actor or something?

I could be, she said. But I’m tired.

Aren’t we all?

Mmhm. So let’s do something, handsome.

In the chaos of the run, with blood on the streets and yelling from the balconies, I wonder where she went after the starting rockets erupted and a half-mile of euphoria. Everyone knows my tired friend’s throat gets slit at the end.