Europe

The red bull descended from the canvas. It felt quite miserable from the moment of its creation, and a not-particularly-talented iron worker played a big part in this. In the evenings, the not-particularly-talented iron worker indulged in his passion, copying with great zeal the few and poor quality, colorless reproductions from the party newspaper in the fourth-floor laundry room. The neighbors therefore considered him slightly touched, but as long as he didn’t get paint on the dripping clothes, they didn’t bother with him too much; the not-particularly-talented iron worker was a damn big man.

For some reason, the not-particularly-talented iron worker thought that the original Guernica might be colorful, and God knows why, he colored the bull red, which, let’s admit, could be cause for concern in the case of an iron worker from a village.

The red bull worried plenty, but the not-particularly-talented iron worker knew that he wasn’t particularly talented, and in case he forgot, there was his foul-mouthed wife who rubbed her summary observations about this under his nose every blessed payday. The woman grew furious whenever she saw the new paint tubes and brushes, whilst the not-particularly-talented iron worker behaved quite clumsily in front of her, timidly stammering, then after a while yelling, much louder than his wife.

The red bull had no reason to worry because the not-particularly-talented iron worker wasn’t interested in the fate of his daubs; as soon as he declared a picture finished, the stairwell supervisor could take it away. The stairwell supervisor collected everything, took the more valuable pieces to the state collection center, but the daubs of the not-particularly-talented iron worker ended up in the basement, where he nailed them to the wooden walls of his illegally carved out compartment; the basement was quite drafty, and the 40-watt bulb didn’t illuminate the den anyway.

The red bull gnawed at itself for a good twenty years in the eternal darkness until it decided to descend from the canvas. It stood in the basement for a bit, snorted once, grunted, scraped its feet, tried out bull-like movements, but found nothing interesting in this either, so it set off to see the world.

The door leading out of the basement was illuminated by sunlight filtering through a small, dirty window. The red bull looked thoughtfully at the colorful poster pasted on it, a young blonde lady smiling in a swimsuit, a ribbon across her body, which read: Miss Europe.

The red bull slipped onto the poster, seized the woman, and was surprised to find that there wasn’t a single flaw in Miss Europe. A wrinkle, a wart, crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes, a birthmark, cellulite, a mole, stronger hair above the lips – absolutely nothing, nothing at all.

The red bull wasn’t convinced that it was possible to love such a perfect female.

Notes:

References to the “party newspaper” indicate the official newspaper of the Communist Party.

Guernica: The story refers to Pablo Picasso’s famous anti-war painting “Guernica” (1937), which is notably in black and white.

The “stairwell supervisor” likely refers to a low-level party official or informant, common in communist-era apartment buildings.