The Distance Between Us

The bull stood twenty feet away, steam rising from its shoulders like smoke from a battlefield. Maria's hand trembled as she raised her iphone, framing the creature between the ancient cobblestones. The shutter clicked—another moment captured, another experience curated for an audience who wasn't here.

"Did you get it?" David asked beside her, his voice flat.

She nodded, already scrolling through the feed. "It's getting likes."

They'd come to Pamplona to save their marriage, or at least to postpone its execution. The trip had been David's idea—something primal, something visceral that would shock them back into feeling something authentic. But here they stood, behind the barricade, watching other people run toward death while they documented it from a safe distance.

The morning crowd thickened. Bodies pressed against them, strangers reeking of cheap wine and adrenaline. Somewhere nearby, a dog barked—a skeletal, streetwise creature with matted fur and eyes that had seen too many tourists. It limped through the crowd, ignored, invisible. Maria watched it navigate between legs, finding scraps where it could, surviving without anyone's permission or approval.

The first rocket exploded overhead. The crowd's roar swelled. The bull charged.

"This is it," David said, not looking at her. "We should be in there."

"In the street?"

"In the fucking running, Maria. Not standing here watching it through a screen."

She looked at her phone. Seventeen notifications. Forty-two new likes on the photo she'd posted three minutes ago. The bull thundered past, inches from the barricade, raw muscle and fury and life. A young man stumbled, went down. The crowd gasped. He scrambled up, bloodied but alive, and kept running.

Maria lowered the iphone. Her hands were shaking, but not from fear. From something else. From the recognition that she'd spent five years curating a life instead of living it.

The dog appeared again, sitting near a discarded sandwich wrapper, watching her. Waiting. Maybe for food. Maybe for something that looked like acknowledgment.

"David."

He turned.

"Put your phone away."

He hesitated, then slipped it into his pocket.

She reached for his hand. Her fingers were cold. His were warmer than she remembered. The dog stood up, tail wagging once, twice, then disappeared into the crowd.

Next year, she thought. Next year we run.

The second rocket fired. The ground beneath them began to tremble.