Scene 14

East of Port Williams the road ran along the Beagle Canal for a good 20 kilometres before it ended at a large barrier, beyond which lay an even bigger pasture. Near this end-destination of all roads, seven gigantic bulls stomped around in the mud inside a corral – as if they were the guardians of this very last place on the big map of the New World. One of the bulls had a bleeding hole for an eye, from which hung fleshy lobes. A picture of numbing, inescapable pain, he stood there, moored in a swamp of dung and urine, who strangely enough had a intense smell of slightly burnt cinnamon.

There were no traces to be detected of the fight – yet, it must have taken place just a short while before, because the blood that had splashed onto a part of the fence was still glistening, half-wet, in the sun. Where was the eye? Which of these beasts had plucked it out? The hard, ragged breathing of the animal was the only tale of this fight at the end of the world – an «Iliad» in the wet snorts of an ox muzzle.

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