MYSTERY ON THE MOUNTAIN

I had travelled until Água Boa, MT, trying to find a representative for my products, ware; so I took my time and went up to a bugres village. (To those who don’t know, bugres are Indians.) For they’re the best manufacturers of some kind of tools, difficult to be found out there. Then, I really wanted to do that like an exclusivity of their handcrafts. Everything was all right, and already taking the merchandise, not without haggling a good time before. (Oh, difficult people to negotiate with). I was between Barra do Garças, and Nova Xavantina, so, near Roncandor hill I think this was the name, of those mountains hills that surrounded the road, when I saw those lights.

First, I thought that, it was a lightning flash, but there was no sign of rain. Suddenly, more lights, fire balls, are what they really seemed to be more. At first, I was scared, because there was some of those balls that, (I think I didn’t measure) would have passed less than fifty meters from my car; I braked the car, closed the glasses, the radio stopped playing, no noise, nor static, nothing, nothing! And the car then, it went in neutral by itself. Then the headlights went out.

I got in state of fear almost uncontrollable. And just imagine also, I, all by myself, in a such kind of world like that, at night, with bushes all over, and car there, was something of celebrating; I started to think the cases that the Indians told about people who were eaten by jaguars and disappeared without leaving a trace.

Meanwhile, those lights danced over the mountain. It looked like a ballet of fireflies. I say fireflies, because of the distance I was from them. About two or three kilometers, perhaps more. The one that passed close to me it might have approximately from three to five maters of circumference.

I kept on watching that strange ballet, at the same time I turned on in despair, the ignition key from one side to another, trying to make the car work out.

I forcefully turned the key and the car started. I turned the headlights on, and then saw something black, that gleamed in the moonlight and my headlights on the road, from a hundred or two hundred in front of me. I jumped out from the car and ran along the road as quickly as I could. My legs never helped me that much. Maybe I should have stayed there.

I never thought that I could do that. I think I ran about ten or fifteen kilometers in less than fifteen minutes. These minutes seemed like an eternity. I felt my heart soar. My lungs looked like they were going to explode. My legs were heavy.

In no time turned around. It seemed that they were behind me. I’ve heard so much about them in the area.

I might have fallen two or three times and then got up without looking behind and ran. Ran, ran. My head ached, my sight were already darkening, and could hardly see anything in front of me, even with the full moon at night that illuminated my desperate run.

And when my strength was running out, I was at a white house by side of the road.

Because there are lots of puddles, with alligators, Cayman, we never know what more, and the farms that surround the roads, they got a headquarters at the end of it, for those who arrive to catch a glimpse of the farmers full potential. It’s one of valorizing one another even more. The house resident Mr. Antonio, received me well.

He said that, he had woken up as he heard the noise of my footsteps on the road.

Then he asked me if in the village, I’d smoked with people there or had eaten some food from them.

He explained me that the Indians use so much hallucinogens, sometimes because of their culture and tradition, some other times to kill the hunger, they eat some fruits which contain some kinds of elements of this nature. I remembered of Piquitui, I think this is the name that a small Indian had given me, and taught me how to eat that. It was a kind of fruit which looked like a mango, however inside there were two nuts, the taste was good, a little bit sweet, almost as an orange, but juiceless.

When I said about this fruit, Antonio smiled and told me that, I probably might have had hallucination caused by the fruit.

He told me to sleep that night there, and he would go with me in the morning up to where I’d left the car. He offered me a glass of milk, pure from cow, without a mixing of those artificial things of nowadays. I felt the fat, texture of milk in my lips, thicker, without water. At the beginning I found it strange, I was not used to it.

Antonio and D. Ester, who had just woken up when we started talking and laughed about my situation.

He was with a hat and wore spurs on his boots. He coiled a horse for me and told me not to be worried, the horse I would be riding was meek.

I was a little bit afraid, in fact it had been ten years now I’d not ridden a horse anymore. The sun had not risen yet. We could still see some stars in the sky. There were whitish rips in the sky and a colored half-yellow on the horizon. That would be a beautiful day.

Antonio rode on silent, didn’t make any questions and said nothing. He seemed to be in hurry.

This is difficult to happen at Florianopolis, and at Rio then, can’t say anymore.

The door was open the way I left, when I got out, running. I switch the key and the engine worked out. It gave a shriek of joy. I showed Antonio where the “beast” was in front of me. We saw no marks of anything on the sand. Sand, yes, because the roads there are still unpaved.

I said goodbye to Antonio, and thanking everything he had done for me. I told him that I would like to give him a souvenir. But he said that, it was not necessary, with the same simplicity the way as he helped me last night.

One thing from those countryside people in the country to wonder about is their simplicity and honesty. That’s something for taking your hat off.

I pulled the tarpaulin and asked him to get on also. Half reluctant he got on. He said that he needed to go home to take the cow’s milk, just before the sunrise.

I had not seen anybody putting that tool there. It was a jar with a very strange drawing, which seemed as triangle with a ring around it, full of small stones.

Antonio went back home and I arrived at Barra do Garças, nearly at midday. I still would travel more to arrive at Florianopolis.

I was watching and listening to TV when I saw on the table aside upon a chair a headline that said.

I got the newspaper and started to read it. That was a local newspaper. There was a description of a Flying Saucer which many people claimed to see and one of these people made a drawing. It was an identical drawing to that which was on the jar that Antonio had taken.

That intrigued. I do not know how to say why. That awakened the spirit of adventure in me, that I think I always had. I rented a room in a small hotel, I unloaded my tools. I paid a week to stay and went back to the village.

There were also people from FUNAI. A dentist and a doctor made an inspection to bugres.

As I talked with the Dentist Dr. Dr. Sonia, who was concerned about the situation of “poor indigenous people” the way she called them. She told me that it has been three years now since the last time she was there, she and the doctor, who was now injecting two old Indians ladies, with tits showing and without a tooth. They were using skirts over the legs, but upper they didn’t wear anything.

I did not tell anybody the reason of my return. I wanted to talk to cacique Iru, and the one had gone in the town.

They took the clay in cans and carried until, I don’t remember how they called, it was a clay mil, if I may say so. A kind of a giant pot, or better saying, to understand what I mean, a popcorn pot; where they threw the clay and an animal, a donkey that moved a heavy load, let’s say that, spoon, that stirred and crushed the clay, trying to give it an ideal consistency.

From there they took to shape it and then took it into a wood oven. It was a big oven, where fitted without any problem maybe four people. This oven had something like two floors. At the bottom, almost like a cavern, dug on the soil, they were throwing woods and on the top put the clay, already in an adequate shape, to be done and get dried up.

He thought that I had returned to buy more. Maybe, but that was not my main issue.

I called him aside and told him what had happened when I was there the last time.

he made a serious face when I told him about Antonio and D. Ester. Said that, nobody in the tribe would make that drawing alike the way I drew on the ground, which he quickly stepped with his foot cleaning it.

He asked me not to get back in the village again, unless when invited. I wondered at this attitude. He’s always been very rational.

He almost became furious, I think so, because I didn’t understand his words he spoke to the other guys at maloca, but I saw their faces and expressions, and these details demonstrated to me, that was time to leave.

I drove out from there willing to go up to Antonio’s house. Who knows that he would tell me more about that.

I drove all night long and in the morning I thought I had found Antonio’s house. That was the local, I perfectly remembered well, however, there was not any house there. It was just a meadow of some other farms.

I got in the car and went up to where I had left the pick-up that night. I mentally re-calculated the distance I had gone through running and again I found myself on farm field.

I drove a little bit more and further there I found two bars, which was also a bus ticket office.

A fat lady was behind the counter. As I approached she came to attend me smiling.

She told me that, she’d seen light in the fields and were just faery fire a kind of gas swamps. This was, wait, let me tell you my story. When I told him about Antonio she laughed and told me that there hadn’t been any house there, and for more than fifty years ago no one lived between Água Boa and up to her bar. And she told me that several travelers and truck drivers have been already helped by this couple, who nobody knew and who were seen only at the moments those lights turned up.

Until today, I don’t know whether my car had broken down and they’d helped me or they were themselves who’d caused all that. Recently I discovered that, the symbol which Iru had cleaned symbolized a passage between life and death for the Indians.

Marcelo Ferreira da Silva was born on February 22^nd in 1969. It was on a Wednesday. He never cared about knowing the right time. Perhaps when he remembered asking, his parents might have forgotten. But this, is just saluting in our little story. Dear friend, this story may be similar to many other people’s stories, but for sure it may also differ from many other ones. Your dreams and illusions are only yours, although that others may think alike, however with proper characteristic’s.

Marcelo remembers of the lady who taught him to read and write. She was a black woman. And him, son of Italians and German , and he had as a wet nurse a black woman. His grandparents never looked with eyes his approach with this kind lady. He might have been nearly five years old. And she was just more than sixty years old. She was fat, and she used to wear a pair of old and dirty glasses, and a very shabby dress. She lived at the back of the large house they lived. The house had a backyard, with a very big orchard, where the mango trees and tangerines were her favorite trees. And there was still an avocado big tree, where someday she almost fell down and could have been taken to death all at once. Almost eight meters tall.

But, getting back to the old lady whose Marcelo forgot the name beyond the time, she taught him the first scribbles and scratches on a sheet of paper where they used to buy bread.

When he was away from home, his mother knew where to find him. Without hesitating she used to go straight at the old house, at the back of the yard. His mother let the black woman to live there, in compensation of helping her to take care the kid. He doesn’t remember of her complaining about the kind of life she had. And he doesn’t also remember of anyone going to visit her. She never spoke of her relatives, children or any other person. She had an empty life. So empty like the shell of a dead snail.

For Marcelo she was without doubt his second mother. Many times whenever he fell down the trees, it was this black lady, who took care of him. She passed the mercury or made a poultice of herbs.

She really protected him when he got up to mischief. She hid him in the basement of the old house and pretended not knowing where he was when his mother or father felt like hitting him in his hands or with belt. Yes the parents those days, could still educate their children, without risking to end up in jail.

He doesn’t remember if the black lady had died when they still lived there or if it was when they left that place. But without any doubt, that was a very remarkable fact, for, not after long time before, he’s been accused of being racist, something that he had to put in judge. No dear reader, don’t take him as prejuced, for he has lots of black friends, or of several colors, whatever. So, then don’t admit this horrible and stupid thing of racism. Many times are the very black people who have been racists. They discriminate among themselves. Just look around. A famous black man has no black wife. A famous woman... will hardly get along with other black guys. Of course there are exception for everything. Thanks goodness. That’s the way he thinks.

Yeah, and there came a time where they went to live in a countryside where me, as his uncle was the Foreman. Still kid almost seven, Marcelo could already ride on combine harvester. He remembers of those crops that went on up to where his sight reached. Soya, corn, wheat. Only those who have seen, know that the great sensation is to glance from a distance, contemplating that green, the wonderful sight, like there was not an end.

One day, he was on a soya combine harvester, when his uncle shouted of something from the other machine. Marcelo was beside to his father. At that moment he did not understand well. Later on he would get that.

He saw his father running and together with his uncle and another boy starting another running in the middle of the crops. His father got back without the glasses, his uncle all scratchy and the boy was bringing an animal that looked like a dog, dragged and dead. Then he came to know that it was a wolf. I mean, in Brazilian version of American wolves. It was called bush dog.

Oh, how ungrateful we are with times of our lives. When kids, we want to grow up, when we grow up, we want to get back in those times when we were kids. But, if we can’t become kids anymore, we should at least remember of what has gone by. We don’t need to pay for this yet. Not yet! Maybe won’t be like this in future.

Jumping in time, making the watch pointer getting forward, we reached up to his school time.

First grade or Second, we don’t know exactly. But there he was, among other pupils, highlighting in reading and because of his stubbornness in which the school should let the students be in the library all day long.

He often stayed there, hidden, sitting on the floor, reading the Grimm tales, or then the Narizinho reigns. He might have been seven years old. It was this time he felt for the first time, the joy of love. But it was that innocent, sweet, naive love. Where the simple girl’s glance, would make the boys to be able to say that she was his girlfriend. At this time, he met Lucimara. He never forgot her, maybe because of the first kiss, we never forget. She had a tic. Her eyes never stopped blinking. They could maybe stop, but the impression that was left in him is that they never stopped. But this never took away his charm. Today when he closes his eyes, he still sees her. The two of them sitting on a wooden bench, hands in hands, talking ingenuously about the future. In a certain time he was much more daring and kissed her lips. The school Supervisor saw them, they finally were at the background and had to punish them. They studied together during two years. Those were moments of great caring and simplicity which only the children, in pure naiveté of sex could allow themselves. Then, one day she left. Her family moved to another town.

To avoid other boys to speak bullshits against him, Marcelo said that he had quit the courtship with the girls. Since his childhood he was always good at inventing stories. Stories, not lies. His face reddened and people used to find out. So this time, it was not different. He could not disguise the nostalgia.

But this was a time for new discoveries, for acting without elaborated thoughts. And when he woke up, could not miss her so much anymore. This doesn’t mean that he forgot her, seeing that until today he still remembers of her.

Soon, his Family also moved to another town. His father was a seller, and lived from one corner to another. And this made their lives become harder, of suffering and self-denial for his mother. She followed her husband, wherever he went. And with them they went with the fruits of this union. They were seven brothers. One had died on his birth. He was born before Marcelo’s. That’s why he always remained with the idea that he was not well accepted to be born. He could not explain this feeling, he could only feel that there was a grudge of his mother against him. Maybe as someone who was seen to have taken the place of the late brother. The was the third born, while he could have been the fourth. His parents were gone, and he never minded to find out that if he was right.

Well, one day, when he was eleven years old, he got the chance to go in a big town. A crony of his father, wanted to take him and his brother, the second one named Carlos, to live in big town, with this crony’s family. They would put them in a soccer school. The two boys were overjoyed with this news. This was all they dreamed.

But this joy did not last long. His father man of small and unsuccessful business, but with heart full of emotions, said he could not feel well living away from his children. He said that they were still very young and so on. Things that made his crony to forget the boys. This was one of his first life’s defeat. But the like for football, was always present. This was every kid’s dreams those times. They had no project for the future at all. What was the twelve years old countryside boy’s project? And then this was the most fashionable play. At school the Physical Education was football or basketball. They exercised on an old football field of cement with rusty crossbar and with a basketball table all crooked. Football was the dream of a better future. Marcelo and his big brother were the best in the plays. At that time his brother was not so good at all. Marcelo was one of the most wanted to play football. He might have had twelve or thirteen years old. But, maybe influenced by the comics reading, he really didn’t know at all, he always preferred defending the weaker team. And even so, whenever they did not win, they could give hard work to the adversaries. He thinks that this kind of behavior made him make lots of friends, even at the rival football clubs. after the game, they always came to greet one another.

These football games were played on a football pitch in in the middle of a field who the boys themselves created. The force of the hoeing and scythes reduced the bushes into fields of meadow. Meanwhile even the older young men, helped them to set the bars. Many times these bars were not so straight, but this was not a problem at all. The pleasure of a football friend could take him away the perfectionism tendency. What mattered was to run after the ball, to give a good dribbling and then score a goal and then run to his friends to be hugged as the prize.

Once upon a time, they could even have a coach. An old man who liked the plays and decided to organize football club. Vila Pontal, this was the team name.

Their days were like of any twelve or thirteen years old boys who grows up in the countryside of this beautiful country. During the school days, he used to wake up early, had his breakfast and went to school. Right at school, he could already talk to his friends what they would be doing in the afternoon.

After lunch they left their homes and met at the field. Sometimes with a very hot sun, they could find a way to run away hiding from their parents up to a stall on the river bank to refresh themselves. They used to stay there a good deal of time, and when they got back they passed through a farm . sugar cane, watermelon or mango. They always came back from the field their meeting place, having with them in their hands some of these things. And right there with their teeth, they could peel the fruits. They sometimes arrived home with the lips cut, in attempt of barking the sugar cane.

In that place, they could live there about six years. Without it was the local that marked more his childhood, or teenage, whatever.

He continued to read everything, he could also borrow some magazines and many of naked women and took them away secretly at home. Then began to lose his innocence.

At this time he also played hide and seek. But this is different from other plays. Then could set a cottage covered with tree twigs and leaves of pine tree. Actually they used to be well done. There was a boy among them who was considered as the leader.

Enedino. Angry boy, and bold. He liked to hunt, to wade through the woods and he got back only at night fall. At that moment he could invent some wood revolvers with those television antenna, alligator type, and tied it with an elastic. He made like a catapult. The ammunitions were the sinamao balls. That hurt a good deal. They could divide themselves into two groups. The winner was the guy who could destroy the adversary’s communal hut. One day there could even be there a fire in ones of those huts. Many times they dragged themselves on the ground and in the woods, without caring about the reptiles, through the colonial grass plantation to run away from the chasers.

And the running they had are uncountable. After that they passed through a cane field. They must have been seven kids. They came back through the stream all of them with their shorts wet through and without t-shirts. And the cane leaves may cut, I don’t know if you dear reader knew about that, they cut depending on how you hold them. In certain moment they heard a screaming. It was the planting owner. They got away running in the middle of the of cane field. Breaking the branches, stumbling, falling and standing up again to run at high speed.

As they arrived at the football pitch, they could see that they were all cut. Some had deep cuts. Mainly in the hands and legs. The worse was looking for an excuses to their worried parents. But the childish ingenuity doesn’t lose much to the adults. This was not a problem.

Marcelo was then in the phase of discovering the sexual desires. But he used to be very shy.

Definitely eighth grade of the primary old school. Sandra was a happy beautiful girl. Very beautiful. She had a cut black hair, with a small highlights falling over her eyes. She had also two wonderful dimples on her face when she smiled. A round face, where the cheeks got rosy when she’s touched to a delicate situation. She had already a body of a grown up woman, while he, just a small boy the way they used to call him. He was skinny, small, but very intelligent, maybe not so intelligent at all, but many people used to say that.

The first school year, he didn’t pay much attention on her. Her sister seemed to be more adequate to Marcelo. She was younger than Sandra, and she, two years older than him. That’s why the preference to the sister could be much more obvious. But things didn’t happen like that.

Sandra’s father was a dentist. The only one of the town. Maybe this is not so relevant to be told here, but the fact is that there was difference on their ways of living as we can see in this simple fact.

When he started studying the following year, he enrolled himself for the single course of the secondary school in the town. Teaching. Sandra was enrolled also in the same class. But he did not like the course. He complained about it at home. He used to say that he’d quit studying. He felt himself humiliated, put down by his fragile physical constitution, before some of his classroom fellows. He also feared the traineeship. Yes, many guys scared him saying horrors about the students’ behavior. They said that, soon he would be going for classes in a single room. This was the chaos for Marcelo.

He thought hard on that without stopping. What could he do to make grown up students to respect him? At that he was fourteen years old but he looked like as someone who was only eleven. This even created psychological barriers difficult to break now, but later, very late, when he lived alone for the first time, he broke off those barriers.

He heard from the second grade teaching students speaking about the difficulties in the classrooms for the student teachers and trembled. Soon he had to face another identical situation. His parents encouraged him to continue studying, but the real encouragement came from Sandra.

It was on a school day. He was working a group task by himself. Everyone had already gotten their pairs. As he had arrived late, because the water buff truck delayed on the ferry, (it came from Mato-grosso crossing the Paraná river) he was left alone. He did not complain. When the signal rang for the class change, he saw himself left alone in the classroom. The teacher of the following class could not come, so they could have a classless moment at that time. The teacher who was his friend, allowed him to give his work later.

‘And then? What happened to make you arrive late?’ he heard that voice of an angel, soft and refreshing as if it was a heavenly song in his ears.

‘The driver lost the first ferry, and we had to wait for the second one. So it was all a rush. I haven’t eaten anything since the lunch time. It gave me time only to arrive home to take a bath and then come running to school!’ he said controlling himself.

He could not believe that. Sandra was right in front of him more beautiful than never. With a smile crossing her lips. Her round face seemed to be more soft. He did not know what to say again, he stammered something. So she smiled again and sat down beside him. And then he felt for the first time the perfume of the desired body in him. Inebriated, he did not realize what they were talking about.

And then, he realized that he was telling her about his dilemma, if he would continue studying or not.

‘And what will you do if you stop? Will you continue to be a laborer forever?’

‘I don’t know!’ this is the problem! I like to study, but... you know... I am too small... I’ll look like more one student than a teacher.’

‘Well, don’t be stupid! All you need is what you have overflowing! The intelligence!’

‘Of course! Just see teacher Ernesto’s case! Everyone mocks him, they call him daft and other names, but he is one of the best teachers of the school. Have you ever imagined how boring geography classes would be without him?’ ( and the same Ernesto was a very short guy who had a goatee like Mr. Visconde of Sabugosa).

‘Maybe you’re right!’ he said smiling. She thought he was smart. That something very sweet to hear about.

‘Of course I am right! Besides, I would miss you so much.’ That was just like a dream. Did he listen that well?

Timidly Marcelo smiled with his head down. Before standing up, she still held his hand, wishing him a good luck in his school work. Of course she gave him some tips. In fact they were the best students in the class, but they were not enemies. Thanks goodness.

The fact is that, after that he thought of her often. Deep down inside his heart, was not the like on the course which kept him at school. It was Sandra’s. The will, the desire, anxiety he had to see her. Whenever his eyes did not meet hers for one day, that looked just like he felt a hole in his chest. The weekends were just a torture for him.

At this time he was already studying at night. By day he worked as a laborer collecting wools on the other side of Paranasão (the way people used to call the Paraná River), at Mato Grosso.

His thoughts were divided between Sandra and studies. Did she really like him? Maybe she’d said that just by saying, for being very educated and kind. He must have been making fool of himself. But the truth was that he could not keep her out from his eyes. In the class, he always wished a glance or a smile a headed word from her. And when she went toward Marcelo, with a faint smile or words, that looked like as if happiness was something exclusive. Like a refreshing fine rain falling upon his head. However they never had an opportunity to talk for a while without anyone turning up and interrupt them.

Thus, the time rolled on and with the ruminating of those feelings which day after day, night after night devoured him. The inevitable blow was when one day a Sandra’s classroom friend came up all happy, shouting from four windsurfing corners that Sandra was dating a guy whose name was Daniel.

My God! How that it hurt! Only the one knows! That was like a burning spear piercing his chest. He did not how to react. His classroom mates began to laugh, played with her. He participated, timidly, as always. But the pain was so much that only the lovers hearts and not loved in return, can understand that. He looked at her and could see a red face, quite a shyness, another part happiness for what the friends said.

Marcelo had to find an excuse and ask to go home. That was the first time he’d slept at the open air. He could not stand at what was happening. That was not fair. Why? Then like a revolted with his chest burning, he walked around the small town. The moon was the witness on the soap opera scene where he played the lead role in, right before the Lima Duarte character wade through the woods like an angry dog for the teacher’s love lived by Maitê Proença at the Motherland Savior. And he was only fourteen maybe fifteen. He did not think of anything. Snakes, birds or wild night beats, he did not care about anything. With his heart full of sorrow he suffered his second defeat.

This chapter about Sandra, it could even serve for a good book himself, but to reduce the impact and the wariness in the reader’s eyes, we jumped for some time after, maybe for a year, already at the third grade of teaching Education, when he was about to finish his studies. At this time had already overcome the fear of being rejected for his physical aspect, and he did his internship classes regularly. And he’d already lost the title of ‘the best student in the class’. He did not care about that anymore.

He had tried to forget about Sandra and date another girl. He might have been fifteen years old now. This girl who he was going out with, was the relative of the bedding owner where he once worked some time ago.

Seventh-day Adventists. He could even go to some of their church meetings. Although his family were catholic practitioners and he enroll himself to go to study at one seminary, he found no problem in that. This girl belonged also to a more well off family than his, and this could prejudice a little bit their relationship. Although he was with this girl, he could hardly forget Sandra.

And then, as I was saying, when he almost finished his studies, on September that year’s, Marcelo’s family, moved away from that town. They went to another city much further in the south, for about 180 kilometers from the town where Sandra lived. No matter how much hard he tried to disguise, he never forgot her. In fact he could not, because she’s been the apples of his eyes during every nights and sometimes even during the days, when they interned together in the same class. Yes, somebody knew already about his feelings for Sandra, for it’s a burden of suffering to carry them all by himself. He’d become someone’s friend in the class. His name was Jose. Jose Martins. He was short like him, however he was much more self-confident and this made him to become friends. Step by step he trusted him and he trusted Marcelo.

He confided what he felt and Jose smiled. He said that, it could be crazy he felt nothing for her, for everybody in the class fancied her. It was difficult to make him understand that what he felt about that girl was not an attraction. But step by step José Martins understood that. And with his help Marcelo learned how to disguise what he felt when he saw her with that very guy named Daniel.

But getting back to the subject, when on his last class day said goodbye to everyone and got encouraged he asked Sandra a souvenir. And she, smiled gave him a small card made from paperboard. He kept the card from Sandra in the middle of his notebooks and went out heading to a corner. He could not hold his tears back. He cried because he knew that he would never see her again. He certainly cried because he would never love her again he way he used to.

Then she turned up where he was. It was just that day, exactly in that last instant that they could stay together alone, without any other soul alive to interrupt them. But his shyness shut his mouth like a gag calms the hostage and kept to himself everything he felt for her.

How the cruel destiny could reserve only this instant of loneliness with a goddess?

He changed the subject, dried his tears, so he got away from there crying, without saying to her what he felt, only crying, holding tight together with his notebooks and books that small card made from paperboard.

At home, already a bit calm, in the small room that he used to share with his brother, Carlos, opened the card and read it once again just to ensure what he had read: That was the invitation for Sandra’s engagement with Daniel.

He said goodbye to everyone. That small town, could never be forgotten from his memory anymore. Today is the disputing stage for the colonizers who dream to own a piece of land. About the town, you dear reader, may research, it’s in São Paulo’s countryside, today called Rosana.

Yeah, this other town where they moved to, his father could open a shop. So, Marcelo began working by day and study at night.

His second born brother, Carlos, dedicated much more to football. He got more notoriety at the local. Perhaps much more than Marcelo. To tell the truth, much more indeed. You dear reader might ask me, why you call him as the second? Because he had another brother, in case the third one. As I said before, they were seven, knowing that the other was born dead. The two first bearing were of female, then sooner after the stillborn, followed by Marcelo, another boy, another girl and then the third.

In this town he soon got a girlfriend. The first, I mean. For since then, he’d known only that Plato’s love. This one was a very caring, lovely and beautiful girl. Not as much as Sandra, but she was beautiful.

Her name was Lindalva, but she preferred to be called by Linda. They met in the class. As he was a newly comer in the town, he drew curious looks of the girls and boys who looked at him with the other eyes. Envy, jealousy or even prejudice for being the town newcomer. At this time, his body was being transformed and Marcelo began to lose the trauma of his physical incapacity.

During a work exhibition, Lindalva and him changed some conversation. As the class was over, he took her at his house No, he had no car. They went walking slowly and talking, and when they realized they were holding themselves hand in hand.

Days later he was making love with her for the first time. He can’t say that it was horrible neither the way he was expecting. But it was something new. It was the thing he desired, but as he had read many pornographies magazines, he had created lots of fantasies. With the passing of time, later, he would understand that fantasies exist because they’re only imagination things. Otherwise they would never be fantasies but reality.

Linda was an open-minded girl to talk about sex. He felt himself a new born before the superior mother. He was still shy. His timidity kept him away from lots of people. He could not go somewhere crowded with people. He felt himself depressed and many times he remained days without talking to his family.

He opened his mind to many things. This he started to live a little of what his future would be. He could not stay with Linda in a place where there were many people. The Snail inside him spoke louder and desired for a shell.

At the beginning Linda thought that normal. But as time rolled by she realized how insecure he was. At this time Marcelo worked in market, after working in a charcoal and also in a bar. And in this market where he worked Linda used to appear there sometimes. However she did not use to get in, she called him out and talked for a while quickly. Only later he could understand that why she did not use to get in. in fact that was not a market but a grocery store the correct name.

Dear reader you may wonder Marcelo’s timidity and in the same time working in public place attending lot of people, moreover this is real. He liked to talk, get along with people somehow he never liked to stand among a group of many people. And when he was with these, just to disguise his timidity he always needed to talk. He talked without talking. His hands were oily and used to rub them together unstoppably.

Well, one day he found out that, the owner of the grocery where Marcelo used to work, was already Linda’s boyfriend. It was herself who told him. Up to that, alright. But soon he was highly astonished.

There was a client of this Market who had a team of bushmen. Bushmen were those people who cut the woods from the bush and brought them for woods. Sometimes these guys stayed fifteen or twenty days in the bush. And this man went every time in the town, he shopped for his people in the place where Marcelo used to work. Well, one day this gentleman parked his truck far away from the market. It was an old car with the body removed, left just with the truck bed where they put up wood logs. The old was inside talking to Marcelo’s boss, as there was nobody else Marcelo stayed outside. There was only one door open in the market, the other one was closed. Leaning against this door, he saw when Lindalva was passing by in the street and called her, started to talk and then suddenly the old client got out from the market.

‘Linda! What are you doing here?!’ he said letting Marcelo in amazement. ‘how come?! Did he know her?’

He looked at him with an angry man’s face, with no feeling that only a man who lives with men of all strains and characters from the most varied.

At this grocery’s time, up to now Marcelo brings inside himself something which he could not sort it out in him.

The grocery’s owner was a Young man, less than thirty years old and his wife two years earlier had given him the first baby boy. She was blond, beautiful, and he, Marcelo went to work at that place, for her to take good care of her child. Until there, okay. The market or grocery’s owners whatever you prefer to say, reader, had a friend who they used to call him Galo. He was a good sort. He sometimes appeared there and helped them with the grocery.

He drank some bears, talked a little bit and hit the road. But one day, he thought of hearing something more.

It was a rainy day, Zé Godinho, the grocery’s owner, was out. He had gone at the bank or somewhere else. The fact is that, he was away home. The house was contiguous to the Market. Galo arrived with umbrella, a little wet. He went up to the back of the house. He said he would dry himself a bit. Marcelo was not surprised at it, he was intimate of the couple. So, in a certain moment he had to go and set the shelf up. Some rain drops were falling in through the roof and he had to change the position of some products. It was in this moment that he heard something that until today he doesn’t know if it was out of his imagination or pure and simple reality.

‘It’s nothing at all! With the rain’s noise, he doesn’t listen anything! Zé will still be long! He doesn’t distrust at all... he could not hear other words, the rain in fact interrupted his ears from listening everything.

So, after some minutes straightening his ears and paying more attention between the wood walls, Marcelo listened to something more.

"Little son..." — did he listen well? Galo had called Ze Goguinho’s son of son? And then...??? he moved away from the wall and went to clean on the other side of the grocery, right in time, for in less than two minutes Galo was getting out through the corridor door that gave access to the grocery store. But getting back to Lindalva.

For fear or cowardice he gave up the dating with Linda. The day he said that everything was over, she had an attack. She suffered from epilepsy. But it was nothing serious. Thanks God! after all his cowardice, if I may say so, Marcelo did not wish her anything wrong.

well, after six months alone, he went out from town together with his father. The shop did not give any result according to their expectation and they went to live in Paraná’s countryside. His father was always a hard-working and a honest man. He never knew that business and honesty are never embraced, when too much, they go on the same road. But he was persistent enough in a way that not to get an inch of idea. So stubborn even to put things in popular term. A kind of faith in God that made Marcelo believe to be miserable sinner in each thinking and action. Discipline and order, was methodic and sincere. With all these predicates dear reader do you think that he would be successful getting involved in business?

They two went ahead to arrange a place where to live. Two months later his mother with the rest of the family arrived. The town was smaller. With an only street from one side to another. It missed to Marcelo to conclude the 3rd year of the second grade. The local school was of the first grade up to eighth grade in the classes at night. So, he stayed one year out of school.

Soon he got a job in a mechanical workshop and his father employed as a super market manager. The only one in the town. The owner was a farmer of the region who was pleased with Mr. Luis and gave him the job and live restfully in a farm.

This time Marcelo left playing football definitely. His brother Carlos, differently from him, adventured and dreamed more and more in this area. Many local acquaintances took advantages on his dreams and hopes thoughts to Carlos, only at the weekends, where, for misery cents dismantled his opponent’s defense, bringing the trophy in the town. However, the real help of that which sustains and feeds the body and soul, he had nothing at all, something like a job with permanent or monthly salary.

But in this town, they stayed there just for two years. Soon they changed again. I think that dear reader, you must have realized that this family had gypsy life. Always from one place to another. This a part was good and other, not. They could never get anything. When they started getting some profits, soon they stopped everything and to live in another place.

At this time Marcelo with seventeen years old, got worried more and more with his future. He left the girlfriends aside and only cared about working. He could see the necessities of what his family passed through and knew that as the first born had to go after the solution for the situation they lived.

His big sister got married with the son of an industrial man and he went to live her for some time. He left looking for a job and a better life condition, for Marcelo and for his families. This town was far away from their parents, about 790 kilometers away, in another state.

It was a large town. At the beginning he wondered, in fact, he’d lived in small towns only, that, when much, they had 20 thousand people. Now he found himself in the middle of great buildings, in a metropolitan city, with large number of cars and also dangerous, many assaults and other crimes. In his eighteens he got in for the first time in a cinema.

He worked on tinsmith’s shop where the owner was his brother-in-low’s acquaintance. He met simple people there, but who acted and behaved in a very strange way. As there arrived a group of friends, all of them motor-bike riders, the shop’s owner used to send him back then in the yard to get the parts, clean or organize everything. Him, innocently or in his own ingenuity of someone who never lived in midst of tricks and things like that, he never noticed anything wrong. Until one day...

Marcelo was alone in the workshop, there was little work, so he went up to the bungalow that was built inside the very workshop to be the office. Up there he began fussing about looking for a magazine of naked women, he fussed the drawers and in several places, Always looking for and leave exactly the way how he found before touching.

At a certain time he saw the knocking out bag, those training bags for fighters, hung on the ceiling and felt like giving some kicks what he came practicing in his brother-in-low’s house. From kicks he went on punches. It was his time for oriental philosophy reading and so on. Then he looked beside and saw another knocking bag. That was strange, he thought to himself and went to verify what was inside... was it really sand? It was so soft... it wasn’t sand, they were some dry leaves, which looked like cassava leaves... but they weren’t. so his mind began to work.

Suddenly he understood why they kept him away when that group of nice guys who worked at railway and that came always by motorbike. I really can’t say that he was treated badly, instead. They’ve been kind with Marcelo. But, nevertheless, he realized that it was all a part of stratagem to keep him quiet and far away.

Three years later that he left working at the tinsmith’s shop, he heard from the radio that the owner of that workshop was wanted by the police for car theft and drugs trafficking. He really felt pity of the guy, the owner of the workshop. But until today he asks himself, why did he choose that way? He could have been in a totally different situation. He only needed to believe. But one must know what he does. Then he thought how many others who would not be caught. But Marcelo learned that the police delays, but some day, when the less they expect, they get good results.

Still referring to that time, very later, he came to know that one of those boys who worked at the workshop, died drowned in a pool. In fact he was not a worker there, as he was a mare acquaintance of the workshop owner, the one felt pity seeing him without anything in his pocket, sometimes he called him to help and paid a buck. About the death in the pool, it was said he was drugged before diving into the pool. It was no way back diving.

Still in this time also, Marcelo remembered of being in a square, where there was a big college, called convention and some boys were playing football on the grass an improvised pitch. He was called and joined them happily. It has been six months already that he was living in the town and never played football again since then. He still remembers well of what was said about him when he jumped to head a ball:

"Wow, guys did you see that! This guy’s got a damn good impulse...” they commented among themselves the other players.

He was happy and all proud with the commentary. But he never played anymore in that town.

He still lived with his brother-in-low and sister some six months more, summarizing in all one year. One without studying. Another one lost year.

Well. As he got back home, his father went at Santa Catarina’s countryside. Him and other family stayed there surviving the way they could. Many times the neighbors helped them with something to eat. Sweet potatoes, a little bit of beans. He came back and started to work in a market. His second brother, Carlos, was already working there and got him a vacancy. His younger brother, the youngest or the third, whatever, Ricardo at this time he liked wandering in the woods, hunting birds and living his world discoveries time. He was doing what Marcelo used to do when he was his age.

The market people, liked his second brother Carlos so much. As I’ve said before, at this time he was the most commented player in the small town. He did incredible plays and gave wonderful dribbles. He could even win Maradona’s nickname, in attribution the Argentian star, who used to make wonders on Italian football fields.

Marcelo looked with other eyes what the Market owners used to do with Carlos. Was a pure exploration and simple. His brother in joy of playing and do what he liked to do, never cared about. But Marcelo was aware. The ones, the store owners, obliged Carlos to stay out of his time schedule, and didn’t earn any extra money. They did not let him to get out earlier to study. And they still had to make him carry heavier burden more than what he could on his backs. They were bags of potatoes, wheat, beans, and several other things. At this time he might have been 16 or 17 years old.

When they tried to do that with Marcelo, the one could not stand that for long. He opened his mouth and complained some day when they were unloading from a truck and were thrown a watermelon and his brother left that fall and broke. So, they told him:

‘It will be cashed in your salary! You’re so feeble!’ they said that in front of many clients who were in the Market.

At the time Marcelo did not say anything, but the blood inside him boiled. His brother Carlos said nothing also humiliated. They felt themselves like two slaves.

‘The way you mistreated him in front of others. I beg of you that, if you were to talk to me like that, at least don’t do that in front of customers. You may offend the way you like, but talk to me a part... he tried to make a harsh tone in his words, but he spoke with his head down, shyly and afraid, for he feared to be sent away. But he could not be quiet for any longer, seeing the exploration they did.

‘Look! Here, you’re an employee, and you don’t have to say any bullshit! If I want to shout, I’ll shout, and I think that I must offend, I will offend, understand? And don’t try to be a jerk here, your brother’s good guy, but you’re one of those who thinks that you got the world in your belly and lives complaining’ and he said many other things...

His brother continued with them during some more time. And then Marcelo went in Santa Catarina’s countryside where his father was.

In Santa Catarina he got a job and worked as bricklayer helper. He helped with the steakhouse construction.

His father was working in another supermarket. He was sub manager. He lived with other men who worked in the market too.

Marcelo rented a room in a pension. In fact it was only an attic, where there was a bed, with a small window.

But still talking about bricklayer time, or better, the helper. Then, in winter the cold was so much that they could not hold the hoe. The fingers could not close around the hoe. So they lit up a campfire to worm themselves. During these days the sun turned up behind the clouds only at midday, maintaining its light and heat only two hours and then disappeared behind of the existing fog.

Marcelo made friendship with a group of boys, so on some weekends he used to go playing football with them somewhere far away in a place called “Tio Juca beach”, a fun attribution to the Tijuca beach at Rio de Janeiro.

He started to study again. In the class there were some of the boys who played football with him. They became great friends. One of the in particular captivated his heart.

They were simple, direct guys, always happy, contrasting with Marcelo, who in time was still sorrowful. He felt in Luis the a little what missed in himself. They were always together. Marcelo at time must have been in his eighteens or nineteen. Luis as well. The town school was small and the only one. They studied in the evenings

Marcelo needed to study two years more to conclude the second grade. He had to complete the second year and make the third one. Things of timeless changes.

Soon he got a job in a company. He worked until six o’clock p.m. and then he left from there running home, literally running, and then went to school.

In the class Marcelo and his friend Luis, disputed drawing attention of a brunette, chocolate skinned, of wavy hair and fleshy lips girl. In fact many guys in the class spoke many things about her and her life.

Marcelo until today he thinks that Luis got always the best, but never wanted to accept this fact, but he unconsciously pretended not to see.

To tell the truth, the boy still brought with him the remembrance of flame of a round face, Sildit. Yes, it’s that Sildith came to be Sandra after a joke made in the class, when they studied in Rosana.

Well, but there, in Santa Catarina, he could not undo those memories which made him to be an inmate of life.

So there turned up the story that the brunette got another boyfriend, who was Marcelo and Luis’ classmate, but not so friendly with them.

Encouraged him and Luis asked her if that was true, ‘Of course it is, you got courage. What do you want?’ that was a damn good indirect for them two. But Marcelo found more words in it than that.

He found in these words a girl with no qualities for whom he was dreaming for a girlfriend. She was not like Sandra. She really seemed amoral, to see her talking to them in a such way.

As if something which served as a prize for who would arrive first. After this, he definitely fancied less to the brunette. Of course, even so, he still wished her. In fact he was a girl with very beautiful legs, with fatless sign in her body and in addition she used to wear clothes that drew so much attention. But, gradually this interest got decreased.

Soon Marcelo was transferred from the company he worked for to ones of Paraná’s town.

It pains to see how the human mind is able to demean himself to continue his existence trying to get something more. And this something more was always the power. The power for a charge, the power for possession, of right.

The right gives power, but the power is never always the right, can be direct, but not right.

The right presupposes power, grants power. For patterns of the elders “making the law” was like “doing what was right”, and it’s a research for power, of this modern right and appalled that the human soul suffers.

The company where Marcelo worked, assigned a contract for work in this city and he went there in charge for stockman.

The salary was good, transferring consequence. But he lived and got along with all kinds of people.

Some came from Northeast, others like him from South. There you could find every type of possible character. Of good worth and of worthless ones. Men with rude faces and living the worst. Young men seeking for a better condition of life and of controversial feelings, that for some reasons were hiding themselves from the justice.

With all of them who were transferred, they were living in an accommodation. During the day he worked in a closed room, far away from the people outside there. But he listened to many stories. Even some macabre ones.

As he was twenty years and living little life experiences, he was considered by everyone as “clean cloth”, like the man of great experience who worked in the farm called the guys who never worked harder in the farm. People who dealt only with pen and papers.

There was someone there who was a motor grader operator or patrol the most common way to be called, 120h model, who drank too much and then to combat the consumed alcohol, he disgracefully ate a great deal of garlic.

My God, dear reader you may believe that even today, Marcelo still feels revulsion of condiment smell. So, this guy used to come up at the warehouse to ask for gloves, boots or even the overall. The boy had to keep quite far away from him so that the smell might not make him get sick. And in this young man’s eyes, yes he was young, he could not be more than 25 years old, his eyes reflected evilness, empties, opaque, without any shining, black. He had an inexpressive face. He was taller than Marcelo and was even more robust.

It happened that he once had to go at the field to check the materials and the tools to make new requests. And he was caught by the rain on his way there. Marcelo hid himself on a stall and this figure was not there, made of alcohol and garlic? In some rounds, joking they were saying that he was Anti-Dracula! But, dear reader, we sometimes get some divine warnings through certain strange feelings that we can never explain.

There was an elderly man, who was chubby, short who seemed to be more enlightened. They began talking while the weather had not taken up.

At this instant, "alho", this was his nickname, began to provoke him, thinking that he was from Santa Catarina, for he knew that he was from there and Marcelo was transferred. "Every Catarina are all fagot! Catarinian who hasn’t given his ass, it’s because he’ll soon give, day less day!” and then, in those foul words of cager men who think that foul language is a sign of masculinity, he tried to provoke him all the ways.

At the beginning he did not pay him attention, but with the passing of time, he continued repeating that and he could not stand that any longer.

It was a large house made of wood where they kept some tools and where the radio house worked. It might have been a space of about five, six meters square. There was no floor.

The floor was covered of gravel and there was two wooden benches stuck nailed on the wall.

Marcelo was seated on one of those benches, the touchy guy was standing in the middle of the room about meters away from the boy.

When the human being lets the anger to dominate him, there’s no voice that calls him the reason, this was what happened with Marcelo, step by step those provoking words were rising and taking his rational thoughts.

Soon he could not stand them anymore. Not only by himself, but he realized of the ridiculous feeling of the man, outraged and humiliated before other guys of the same tribe.

Quickly like a viper giving a stroke, Marcelo went forward with the two hands in front and caught him on the shirt collar pulling him hard at once against the wall. With the chock the cloak fell and a helmet fell on the floor. He knocked Alho’s head hard on the wall, but he made a mistake.

No sooner than “Alho" knocked his head on the wall a sharp penknife was close to the boy’s neck. “Go ahead, keep on, son of bitch! I’ll make you a shower! Come on! Come here you bastard!” Marcelo released him all at once and gave two steps aback.

His face looked like a stone, his mouth opened mixed with smile and mocking. ‘Aren’t you brave?’ and now? Won’t you say you’re a great fagot? Who never gave your ass to anyone? Come here and say it that it’s not true?!’ then the other guys who were there came to separate them and held him.

Marcelo went out from there running without looking back wetting himself in the rain. Ashamed, humiliated, but what mattered was that he was alive.

As days went by, he planned to avenge that guy, who humiliated him terribly. Thousands and one ideas brainstormed his mind. But this kept on only in his mind.

Many of them knew of what happened and came to congratulate him for facing him and in the same time tell him to be careful, because they knew that Alho was revengeful person.

Some of these guys said that they were not so sure yet, but there was rumors about him having killed two people in a bar fight.

Into the accommodation Marcelo slept with the eyes open. He feared because the windows and doors were weak and just with one kick anyone would knock them down.

He went to see the guy only when the one came to give clothes and bed linings, two weeks later.

He’s been dismissed and the police was already waiting for him to give testimonials about the two deaths in S. Paulo’s West side.

Still at this time, this is another narration about terror where he passed through. There were also some people who worked at mineral transportation that sometimes went at the warehouse to get some materials.

One of these guys looked like a bear, all hairy, white skin. Short, stubby, scary voice and scarred face, like someone who came from a horror movie. He liked to talk. He was from S. Paulo’s suburbs and he always liked to talk to Marcelo whenever he went at the warehouse.

This guy seemed to be good person to him, for he never meant judging anybody from their appearance, but with the passing of time he noticed that his judging was distorted.

On one of these camping ride, to check the mineral transportation materials, Marcelo received a lift by RK (Randon Kokun) vehicle that this man maneuvered.

He began talking things that made no sense, totally nonsense and acting like that man who the boy once knew when he went at the warehouse.

He got scared and jumped from the car, as it was still moving. He rolled himself on the floor and dirtied his clothes.

He went back running up to where the Sector Manager was. He explained the fact. How could they let a drunk driver to drive a vehicle of that size?

And what about the things that would happen? Accidents happen, but wouldn’t this be everybody’s obligation trying to avoid it?

The manager didn’t like of his meddling in the management the way he administrated the local service.

In this very same day, later, when he came from the warehouse, he received the News that an engineer wanted to talk with him.

He told him on a meeting particularly that, people were complaining for Marcelo talking too much.

It was referred of his conversation with the manager of Mine service transportation. He said that the operator was the Manager’ son-in-law, and he could no way talk to him in loud voice that he saw him drunk. The fact is, he said, everyone knew about it, but did not care. They pretended that nothing happened. Fore, despite drinking, the man was a very good guy, treated everyone politely.

Marcelo touched on a matter about accident that somehow would happen. The engineer assured him that nothing would happen and he should forget the conversation they had and the RK operator’s case also.

Then, three days passed and it happened. The boy came to know the other day morning. The fact was said from mouth to mouth.

Very early in the morning, the drunk operator, entered with the RK at the crusher mouth, munching the radio line and even making the crusher manager to jump seven meter high, not to be crushed, fortunately he’d jumped on the gravel ¼.

The engineer looked for him right in that afternoon and said he was arranging his return in the town whence he came from. He was afraid of him telling the story he’d prevented in advance. Besides, he advised him not to say anything, for he knew some people who liked to do certain works to please him. Marcelo blinked. Was he threatening? The warning was clear. There was no other thing to think.

There were many stories about people who disappeared suddenly in the field, where nobody else had any News. Now he had an idea of what had happened with this disappearances.

Well, he went back at Santa Catarina countryside to his parents’ house a week before carnival.

He could still enroll himself for the second third year grade. He still found the same friends in the class.

Even the brunette whom he’s lost interest in dating her and a blonde friend inseparable to her, besides the other ones from the previous years.

His brother, the second, named Carlos had gone for a test in a professional football team and admired the leaders. He stayed there. It was his father who took him there and got back alone.

His friendships in the town, although few, less than five thousand people, included only schoolmates and workmates. At the time he was transferred he began to like writing. He wrote poems without rhymes, without any study, influenced by sertaneja music that he used to listen to. That was one way to run away from loneliness also and from weekend boredom he had whenever he did not work. Home sick, Sandra’s, friend’...

He also started to write more dense texts. Poetry is good but cannot be shared with a dictionary. The child knows that a flower is beautiful and doesn’t need a book to know that.

A Poet cannot write in a well elaborated or studied manner, for the feelings are not studied neither elaborated. The feelings come up and if a poet needs a dictionary to describe them or the reader needs a dictionary to understand what the poet wrote, this is not poetry, that’s science. And poetry is not a science of words, but yes the word which has as an essence of feelings.

In the class during the Portuguese classes, he used to discuss with the former teacher of this subject. He did not accept the traditional mode the way the one used to give his lessons.

Marcelo wanted to know the true meaning of mesclic and enclise. He did not like accepting the teacher to make simply the grammar exercises, he used to discuss with the teacher why the comma could not be used as a point?

The class guys enjoyed with that, some got even irritated because of his stubbornness. That one was the teacher, Marcelo should listen and shut up, the way others did.

Later, Marcelo came to watch a movie. “The Dead Poet Society”, and laughed as he remembered that, right before the movie, he’s been already a rebel for traditionalism in the class. In fact, not only in Portuguese classes but in most of them, however it was at national language subject in which he was more rooted.

Even the School Principal admonished him saying that, the teacher complained about his position in his classes.

Perhaps what he was looking for was the distinction between him with the other students.

He was poor, his family didn’t even have a property and worked hard every day. He was just one of them, like many others. He was not noticed. He had even become a common student. His mark did not highlight him any longer, like before. He had to find another way to be recognized. The hard criticism, fierce and acerbic was the option he got. This can be understood today, but he did not think like this in the past. Luis came to know that he was writing, then he resolved to dispute with Marcelo. One read what the other wrote.

This friendship intensified in such a way that, they could even miss classes together, to rest on the college grass, sleeping one or two hours in the open. Luis began working also during the day and felt the tiredness of the daily struggling. Waking up at five a.m. and go to sleep every night just before midnight that was an easy job.

But if Marcelo even at this time still had a souvenir of Sildit, this remembrance, soon it would decrease.

He stopped on a newsstand and talked a little bit to a girl who was attending there which also served as photographic shop.

The clerk was a college acquaintance. Marcelo was in his working clothes. A gray overall, a leather backpack crossed off the chest, wearing boots accessories that all the pedestrians used.

He looked up to ask apologies and saw the most beautiful girl that he has ever seen.

White teeth and perfect covered by fleshy red lips. Her face was of an unparalleled brilliance and her eyes green which looked like more two emeralds stars shining in her fiddling way. Her blond hair, curly and long, danced by the wind puffing.

He stood up there and kept still, without knowing what to say, she smiled and moved away with the friend who was with her who he had not noticed before.

He went walking and every second steps looked back hopping her to look back also.

Once he saw her looking back to him as well. He smiled and internally felt a happiness that he did not understand and for a long time which never took hold of him.

At night, as he went to church, he saw her on the other side of the banks corridor. She really was without shadow of doubt the most beautiful girl in the town. It’s incredible that why he had never seen her before.

On the following week he worked, then he went to school, and every day he dreamed to meet her once again.

He had once suffered a lot with what he felt for Sandra and didn’t want that to happen again.

On Sunday he went to play football with the agricultural cooperative people of the town.

There, things were like that, the match was in the morning, and after the visiting they stayed there for barbecue.

Then he got back when it was nearly four o’clock p.m. well, the same truck which took them, brought them back.

He got off in the small town center, where there was a corner. Some got off there too. But he followed his way home on his own.

Before getting the street that leads his home, Marcelo had to pass through a football pitch, made of cement, very old, but the only one of the town.

As he passed through this pitch, he looked further there at the bleachers made of concrete, noticed the blond girl who he desired so much to see again.

Soon she began to talk more, gesticulate more, smiling happily. This shook with Marcelo.

He remained there standing still, only in shorts, with t-shirt together with the football boots inside his backpack.

When he realized, the princess was standing beside him talking to someone. He really got puzzled with her proximity. No, dear reader, you already know that he was not virgin anymore not even a matter of love was something knew for him as well.

And then, he’d lost his way of charming a girl, because, he exclusively lived for works and studies.

Yes, you know that, every human being in love is a fool. Becomes a fool. Important things lose importance, when cupid leprechaunfully make them targets.

Yes, love make us weak, sick, sighing and dreaming. This is no news, just if you’ve loved someone in life, you know what I am talking about.

The blonde girl might have been five years younger than Marcelo. At that time he might have been 20 or twenty one, and she, was not more than sixteen. She was like a flower blooming. He fancied her from tip to toes. And she looked at him with the corner of her eyes.

Marcelo was really a very handsome boy. His body was in development. He had the muscles of a well-built body and his chest were well formed. He usually made exercises with the martial arts magazines he used to collect and also with a pair of nunchaku he had. His legs always drew the girls attention for they were thick and full of hairs. His hair, black like of Indians always well combed and carefully washed every day.

So, Marcelo took courage then, and at an instant daringly came close up to her where she was together with her friends who he only knew by face.

He quickly told her his name and began talking happily, sitting on the bleachers floor. Those were moments of great magic and of the world isolation. Her words were like balm relieving his spirit.

‘oh, live right here, it is that I study at... she said saying that she studied out of town, preparing herself for the entrance exam. She did not tell him exactly the place she lived, only that her parents lived downtown.

Slowly he got courage and held her hand. She trembled. Marcelo could feel the smooth veins from where the blood passed through, he really could feel her heart beatings. They were in ecstasy, they did not realize when the football match finished and only realized when her friends approached and called her to go away.

They said goodbye to each other, with no kisses neither hugs, only as acquaintances, with a moistened handshakes of happiness and satisfaction. They promised to meet again the next weekend.

Well, illusion a part, he knew that she might be a daughter of a well-off people who had a better and different lifestyle living. She dressed well, above all she was well brought-up, her parents paid for her to stay in another town, the larger one and more developed. He felt himself a fool to keep any relationship with her. How? He was just a farm laborer. His father was poor and had nothing. He himself had nothing as well!

At school as he asked Luis, he came to know that she was a daughter of a rich Shop owner of the town. His suspicions were confirmed.

But his friend as soon as he realized how this News saddened his heart, he said that he knew her brother and would introduce him to him the coming Saturday.

He first went out with the girl secretly then openly. He took advantages of those sweet moments as if they were only ones. It was with Marcelo who she had her first kiss, the first sexual relation and also the first deception. She felt frigid, she considered the sex a blame, a sin as her parents used to tell her. They hardly had sex.

But for him, was not the main thing. What mattered more is to have her by his side. Knowing that she liked him and he liked her. No, they did not use to say to each other “I love you”, for this phrase to Marcelo, it always looked commercial, a too banal word.

After five months of dating, he committed a such kind of stupidity which until today he penalizes himself.

There were in those times, even today there must still be, many dances in the Township suburbs.

In those colonizers communities people sweat a lot all day long in the plow and hoe handle. And the company people met one another to go at these dances.

Sometimes the people who organized the dance hired a bus to pick everybody up there. During the day there was an announcing on the radio.

There was a boy at the company to whom Marcelo became friend with, so strong like theirs with Luis. His new friend’s name was Bonato. He was tall, blond, a very handsome boy, to whom the girls melted to. They made a pair to whom the girls hungered for.

Before starting his dating with the town blonde girl they always used to go at this dancing with Bonato.

Although he was not a good dancer, most of the times he used to sit at the table having a beer, the boy liked the environment, and enjoyed that much.

Then, one Saturday, that the blonde said that she wouldn’t come in town, he decided to make his friend’s wish. They would go at the dancing together.

By the way he assured to Bonato that he would not drink for he did not want to get a girl there, as he had already his princess, and was a guy with his principals. Since he didn’t want her to betray him so he would not do that with her as well, he said to his friend

When he realized he’d already taken lots of beers, so he decided to go out of the club and get a fresh air. To refresh is memory.

On the gate he was prevented by the security who told him that he would not get out as long as it was not three o’clock a.m. he found that an absurd and started to argue at the top of their voices.

A beautiful brunette girl, with long black hair pulled him from one arm saying to the securities he had drunken too much and he was his boyfriend.

And him already effortlessly, very drunk, he accepted her help. They started talking and drank some more beers.

He remembered of waking up on a very smooth good smelling bed. Beside him sneezed the brunette girl who had helped him.

He looked out through the window and concluded that they were in a single lone place own their owns.

Her car was stopped under a jack tree. Even being in a complicated situation, he laughed to himself, imagining a jack tree falling upon the Scort XR-3, which at that time was considered a first lined modern vehicle.

He had not given her his phone number, but somebody had given her probably. As he didn’t pay her attention, she decided to ruin her life all at once.

The brunette girl knew about his relationship with the blonde girl and when the one came the following weekend, the brunette said to her that Marcelo had slept with her.

The blonde got horrified, but even so, she trusted the boy when he explained how the things had happened. Bonito confirmed all the story.

But the vengeful and spiteful brunette, three months later she turned up to the young boy and girl’s life again saying that she was pregnant. She showed the medical exam. Well, at that time if there existed a DNA examination already. (but as he could not pay for that, it would be useless!).

The problem is that, the blonde’s parents forbad her to see Marcelo and the brunette’s wanted him to marry her forced like it always happened with lots of people that time.

Running away it seems to be a very strong term, however, observing well, it really was the best word that described his act.

He got his economies in the bank, he got away from that place. Finally, if the blonde would not have her neither the brunette would have him too.

He still remembers those days, were empties, without clear thoughts neither black ones as well.

On the highways he’d passed through, he felt himself like a marginal looking for cops.

When the cops passed by close to Marcelo, the one looked for all the way to hide his face from them.

He did not know which attitude the brunette’s father would take. But he precluded.

Once again, love did not work out. It seemed that he was condemned to wander in the world.

Marcelo went to live in the capital. During two years, he did not talk to anyone in the Family. He did not care what they would think of him.

He was tired of living for them. He had to have his own life. And time has come to start.

All of them were students, so, they did not stay inside room for a long time during the day. In the evening, exhausted they entered the room just to sleep.

Meanwhile, he went wandering the whole city in search for job and got back home tired also, that no sooner than he dined he slept.

He started to work in a consortium store of automobile. The manager had called him in for an office assistant vacancy but as he saw he was a well communicative boy and friendly gave to Marcelo the selling area.

The commission was good and he could rent a room for himself alone, without needing to divide it with other guys again.

Alright, being communicative and expressing well without any problem, however he was not good at convincing clients.

He did not have the essential thing for sellers. Maybe because he never identified himself in the area, and what is even worse for being an automobile one, that although he’d worked already for almost two years in a mechanical workshop, he did not know the right model neither did he know how to drive.

He stayed at that work just for a week, and soon got another one in a household appliances shop. He worked in cash collection in the credit sector.

Dedicating all his time at work, without any other wish, but of having the job to satisfy what he was required for, he was being admired by the people who worked with her.

Soon he began to study once again, studying an introduction to computer course. At the household appliances everything was alright.

But as a man can’t live without a woman, as the human being nature, he soon found himself involved by the legs of a beautiful woman a little bit old who worked in the shop.

Janete was of a single beauty to a lady for his age. He really seemed to be ten years less younger than her. They used to talk a lot together and soon things began to happen normally. There were only him and the cash collector manager of men at that sector. They were seven people in all. Five women.

As it happens in all commercial companies, when the year end came, the shop made a fraternization party. Secret friends, things like that.

Janete gave him an underwear with a hole in front. Everyone laughed. Him, still shy, he got blushing. In that very same party, later, she showed him how to use that opening. Those were erotic moments together with her. She was tall almost 1,80, short hair, very short. With a tanned skin, slim, with a gentle and sensual smile.

Maybe she’d known him better that how insecure and immature he was, through the reading things he used to write and that he someday decided to show her. The truth is that gradually he felt that she did not use looking for him the way she did before.

One day he was at the counter attending the customers as he always did. But this day the girl from the past, passed by.

But it was. It has already been one year that he was living in the capital. He never thought that he’d meet her there.

They talked a bit. So, then he asked to the manager to let him go for a while. He let Marcelo to go for some time. He was happy to see that person again.

He sat down with her, now that she’ s gotten a woman body. They sat down at the mattress section and Marcelo came to know that the girl was dating another guy who was studying medicine and that was passing sometime in the capital attending a congress. That was another stabbing he got. In a year exactly when she’d grown up. So, she gave the address where she was staying.

She said that she was on her own and had no one to talk to during the day, for, she was by herself and the boyfriend and the one was away all day long.

He combined to go out with her for lunch, since the address was quite far from the shop.

Well, from that day on he continued going out for lunch with the blonde princess.

She had already discovered the sexual pleasures, and how she had. He really felt inferior due to the shit he’d done before. With him, she did not use to touch in this matter. Maybe the doctor had taught her so. Truly speaking he was much more successful than Marcelo.

This lasted almost one month. She said that she was paying for the delayed dating moment.

He sometimes came back late to work from the lunch time. Which the people started wondering. Because he never did that for almost a year he was working there, and now that was right quite every day.

At this moment Marcelo was saving his Money to rent a house, together with a friend who he met in the town.

Then one Saturday night, the blonde came up to the new house which he’s just rented. Marcelo asked about her boyfriend, so she said that he’d travelled and she’d go away home on Monday, back to her studies.

Marcelo’s friend had gone out with his girlfriend and they had the whole house only for them. Hallucinating they spend all that time entertained on love and erotic unlimited games. At last she confided him that she’ll never forget him however will never meet again, since they’ve fixed the engagement date with the doctor. Then she left and he did not have any more news about her.

But despite of this, he seemed to have started creating his cocoon. He lived withdrawn, with the fear of people.

He made internship in a bank and lived outside the town center. A simple and restrained guy in words, he was Marcelo’s opponent.

That guy had really become so boring or just like that kind of person who always detested, he’d become a pretty mess guy.

He liked his company. He calmed him and showed him how quite far he was from what he dreamed of his ideal personality.

As he had not many friends, Marcelo sometimes used to go out to have lunch at Marcelo’s house. This family always received him with the hands open. Marco’s mother was already an elderly lady over seventy years old of protuberant white hair, but who even suffering from bronchitis never gave up from the old cigarettes of straw neither taking care of the animals she had home, like rabbits, dogs, cats, drakes, chickens. Their house was really a true zoo, but everything all in order quite clean. It was quite an excellent familiar climate.

The boy to whom Marcelo divided the house, had one girlfriend and he used to leave them alone, to enjoy well their courtship.

But the house where he lived with this friend named Mirosmar, had some problems; it rained inside, the doors had no locks, many times the plumbing clogged, etc. poor people’s house, dear reader with a little bit of imagination, you know how it works. he commented with Marcos the possibility of arranging another house to live there.

Two months later he came around and told him that his brother had left living in a house.

The place was next to Marco’s house. As the boy had already known the place, he had no words to express his gratitude.

There were no furniture. Only a four burner stove which belonged to Marcelo; a Miro’s refrigerator, the way he used to call him; the beds, a TV of Marcelo and a stereo. With some woods they arranged some shelves and they got a sink with a kitchen given by a neighbor. Marcos got an old sofa set which they did not need anymore

Everything in a sequence of about three months and the boy had already gotten a new job, new house, thanks to that one who was always grateful.

Marcos in fact, became really like a brother to Marcelo. The internship of six hours, in the morning. Soon he started working in the afternoon period also. He studied in the evening.

The reader, when this boy arrived at night, he was deadly tired. He slept many times in the classes, and could only keep his eyes awaken, when there was a discussion.

And what is even worse is that he almost ate badly, for he ate bread only and drank milk whenever he arrived home at night.

On Sunday he did a mayonnaise and some tasty noodles so he could fill in his stomach. His friend Mirosmar, did not get along with non-fat foods. The frying pan was always almost full of oil, and whenever he invented to cook a chicken stew, my God! There was fat in, all around it. But on their way they could understand each other well.

Miro, the way Marcelo used to call Mirosmar, worked on freight carrier and liked to go at the dancing clubs. In the places where sertaneja and gauchesca music played. Marcelo was not of going out so much, but whenever he went out in the street he used to go rarely at these places with Miro.

This guy’s girlfriend, used to wait for him there on Saturdays at night and from there came home.

On one of this goings Marcelo met beside Cilene, Miro’s girlfriend, a very beautiful brunette, a little shorter than him. At the boys invitation they sat together at the table. Soon Miro and Cilene stood up to dance. Marcelo remained on his own with the brunette at the table. She told him that her name was Helena and then asked him if he did not like to dance. A little bit uneasy, he revealed her that he did not know how to dance well.

Awkward, a little bit shy, he let himself be taken away by her small smooth hands.

This Young man was already for a long time without any woman, almost six months. The last time was when the blonde went to visit him at his house.

His instincts and hormones surfaced when he felt his body together with the girl’s. she felt his exciting state and decided to sit down.

Helena and Cilene started to go at the boys’ house every weekends. They sometimes went out for dance, but most of the times stayed there, talked a little bit their four together played cards and then left. Each couple in their room.

Helena seemed inexperienced to him in sex, but soon this passed away. She was a girl with approximately 1.60 cm, short hair and stunned skin. She lived on a sea shore. Her parents were from a fisher men community. And what captivated him was her simplicity, her girl’s way and in the same time her maturity.

Hey, how many mistakes do we commit when young! How many wishes bump into us and cannot see that what we sometimes have can be the best what life will offer us.

The reader, for sure you’ve passed through this age or you’re still in it, and what I say is not unknown anymore.

Rooted as a cancer in his tentacles. For Helena being a little bit of stature than normal, he felt himself ridiculed to go out with her.

And he might have make it appear, for after that the girl insisted to go out with him by day time. He always invented an excuse.

But even today he still remembers the few little times they went out together during the day time. They even went at cinema. The movie was very romantic, too many tears on the screen and in the couple’s eyes as well. It was a man’s story who has been killed and came back to protect his wife. The movie was one of the record keepers in the city. Helena was too much moved and wanted to get back and watch that again. If she went back or not Marcelo never came to know about that anymore.

They stayed together almost one year. Then everything quit just like that. Without any explanation. Nor arguments..

In the street where he lived there was a very good looking girl. Marcelo saw her at the first time when he was helping to build a wall in the house he lived. The brick layer was Marco’s brother and he was helping to give the cement mass and carrying the bricks and cement too.

One day she passed in the street. Maybe she always did that, by that time, and he only saw her at that instant.

Happy, always smiling, he started to pay attention on that female figure that paraded her beauty before his window’s house. Gradually he created courage and started talking to her.

Her name was Marli. She was younger than Helena and at this time Marcelo was still with this last one, who originated countless numbers of arguing for jealousy.

The short one, the way he used to call Helena, one day she found a pile number of poems dedicated to the young girl Marli. But she said nothing. Some days later when he scribbled something he realized that Helena had read the poems dedicated to the other girl.

From that day on she less visited him at his house and then suddenly she never showed in anymore. Soon Mirosmar quit his relationship with Cilene.

Cilene was the connection link with her, and when she quit everything with Miro this connection ended too.

At this time, he had already quit his relationship with Helena, but he had no more intimate connection with Marli. He desired her only and the one used to pretend indifference.

Well, he began working at the dawn and in the morning. He arrived home nearly at two o’clock p.m. slept and woke up at about nine o’clock p.m. at midnight began the work in another company.

As I was saying in this evening Marli was coming back from school earlier. He was at the gate house and as he heard her voice he changed his position to see her well too. She was coming with another friend, laughing and talking happily.

As she saw Marcelo she said goodbye to her friend and came up to the gate. They began talking and at a certain time he hugged her.

She, a little scared and when she saw that there was no one around, and no one looking she kissed him joyfully. It was a quick kiss, impulsive, but which pleased him greatly.

He held her on his lap, she was younger and light and took her inside his house.

Miro was listening to the radio in his room. Marli tried to complain, but with her mouth covered by his lips she could not do much.

They stayed only with the caresses because Miro heard her moans and came to spy up to Marcelo room’s door. She became a little ashamed and decided to go out.

At that time the boy from the countryside became furious with the mate to whom he divided the house. He doesn’t remember another opportunity like that one he had with Marli that night.

As I have said before, at this time he had another job. His internship at the bank was over, and he was on the other job, he did not pass on the entrance exam he had done. The company where he was working, provided services in the area of check processing and clearing. He was a typist of the dawn period. Few workers. Eight people in all. It was a well-integrated teamwork. All young. The oldest besides Marcelo, a was brunette boy who was 29 years old.

They worked joyfully. always with jokes and music. The supervisor was 25 years old and had just concluded his studies at University, faculty of Accounting sciences. He liked to watch movies so much and it was not rare that he sometimes began a chat about a certain subject. Of course he imposed limits for a mess. Let us say that it was an organized mess.

There was also a typist who could play guitar in a Rock band. Skinny, tall, spiked and crazy ways, with this one he had no bad mood. Beside him everyone always felt well.

Together with this rocker another guy joined them, tall, strong muscular boy, who practiced rowing as a sport. They were the two animation center of the group. There was still another boy who worked on the system operation, another one on pouches section and another brunette one who stayed on printers operations.

That was a very great teamwork indeed. They used to organize football tournament and they were always together. Parties, dancing and even in the crazy things in their prime of youth.

They finished typing all the work and had the break for lunch after that. It was 02.:30 in the morning and they had to stay until 06:00 a.m. without doing anything more. Perhaps playing chess or tell stories or even spending the rest of the dawn telling funny stories as they always did.

So him and his future best friend went out. While the rest of the team got down up to the square (good time, without any violence), they looked at each other and decided to go in a club. I mean, they used to call that Wiskeria, for Marcelo that was a night club, or zone whatever.

He still remembers until today the stripper girl; Paulinha, it’s the name he’d give her.

They could get back at work around 04.30 a.m. they were strongly scolded by the Supervisor. But he was a good guy and forgave them. The following days, they had to type the other worker’s service, but alright.

Marcelo had already seen Schiatell when he worked as trainee in the bank, but they could not even come to have conversation.

However in this service they’d become great friends. It really was with him that Marcelo at this time had great adventures.

Mateus Lago was the guy who stayed at the correspondence departments, or pouches. He was the sector responsible. He was the other guy to whom Marcelo got along with in so many ways.

In the service, sometimes it was necessary for someone to help in the pouches sector, so then he was the chosen. The chosen would stay for a month providing the help to Lago. Marcelo did not want to type anymore.

It didn’t take long and soon they were climbing mountains and setting camping on the beaches and closely woods.

Without any doubt he was one of the few guys who had the same bump with Marcelo, however he was married and had two children. But this boy was true and Leal to his friendship and Marcelo never forgot about that.

For several times, when he was in deep depression, were Lago’s words that lifted him and made him stand up again.

This part about the work there, is long, but it’s where Marcelo seems to have been out of the cocoon that’s why it spreads out a little bit more the content.

They also had together with them a boy who spoke very little who in the beginning was taxed as a jerk for he rarely talked with the typists. He had some freckles on the face and worked as an operator, but together to the other workers of the company which were outsourced. A glass wall, like a dome which the rock boy Bonifácio nicknamed the aquarium. The name fitted that quite well.

Well, the freckles boy his name was Percio and gradually Marcelo came to knowing him well. He was one of the oldest workers inside there, together with the period Supervisor.

As they did not know each other, both had wrong suppositions of each other. As the years went by, Percio became a great friend of his. He had a yellow Volkswagen car which for Marcelo insisting so much for a ride in a friend’s village they finished spoiling the car. For some other reasons, for Percio trying to sing one of his known Marcelo wanted to talk seriously with him.

To fear Percio he called him to have some beers in a bar, heavy bar. After refusing the lift he had offered to him he went home dying with fear.

In fact, living with these extraordinary people, he rarely felt depression. Instead he felt himself expansive, as if could do everything of all.

But time rolled on, and one day each one of them got separated and followed their own ways.

Percio left the company shortly after, Bonifacio created a band, Schiatell went to Japan trying his luck on rowing and Lago set his own company.

New Xavantina, xavantes Indians land. Almost bordering with Paraná. Was a wilderness uninhabited land, not totally due to a dozen of huts.

Well, I think so that we summarized the things very quickly in former paragraphs up there. He did not leave the company together with his friends. In fact when the company lost the bidding, Marcelo was already the typist supervisor and kept on with the subsequent company.

So, then the pressure was gigantic for the charge and he lived having to take an attitude which did not match with what he felt. That was too much for the countryside young man. The new company required everything and gave nothing. It was as if the typists had only de duty and not any rights.

During this time he looked to keep his friendship with his former friends at the company when he was a typist.

But with the pressure that originated the stress, with shell and cocoon came again around him.

Ah, I see now. Reading over again, what I had written up to here, is that I didn’t talk about his Family again.

Well, his mother had died when he got internship in the bank and the following his father after his wife’s death could not stand the loneliness he fell on alcohol consuming, then eight months later died also.

He also came to know that through the letter that said that his youngest brother Ricardo had entered university and the second one, the football player, had constituted a Family on North of Bahia, when he went to play on local team in that place. All his sisters were married.

He knew about her through a bus driver who was of the local they used to live, who Marcelo had met with accidentally one of these days.

After receiving his rescission Money he’d decided to travel around until finishing his economies.

He went up to Paraná, and he could even knock on the gate where he knew that an aunt of his lived, but nor soon than the bell rang he hid himself.

Where he stayed for few months he worked as waiter or diesel attendant on a pump station. Just to pay his staying and for food. He spent the less possible.

He carried with him a bible and a notebook besides an old backpack with old and worn clothes and two pairs of shoes a boot and dirty sneakers.

He many times feared the men on steering wheels of the trucks who gave him lifts, however after some jokes, they could now talk without any problem.

But he always remembered, in these lifts, the RK driver who could almost kill him once.

New Xavantina; The small India land, of the Indians of blue hair and strong smell.

A policeman named "The Fifth Man”, where he’d gotten a good criticism and a bourgeois novel entitled “Claudia”.

In this small town he could have some people’s friendship and told them that he was a writer.

The followed a track which had already been a road, seeing that it had enough width for a car passing more or less.

In his Midway two huge Indians appeared. Both of them were carrying bows and arrows on their backs. They were wearing a soccer shorts and flip flops on their feet.

While one talked to him the other bugre went walking and making a circle around him.

‘What are you going to do in the village’ wanted to the one who was questioning.

‘If possible I would like to know your lifestyle. I am a writer!’ he decided to lie, showing the notebook he was taking. He had already written but still missed too much be considered a “writer”. The two published books did not give him that title.

The Indian got the notebook and opened it. He feared that he might know how to read and find out that, it was just his simple personal diary. Yes, because the Funai was present in the region and he could, he’d seen in the town several little Indians going to school.

Some touched Marcelo and pulled his backpack as if they wanted it for them. But after the Old Indian scolding them and be angry they left him alone.

‘Well, friend, you must be thinking that “it was just introducing yourself as a writer, that we would let you pass by?’

There was an agitation because of a suspicion of a rapping and murder in the town. They were saying that it was caused by an Indian.

However with nor concrete evidences and the police couldn’t do anything. Due to this fact, all the town residents looked at the bugres with other eyes.

Marcelo knew all about that and resolved to talk with the aboriginal to know their version of the story.

He got courage to that only after an Indian in the town had told when he wrote something under a mango tree and asked if he was a writer.

He hesitated in the beginning, but after with a little bit of warm ego, he said yes and asked why the question.

He old Indian said that the tribe needed of someone who was a writer that could write the truth about the facts. At this moment, we enter at the final line of our story.

Certain morning as he talked with the Lady’s Pension where Marcelo rented a room, the one told him how to reach up to the village. But she advised him to be very careful. The Indians were angry with the white people.

Before he left like a vulture sniffing carrion, the old lady asked if she could throw away the notebooks were he’d written his memories. Of course he said no!

But as he went back to the village, yeah, right at the entrance, before the paved floor and full of pestilential dogs the adventurer young man he saw crouching in the shade, the figure of the old Indian who he had met in the town.

Soon the other Indians came and surrounded him and he was the center of the attention to them all.

From a tent, or hut, whatever, a man came out who might have been the centenary. He was wearing a small tunic made of feathers and walked with difficulties. In his left hand he had a stick held upright. His hairs were plain white and long over his bent shoulders. His skin black as chocolate. His mouth had few teeth, but his eyes... seemed to be like flames.

The killer and rapist was a son of a powerful farmer in the region. The Indians knew about it, for in this farmer’s farm there was an Indian woman who had heard the old man father of the killer, talking to some farm laborer.

The one gave instructions to spread in the town the idea that it was an Indian’s blame. For that they chose among them, farm laborers, who could serve as eyewitness, however letting the idea that it was impossible the individual identification, because the act happened during the night.

And this witness could pretend saying that he was a hundred centimeters of distance watching the scene and could only see the guy’s back, identifying a feather and realizing that the man was on his bare feet and naked.

Without anybody’s support Marcelo went up to the Police officer and told him what he’s been told.

The Police Officer found that funny and said that the Indians were too clever; they were trying to mislead the young man for him to mislead the others.

He insisted on what he was saying to the Police officer and the one said, that was too many things for saying that.

Finally he had arrived in the town in a less than two weeks and no one knew anything about Marcelo.

But the Young man did not let himself to be convinced and said that as long as he arrived in the town went to look for the Police station exactly to get his backgrounds and rest to enjoy the place.

He said that he’d call the witness once again for new testimony. But he would need of his presence there.

Happy for finally taking part in something important, he got back home smiling and looking up in the sky. The justice would be done.

The way from the police station to the pension could be six hundred meters at least. What was terrible is that there were few lamp posts on the road.

In a certain moment a trembling took hold of Marcelo. He turned his head in time to see two silhouettes following him at a certain distance. They were not Indians silhouettes. Something inside him awakened the surviving instinct.

He hastened the steps and could even starting a run on the dry lonely road, when a car turned up in front of him stopping suddenly raising the dust.

‘Hold down there fellow!’ said a man with the face of who had few friends aiming a rifle, from a jeep car.

Then two other boys who seemed to be his bodyguards, to be more correct, arrived up to where he was.

‘Get in there you, bustard!’ said one full-bodied man and with a revolver under his open shirt.

That was the end! He knew that only a miracle that would save him. In few days he was in the town he knew how people could sort his problems out there.

‘And then, you’re the bugres friend, right? Let’s find a way to sort it out. Step on there!’ they said to the jeep driver throwing Marcelo inside the vehicle.

Meanwhile inside the car they kicked him all the way. They were feet and boots coming from everywhere, from tip to toes. Butt-pierced and straight. A kick hit his testicles. He howled with pain. He tried to protect himself forming a ball with his body, but this was just impossible. A butt on his head and felt the blood running through, he started feeling dizzy.

‘Nobody here touches with the colonel, you fucking asshole! Who do you think you are? You think that you can come here and going out there seeking for trouble?’ here we got decent people, you naughty! And acting more, kicks and butts.

He did not know how long they drove with car being beaten and kicked. He fainted for twice or three times.

His body was a misshapen mass of blood and broken bones as they threw him into the sand.

While one of them caught Marcelo from his feet and the other one on his arms and turned him on his stomach.

The first metal thump on his back might have broken some ribs, and then after that they hit him on his legs joints, on both knees, the pain was that much he fainted again.

In fact he thought to have died but here is Marcelo after two years the occurring fact.

It’s really true that he could not move. At least the neck and the left hand fingers they still control.

The miserable ones left him with the column broken and with legs immobile. All his body became useless. His kidneys got compromised and the lungs have been pierced by ones of broken ribs.

He did not die there because ones of the Indian had followed him there right when he had left from the village. He stayed outside the Police station waiting for him. When he saw that he’s been sequestrated by someone in a car, he ran up to the town telephone and called the shaman and Funai doctor.

They both arrived at the local and prevented those miserable from breaking Marcelo’s skull with iron bar.

Marcelo’s luck is that the doctor acted quickly and got a single engine vehicle to take him into Mato Grosso capital hospital.

Recently the police caught the aggressors and also the colonel’s son. They could not prove that those rascals who cut this life worked for the colonel.

What was the use of having eyes and couldn’t stand to go up to the Yard and see the life outside?

What was the use of having the noise without even feeling the soup smell he was given to have it?

No, if anyone needs, that would be for pity. And what’s worse is the sensation of being nothing.

He feels himself a vegetable. Despite of moving his neck, his speech-language system went to cucuia.

To make his physiological needs a nurse comes up to here puts a tube in his ass, only like that he could make shit with no need to move and without her needing to hold the potty.

He suffered an atrophy on his penis and was grafted a direct probe of the kidneys.

His family who for a long time had never seen, he begs apologies for his selfishness.

If only you could know the difficulties he had to tell me his story. I write a word and have to stop. After few minutes it’s only that I could go forward, for it was difficult to understand what he spoke. He thanks me for letting him at least to make a picture with a pencil of how things happened.

Living to know that there’s nothing to be done to change the rest of his days. Day after day, night after night!

‘Please! I want to die! I don’t want to prolong my life this way. Please!’ between moans and sobs, that’s what he says.

Dear readers, I am an humble nurse and decided to make this man’s last will who have been transferred one day in this hospital and without documents. We called him by Don Caramujo by the way he used to hide himself under sheets crawling.

I closed his shell! God forgives me, but I could not stand seeing him suffering in that way.

The fact you’ve finished reading is true, at least at what touches me and joining with all he told me (I got the patient’s notebook together with the hospital direction as none complained of them. They were together with his old ones he had brought from there at Mato Grosso) and I decided to have it published because of his big sister’s insistence.

As to my act, may the Earth judges judge me, for the heavenly One, as forgiven me, I am sure about that, because, one of these days I dreamed with Don Caramujo smiling at me and running through an extensive canavial.

Federal Police, CIA, FBI, Mossad and Interpol in a thrilling hunting for a killer in Brazilian lands..

A series of seemingly disconnected murders draws the attention of a Police officer just before the greatest Meeting of Mercosul, where the big Leaders and worldwide authorities will be present. There is someone to make this meeting fail.

What would be the consequences, whether the future north American President would be killed in Brazilian lands? Who would be the mysterious killer, the man behind the codename “Xstrange”? follow the Brazilian and international authorities in this thriller which in anything makes our mouth water at the best texts of this gender. This will be the forewarning of an unforgettable summer

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Moisés António was born on 7^th July in 1985 at Ambriz Town/Bengo Province in North of Angola, where he lived during his childhood and made his first studies. In 1997 he moved in Luanda city with his mother, brother and sisters when his parents got divorced, where since then continued with his studies from primary, secondary school up to higher Education. He studied English and Literature in English Language at Agostinho Neto University – Faculty of Arts at Luanda, Angola.

Besides being a translator, he is also a Writer (Poet and Novelist).

In 2016 seeing that life was getting harder and harder, in his native country he decided to move to Brazil, where presently he’s living now, in Curitiba city, Paraná State - Brazil.

Since then he’s already three books published, an Anthology, a single poem book, and the 3^rd is a Novel, a fictional African story based in true fact, published in Portuguese version “SHADOW- In Africa’s Mysterious heart” on Sale online by Editora Biblioteca 24 Horas . Seven Systems International.

Books translated from Portuguese into English:

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