Cassio’s first steps in the world of the capitalism involved a solitary, poetic use of computational tools, with occasional forays into their overall destruction. When his mother lifted him up so that he could leave globs of saliva on human faces, little Cassio shut his eyes. The fat baby’s gestural repertoire didn’t yet include smiling; at times he puckered his lips, but wasn’t able to conclude the grin successfully. He was a serious child. His chestnut hair fell in a curtain around his ball-shaped head; his chubby cheeks belied the wary distance he kept from the world.
In the summer of 1983 one of the largest mass mortality events ever registered in equatorial waters took place on the island of Fernando de Noronha, Brazil. The penguins had ridden a cold-water current and swum hundreds of miles north before approaching the white sands of Noronha, only to die in the suffocating heat. The daily newspaper Estadão carried on undeterred: a face-off between local gangs had resulted in ten deaths; a storm of breathtaking size was drawing near; people were advised not to leave their homes.
For several days, Sonia had noticed masses of ants wandering her white furniture, forming ovals that later disappeared; it was now clear that they were coming from the ceiling. The mother (Sonia) deposited her son (Cassio) in his high chair and adjusted the straps. At first he wouldn’t stop howling, but after eating he entered the state of drowsy well-being that is particularly pronounced in future fat kids. Coffee in hand, Sonia drew near to the invisible nest; the ants were enormous, muscular, so the path of the invasion (though not, perhaps, the relentlessly increasing size of the colony) was easy to ascertain.
Sonia put her mouth up to a crack in the wall and blew; ants fell into her mug and spasmed in the acidic bath.