SO THEY DON'T SAY I DIDN'T TALK ABOUT FRUITS

 

How good is in the country, Matilde. Lídia Jorge won another award. By Mercy I haven't read yet, but I liked it.  

Now, my life. That observer/interactor always appeared, and punctually, unchecked, in the virtual window of my computer. We were friends and had been talking for a few years, face-to-face, but I had to admit that long, productive conversations were essentially just a click away in the messenger window. He is on earth next to our brothers and sisters. The boarder. Me here, in the burning earth where born one more corruption scandal. My friend cut his hair, I forgot to tell him that I noticed the trimmed shoulders, the same frank smile, and the same thinness. Dark green eyes that brighten and transmute color when they talk about his daughter or his pet fish. Or his mother, somewhere in Castelo Branco, or his friends lost between the Berber mountains and Switzerland. And we told our friends everything. That when I was born I already knew what suffering was, inside the womb. Right. Suffering in the womb. And once outside, all the wounds I experienced inside came to my skin. Manifestation of eczema. They didn't even think it worked, I swear. No one would say that if they met me three years after I was born. At six months, it is said that he could not even support his spine, such was the allergy he had to milk, fabrics and metals. And yes, the simple spoon and fork in my hands caused allergies. Milk. All milks. I didn't gain weight. The wounds were aggravated, because in addition to the wounds I carried from my mother's womb, there was the wound of rejection and abandonment. I cried in pain and irritation over the blanket that had acrylic in it, only later did the doctors reveal that I couldn't eat any of it, nor wear anything but cotton! Not even silk! Serious. And nowadays, I really like silks. And lace, even today they make me allergic, some of them. All the labels take their toll on me. Watches, pant belts, anything that comes into contact with the skin. I've improved a lot, but I'm still suffering from the most serious injuries. And I found myself, while we were exchanging information, he of the loneliness that sometimes torments him and I of the pain and the way I manage to put betadine on them, apologizing to him. I'm sorry, I couldn't answer you, I was picking fruit. And no, it didn't rain today. Only indoors. 

There was even a warm sun outside. I heard it several times on television, in the usual pantomimes and in the debacle of the fall of the government. RAP will have plenty to do on Sunday! I picked persimmons and oranges, tangerines, two figs, to see if they can withstand drying, if it happens, I'll pick the last of the fig trees to save for Christmas. Jams, not really. No one eats. Sell? Don't even think about it, people love to pay four or five euros and buy them ready-made and distributed in supermarkets. And by way of analysis, I thought that I understand myself so well, that despite the mistakes I made, of having given more of myself than I have received in my life, I perceive and respect myself in this great difference between me and others, I understand them because in another life, I must have been the same, or because by the law of force of circumstances, I can see that humanity is a kind of virus that is abandoning the earthlings.

They don't really know what compassion, or empathy, or solidarity is. And I continue to forgive myself, because just as on my forehead, without knowing it, would be written "sucker" for all those who took advantage of me, I also perceive, in the conversation I have with him, that we will be much more equal. Thus, with our foreheads dirty with names that they themselves vomit, talking about us, with our hearts studded with anonymous spikes, with people without character and what does not kill us, makes us stronger. In retrospect, I remember that when I was four years old, I was already in the Good Shepherd school, I already knew how to read and write, in this respect I thank my father, because he did everything possible for me to enjoy reading and writing. Along with anxiety, I was dismantled by my deep spirit, my passion for the world and for letters. When I was 5 years old, I asked him to get me out of that religious den and showed him why it wasn't good for me. The nuns punished children who didn't pray and didn't do what they wanted. In a dark room with no windows, with the light button outside, which would sometimes throw the two or three of us into that dark room and lock us in for a long time. Whoever was locked in that room was exempt from going to the chapel to pray, not least because this punishment was often meted out, precisely because we did not go to the chapel to pray. I showed my father the darkroom and even showed him where the mother kept the heavy board with which she beat us all on the buttocks and legs. - Dad, I can read and write, I don't need to be in school until I'm old enough to go to normal school. I can keep reading and writing. You help me! 

My father, convinced, took me home. He told the school that I was going to have surgery for severe tonsillitis and that I was going to be treated for joint rheumatism. Some of that was true. And it helped me. My pains could have disappeared with him; when he left, I was almost seven years old, but the pain stayed. They all stayed with me. And they declined, because the biggest one turned out to be their early exit. But they grew. Effectively. And I still understand each other very well. And by the age of 9 I had read the judgments of Nuremberg, the germinal, the last days of a convict, the castle of Colditz, and so many others, equally dramatic. At twelve, the pains carried the weight of the globe, after all, the stories of the bunny and the cat were the best the world had. The reality was pretty ugly. I already knew people at that time. But as I understand myself, I allowed myself to forget, to be dazzled and to experiment, to give opportunities to people we know well inside and out. And to realize that nothing about others has the capacity to surprise me. Just as there are people like me, much less, there are people like the characters in all the books I've read. Even the little stories, where the bad witches are really bad and the good ones are like me, and the dragons can be water and the eagles can dress up as doves. When I was seven years old, a lot of adults told me: you're the oldest, you have to take care of your siblings. They are very small. And they were, and I wasn't great.  And when I lost Rui, I even thought that I could be responsible, because I helped take care of him and maybe, if I had done more like this or more like that, if I had taken the course of Medicine with a specialty in cardiology I could have saved my brother, but at sixteen years old, the only path I was taking was to stay alive,  with the pain well immersed, because I already knew that there were people who, seeing the vulnerability of others, took advantage to cause a little more pain on top of that, without mercy or pity.

And I found myself smiling in the virtual window, not because of the exchange of pains, as if they were pennants, that pain always stays with us, as if they were pet scars, but because a shared pain is like a piece of warm bread, on a cold winter's night, it always tastes better among friends. And I smiled at him again. - There are a lot of us, boy, I'm still not sure where our scattered tribe is, but I feel like there are a lot more of us than two. And I said goodbye and went to spread a washing machine and pet my dogs and cats and, looking up at the sky, next to the door, where Minie and Moony were, I happened to see the neighbor in front of my door, hanging from the window and I thought that there are things that never change.  And there are seedlings that never do anything. Inch'alla.

And having said that, I put another risk on this record, as Herman said, and tomorrow is already Friday. Ambrose, you know, I felt like something!