EROS MEETS THANATOS

When Rose woke up, I was no longer by her side. I had changed into a character in a novel. My transformation in a fictitious being was her magic action that night, a result of the same power that had turned so many human males into caymans. She found, under the bed sheets, a book entitled 'Owl Minerva's Overflying', on which everything was made clear. Rose could then know that I had created her character in one of my stories and, enchanted by her image, I had been driven to bring her to everyday reality.
As for me, now plunged into this other way of being that so much attracted me while reading Pessoa's verses --epigraph to my book's prologue-- I'm dreaming and defeating worlds.
Rose, a name chosen by herself, began to read this same book where I had submerged and within which I thereafter remained. Soon she got news about what was going on all over the world---from Patagonia to New York, from the Andean Highlands to Japan--- being capable of recognizing an anti-human insurgency on course, triggered off by some unknown reason.
My apartament was situated in São Paulo's downtown, and quickly Rose could meet women at the hummingbird's ecstasy---as it was written in Alice Blumen's story. Many men were committing suicide on streets after seeing huge clouds of those tiny birds that could lead even young girls to intense ecstasy. Meanwhile, men who would not have the courage for killing themselves, simply were plunging---with a lowered head---into living inside their own inner worlds. Saying nothing to nobody, never looking at anyone's face.
On TV and on internet too, Rose saw several scenes I had narrated in "Expelling Noah's Descendants" tales: women laying penguin eggs all over southern Argentina, Chile and Falkland Islands; a huge abandoned metropolis under a strange jinx that made all its inhabitants into wild bisons.

She got news on the disappearance of so many whale-hunter ships, as if in all oceans there had suddenly emerged hundreds of new Bermuda Triangles. In addition to so many weird facts, told or not by me, she became finally able understand her own transfiguration from a caiman into a human being but also her magical power to turn so many men into reptiles, and to change her own creator into a shadow on an unreal floor, a dream, a fancy.

On a hot summer morning Rose went to Alice's hut, whom she had been looking for many weeks in vain. The former professor was living in the Paranapiacaba's woods. She had been acclaimed as a leader by so many gender activists, on the grounds that her rebellion was seen as a great victory over sexist prejudices. But a leader that no one could ever guess where to find: By then the 'professor of the hummingbird' was living in the middle of some still dense woods of the Atlantic Rainforest.

The 'Witch of Corumbá' could tell her whole story, which however was not taken seriously by Alice, who asked "Why don't you have any lust for the fucking hummingbirds, so sweet and sensual as you are?" 

The two females fell in love and, as a result from a so sudden lust, Professor Blumen has begun to give birth to huge blue lizards, Mata Atlantica Rainforest former dwellers, now extinct.

"What will be the Homo sapiens fate, my sweet rebel Alice, in the nearing future? By the time when all men will be dead, by suicide or not, and only women like you remain on Earth?"

"So, you insist not to be human"?

"Nothing in my remembrances is enough to make me believe this human appearance of mine might be more than a transient mask. Perhaps just another of Francisco Rosa's dream figures".

"I can't know anything about the future, Rose, and actually I don't have any more interest in it. Whether this book you are carrying tells the truth, if there is an anti-human rebellion all over the world nowadays, it's quite possible that our species is indeed nearing the end, and I'm so sorry about. Thinking on  our  history, since its beginnings, I feel actually proud of being human. There have always been wars, misery, and too much hatred, oh my gentle lover, but the human genus has always been a wonderful spectacle for gods!

There has always been a hidden and peaceful place for a lovers plot, similar to this you tell to have lived, and seems still are living with your novel's author."

In that same afternoon, amid an extremely dense fog, Rose took a train to come back home at an old fashioned station. Soon after departure the weird, horrible sound of skulls smashing under rails could be heard (suicidal men) so as the ruffling of hummingbirds springing out from wombs of her many female wagon companions. By that time a law was in force that rigidly prohibited males and females from traveling within one same wagon. Out of six cars, just one, the train's last, was reserved for males. So, suicide was very easy through the terminal door, if someone would want it. Between Paranapiacaba and Light stations, Rose heard male cries and blasphemies against God, gods, existence, life, women, females.

The day came when all men who lived in São Paulo City had already killed themselves. There remained but only one queer wanderer with fixed eyes and a lowered head, that guy who had a phobia of condores.

Some years thereafter, all women were dead too. Rose got news about Alice's death through the sad look of a small blue lizard. So, the female from Corumbá had to lonely keep on wandering through that huge desert made up only on concrete, glass, steel, iron, dirty fog and asphalt.

No more than a tiny hope of finding me thereabout was keeping Rose in the ghost megalopolis, which in olden times had been São Paulo. There were no more  hummingbirds clouds, since the last woman was already dead. Just two peculiar dwellers were living among those ruins. They were Rose and the  crestfallen walker, always with his black earphones.

Till the morning on which, impetuously she woke up with  the decision to break his kind of  isolation, even if, for this, she should be forced to get a strong crack or even to creep on the ground.

It was not so hard to find him, because the once journalist was living in a building at the corner of Ipiranga and São João Avenues. Every morning he used to go out for a walk through the same invariable streets. After making a circle some ten miles long around the downtown area, he always returned home. The building in which he kept on living for so much time had no windows more, except his own flat's one. The latter was kept hermetically sealed throughout day and night.
After training muscle agility and flexibility for many weeks, she properly dressed stood on the corner of Paulista and Consolação avenues waiting for that phobic man a few minutes before noon, the time at which he invariably used to pass in front of those old outdoor posters that after so much time still announced movies. Fossils from a world so distant in the past.

Rose was imagining to perhaps facing a squalid and very old man, impossible even to think how much wrinkled and meager. Nonetheless, an excellent walker. She saw him coming along the sidewalk, cause he always walked strictly on sidewalks, as if ignoring the fact that such abandoned, corroded remains of cars would never move even if there were stil someone able to drive them.

I passed in front of Belas Artes Cinema, where in older times I felt in ecstasy while watching those movies by Fellini, Kurosawa, Lars von Trier, Jos Stelling, Wim Wenders, Ingmar Bergman, Pasolini. Unforgettable masterpieces. If I at least were able to extract from this present scare of mine something lyrical and deeply poetic as Herzog was able to inspire us through his frightful Nosferatu! But no, this is quite impossible for me. On the other hand, I can't believe that nowadays movies retain not even a tiny leftover of the beauty achieved in those times.
I always walk through these same streets since they are open way, so sparing unneeded wastes of energy to my condor, like when trying to avoid collisions with placards, outdoors and antennas. I have also to be very punctual, because 'mi condor' has to feed his children still at daylight.

I got really very startled at that moment when Rose---looking directly into my eyes after athletic acrobatics--- pulled out those black balls from my ears and, weeping hard, threw herself onto my body, saying she wanted to be completely mine, as on that day in which I had carried her away from Corumbá.
I've always loved Rose since the night on which I created her in that story about caimans' exterminators.
Astonished for seeing me as young as on the day we met for the first time, she led me by the hand towards Doutor Arnaldo Avenue. We entered then the inner garden of our School of Medicine.
lt was once again springtime, but this time flowers weren't golden, as in Laura's dreams. Instead hundreds of exuberant roses were scattered throughout the garden.

My lover knew he wouldn't find in me the same magic he saw in ''Laura's eyes". Besides my eyes I have a whole body to vigorously desire him.

His erection, when seeing me naked, has been so intense as  in that summer night in Corumbá, when I told him my most hidden lustful secrets. Then, in the middle of those so pretty rose garden we fucked so furiously.

After orgasm, he fell asleep.

When, after a profound sleep, he woke up his hands were two of the most beautiful orchids that had always fascinated him.

Euphoric, he told me to have finally achieved the culmination narrated by him in "The Extinction". After telling me to read that tale again --something absolutely unnecessary for me-- he went away towards the deserts of his huge city.
I couldn't follow him, because it scared me. Everything would have to take place as it was narrated in "The Extinction". My lover, the only man still on Earth, would decompose, organ by organ, into bizarre animals and plants.
Before sunset, when I still remained in that garden, I was visited by the most splendid owl that ever existed. Tenderhearted and dazzled, knowing that such a creature resulted from my lover's genitals, I tried to talk with him. However, he didn't know any human language.
Notwithstanding the fact I have never been human, too, except in appearance. Thus we could find a way of communicating each other's feelings and impressions.
That exquisite owl suggested me to go in the same direction of his speedy flight. Soon I became aware we were heading to the Jaraguá Peak. Then, I recalled my lover had predicted a volcanic explosion for that mountain, which someday would bury the whole São Paulo. This could be an excellent scenic moment: the entire ghost megalopolis lying abandoned and corroded. The last human being already extinct, crumbled to pieces.
Night came and I began to walk westward, In search of those rails that Francisco loved so much and which pass near Jaraguá's base. Under full moonlight I found them. In spite of slightly corroded, the railway was still mysteriously well-preserved.
Jaraguá Volcano's huge explosion took place at sunrise, soon after I had reached its foot. All of the mountain decomposed into rocks that completely destroyed the colossal labyninth of dirty concrete, asphalt, and steel.
I watched the whole explosion and the final burial of São Paulo's remains, sitting on old piled-up rails. After all those bangs' noises had ceased, I saw a blood pool dropping from a rail that seemed quite recent. I approached it supposing it was animal blood. The smell, however, was undeniably human.
The Jaraguá Peak and São Paulo no longer existed, the whole of mankind no longer existed either. The pool of blood could only have come from the engine-driver who, many decades before, had died for the sake of the colors, of the rainbow. My lover seemed to be still guiding me through his stories, in spite of bodily extinct.
So, I thought at once that only within his book, "Owl Minerva's Overflying" could a way of interpreting that anachronistic blood perhaps be found. Maybe there were even several stories in which we could meet again. This one about the blue shallow ocean, for instance.
I heard then a mighty voice---coming from an indeterminate point like a strong hallucination--- telling me:

"Rose, you must go to those waters over there, which forms a pool where once was the volcano".

I crossed a dense forest and soon I found a placid lake, whose waters seemed to mirror every detail of all things. On its edge was Narcissus, naked and gorgeous. Incessantly looking at his own image. I walked in his direction, so daring to arrive near him.

"You too have the permission to admire me, no matter who you are. Look at my infinite beauty, reflected on these privileged waters". 

"Undeniably you are, Narcissus, the most beautiful of all beings. It bothers me, however, your arrogance".

"A disdaining contempt, strange female, I nourished for human beings and for gods. You know, however, that they are all extinct now".

"Human beings are extinct. That's all that I know."

"What kind of existence do you think gods could have without humans? Gods were a part of the human world, therefore existing within time's flow and having pre-programmed death and extinction."

"Did you know, Narcissus, that they would someday disappear in this way?"

"No, I didn't. I got news about that just a little before your arrival. A most splendid owl caught my attention because of its beauty reflected on the lake. Evidently, I would never be capable of seeing any kind of beauty but my own, if there were still human beings and gods".

"I feel sad for their end. Alice told me once, after tender caresses, that mankind's history had always been a wonderful spectacle for the gods".

"Rose, you shouldn't be sad, perhaps without any reason. Humans and gods possibly keep some other ontological status, another way of being".

"Yes, they perhaps have plunged into existing as characters in a novel, as did my lover. But, Narcissus, you have now a sad appearance, don't you? What is happening?"

"My inevitable lot is already taking place, Rose. While seeing your beauty --because you are neither human nor goddess-- l'm able to see imperfections on my body, on my face. However, I have not suffered any actual change because for me time doesn't dare to exist, so much as for you.
It happens however that I'm now seeing some imperfect details."

"I'm unable to see them, Narcissus".

"You're unable to see them because you are another person who is not myself. Without the existence of human beings, I can't be the same."

At that moment, a bloody tear sprang from Narcissus's left eye. This fell into the lake, so clouding its waters. Narcissus became then able to look away from his own image.

Both went wandering through the woods, nostalgic of human beings and gods.

As they approached a hibiscus bush, a cloud of vividly blue butterflies called their attention to thick clouds coming from a distant west. Thereafter came a gelid strong deluge. The clouds seemed too high to be cumuli, and might have formed above some very distant highland, perhaps the Andean. They fell down at once and soon there weren't any more forests, lake, rails, nor a buried megalopolis, but only the huge flow of a giant deluge going eastward. Waters carrying both of us: Rose and Narcissus.
Submerged deep within an endless ocean, having little chance of someday emerging anywhere, unable to go on talking, since voices don't propagate under water, we follow, yet side by side.
Eyes to eyes, blue were Rose's, identically blue were Narcissus's. 

Because time does not dare to exist for us, we continue to love one another so intensely, looking at ourselves face-to-face.

Only one as we have since ever been, throughout all Eternity.