Schppenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud, von Trier: Melancholia

Lacoonte luta com  a serpente pra salvar seus filhos. Em vão! Sucumbe junto deles.

O pensamento de Schopenhauer teve forte impacto no jovem Nietzsche, que logo porém rejeitou-lhe o pessimismo. Nos escritos reunidos em "A Vontade de Poder", consta:

"O pessimismo moderno é uma expressão da inutilidade do mundo moderno -- não do mundo nem da existência." Nietzsche, Wille zur Macht, Der europäische Nihilismus, 34.

O pessimismo é uma fase na história do niilismo, e este uma tendência fisiológica inexorável da civilização, que corrói os valores supremos.
Do niilismo só se deixam imaginar duas saídas: deixar que se relize sua força na morte, ou ultrapassá-lo pela destruição dos valores moribundos, engendrando novos valores, tarefa do Übermensch. Utopia nietzscheana?
Melancholia, sendo um relato de fim-de-mundo, instiga nosso pessimismo diante de mazelas reais presentes,e da destruição da Natureza viva da Terra. Há riscos sérios a ameaçar a humanidade, que prescindem de uma catástrofe vinda do espaço.
Todavia, nada há nas obras de Nietzsche que o aproxime dos arautos do fim-do-mundo, e não é essa a intenção da figura do "último homem" de Zarathustra, como erroneamente pode parecer.
Diante disso, em que momento o pensamento de Nietzsche, que recusa o pessimismo, se evidencia na tela, a ponto de parecer ter prepoderância ali sobre o de Schopenhauer?
Seriam as cenas da festa suficientes pra caracterizar o perfil do "último homem" mencionado por Zarathustra? Gente vazia, superficial, fútil ao extremo? 
Pra Schopenhauer como pra Buda, a paz se encontra na ascese, na renúncia ao mundo dos desejos e paixões. A solução do sofrimento desmesurado de Justine não se dá por renúncia, pois é o banho da luz emanada por Melancholia que a tira da depressão, ao levá-la ao êxtase que a um só tempo é sensual, erótico e místico, na mais bela cena desta grande obra de arte. Nitidamente, denota uma fusão entre Eros e Thanatos, fusão entre o amor, o desejo sexual e a pulsão de morte. Ousamos afirmar que von Trier trouxe à tela Freud pra dar sua interpretação de uma frase nuclear de Nietzsche sobre a essência do niilismo:
"Antes querer o Nada do que nada querer".

            ΩΩΩ

A Tale Around the Deepest, Mighty Propulsor of Human Choices

A Rainbow For Your Eyes

Brainwashing

I was an extremist militant. Despite I had never been quite accepted by our organization, I used to enjoy a lot that comradeship and to feed up that dream shared by all members of becoming someday mighty enough to slaughter all those supposed enemies. Every time we all were together in that underground group, our peculiar way of life seemed that of people ready to an imminent assault on the nation's central federal power, and of course, our final success was warranteed. Only among us the true sociopolitical theory was to be found, exactly that one from which we could get the certainty of victory.
Our political insignificance as measured by opinion polls, which pointed out the masses complete ignorance regarding our way of thinking society mattered little or nothing to us. As for practical political actions ours were limited to the search for new comrades, and after these were within our net, to subdue their minds according to our worldview. Enemies used to qualified our approach to newbies as 'brainwashing', but I am quite sure this word is improper to describe that. Some noobs were easier to tame than others, and that’s all.
Summary rejections happened at a first look or at a second word. My own initiation had taken place amid plenty of ambiguities. Maybe all those ideas were indeed hard for every one of us to assimilate, notwithstanding the harsh punishment applied to suspicions of dissimulation, which routinely led to a violent expelling, many times to death.
Sometimes I think even the most radical of killers there was also an extraordinary dissembler of his own heavy doubts between a complete surrender to our Blue ideals and an absolute disbelief concerning all that wordy nonsense.
However, what usually best made us feel alive, were those clandestine meetings in which plans were described, decisions were sketched, amid comments about those stupid fake news released by the internet and other media. There was also a lot of gossip.
All that social cheer indeed used to be followed by abrupt purges, eliminations, murder of traitors. A group member had to be killed whenever he or she had very probably put our goals in danger no matter such a person were a newbie or an old buddy. Yes, a fairly likely betrayal was enough for such a punishment, according to our Blue Code, and the only rule to that decision was it had to be uttered by a group meeting counting at least 7 people.
I have fed and propagated all that imbroglio of lies within which we lived, by means of that big, refined lie that was my dissimulation, my grand staging. On the other hand, it was quite patent---at least for me---that such a staging was shared by all. Others, not being capable of such a wordy lying as well as I did, dared only a little in rhetorical tools.
I have never come punctually to the group meetings, nor at any appointment throughout my whole life. Yet, all comrades were sympathic to me on this point, at least to a certain extent. Well, to be accurate I must say most of us never made any effort to arrive in time there. If a meeting was set to begin at 7:00 P.M. at a given pub, everybody could understand it to begin never before 9:00 P.M.. During those hundred-twenty minutes, members could wander alone through the downtown streets, in search of his or her authentic personal selves. But the latter was almost never found except perhaps by just a very few people, because as matter of fact all group members used to arrive, never minding if late.
I, myself, however used to arrive even more later than most others. Obviously it was to be concluded my egocentric search was the most lingering among our Blue peers. My arguments in my own defense sounded like this:
"Dear comrades, while I wandered for a such a long time through the sad streets of our dantesque megalopolis my thoughts struggled hard against limtations set by my strong narcissistic ego hinderings. Despite such too petty, coward impulses, my deep grounded roots within our group were enough to defeat my mediocre petitbourgeois weaknesses. Yes, we all are prone to the latter, which unfortunately touches every person from this slavish society, ideologically binding not only the bottom layer Lumpenproletarier workers but also those filthy rich bourgeois monsters”.
A powerful, perhaps even carismatic orator, I used to speak enthusiastically about our points of view and our way of life, so much as about the coming times in which our own eyes would watch the long awaited 'Revolution' we were then plotting.
My speeches often narrated many details on all those visionary dreams which I, later at home alone, would bring again to my mind just to violently throw up all of them.
Shrewd, but also faithful to the group, I kept staging that so vivid mask for several years, this way helping to propagate that lies' imbroglio which did give a meaning to our lives. My best defense weapon was sure a grave sin for a Blue: the ability to dissimulate perfectly, due to an inborn gift for staging as if a profissional actor.
Yet, it seemed quite patent---at least from my point of view---that some degree of staging had to be common to all other comrades. Those, who could not represent so well as actors, were destined not to play relevant roles in our underground plot, constrained not to dare much in rhetorical tools. My high-ranked position inside the Blue Brigades sure came from my being their best actor.
I used to drink a lot of coffee before Blue meetings, to get me more alert, but not only that. In my pockets I always carried, besides my old and faulty watch, lots of potent anti-emetics pills. Well, coffee consumption had no restrictions among the Blue, quite the contrary what happened with any drugs able to inhibit vomits, against which use an absolute ban had been decreed much before my arrival. A comrade caught taking such pills ought to be summarily expelled whether a newbie, or even assassinated whether any other kind of member. The necessity of this ban came as a complement to another one which strictly had forbidden members to throw up all those stupid ideals, as well as the wordy nonsenses from them derived.
A still graver sin would be surely to take anti-vomiting drugs. I ask now myself who could have remained alive during those years if the secret abuse of anti-emetics was not very widespread amog us? Ingesting them must have been a part of the very recognition ritual as group's members. We would never reveal to anybody that personal secret, but certainly every one of us took our own daily, massive dose of metoclopramide just to stay alive.
Its pharmacologic name has to stay always much clear on my memory, and so its trade lab brands. It is a very efficient medication to inhibit the gag reflex, acting on the Central Nervous System. Emergency room doctors have warned me that winter morning, never ever to forget its name. I have suffered a very dangerous allergic reaction to the usual seven metoclopramide capsules I took, still on my bed as I did every morning.
By heart its chemical name is on my mind, I don't want to die so stupidly, I must love a lot and change this so unfair world. Its effect results from a direct action on the brain vomit center. I was oriented to never ingesting a single drop forget its brands or the pharmacologic name. I should never more take even a single drop of such a drug, because another "serious anaphylactic reaction" would be triggered again, and be enough to kill me in no more than a few minutes. Despite their scaring warnings, I didn't panick but my Blue chumminess was evidently over once and for all.
I should never take even a single drop of such a drug anymore, because another "serious anaphylactic reaction" would be triggered again, and surely being enough to kill me in no more than a few minutes. Despite their scaring warnings, I didn't panic but my Blue chumminess was evidently over once and for all.
Instantly, Blue ideals were deleted from my mind along with ideological groundings, both at one stroke. If I ever to tried to come back to meet those old friends, I'd be killed as a dangerous traitor.
At sunset, freed from Hospital that same day, I took this train as a stowaway. The departure from São Paulo has been at Light Station, but its destination was totally unknown by me.
In the next Blue meeting, which took place as usual at Riviera Italiana Pub, members have decided to scatter forever. As weird as it might sound, my anaphilatic crisis triggered a sudden discard of those rigid, sacred beliefs which had given meaning to our lives for years. Does it make sense to symbolically state the Blue Brigades were indeed vomited?
News about our dispersion came on a daily paper bought at an old railway station in a faraway hamlet.
"THE SCATTERING OF THE BLUE BRIGADE" was on the headline. Some confessions by Blue members were transcribed. An unidentified ex-Blue had declared that without me (yes, myself, this narrator), without my charismatic eloquence, nobody among them wouldn't any longer be able to carry out Bluish actions, or to take those huge doses of vomit inhibitors. The article ended doubting whether such a dangerous and violent group could so abruptly be taken for extinct . But I right away believed their end was true. None of the Blues would ever admit, not even to himself the addiction to anti-emetic drugs if the Blue Brigade was not definitely finished off.

Departure From Light Station
Even before departure from Light Station (Estação da Luz) I approached the locomotive. Between Luz and Barra Funda I persuaded the engine driver to let me guide the train, expelled him from his power nearing Lapa, and I was the only headman on this engine even before crossing the Tietê River. No stop at Pirituba was made, since the former driver warned me some routine inspection by railroad guards usually happened there. By then we were already like old friends. São Paulo's inhabitants pay little attention to that huge mountain, but I always admired Jaraguá Peak's majesty and wild beauty.
Sometimes daydreaming I imagine my prefered mountain as having a soul, perhaps able to talk as a human being, or maybe as a Greek god. An extinct volcano, as it easy to deduce from his contour lines, someday Jaraguá will bury the whole São Paulo megalopolis, exploding as a tropical Vesuvius.
Moved by my own childhood memories of the Jaraguá Peak, I changed to a slower gear in that section where the railway passes close to its foot. Calling then all my travel companions' attention to the dreadful menace so near to São Paulo, I got aware its distant volcanic past was quite unknown by all people there. My speech was interrupted by histrionic fear cries, female weeping, and male outloud laughs, the latter plainly to dissimulate an evident fear, by no means smaller than their wives'.
I took that messy moment, to invite everybody for a visit to my alone place, a driver cubicle, which looked like a disguised jail cell.
There were six wagons. Emigrants, people in the first group comprised fifty couples with no children, leaving São Paulo forever. On some women's faces, I could see a sad look -- perhaps they were constrained to suddenly leaving their hometown, their families, their beloved ones -- something which contrast clearly to that odd joy on their husbands face expression.
With so much surprise I knew in each of the other wagons, there were also five dozen couples. Entirely by chance, unaware about what was expecting me I had taken command of a very peculiar convoy.
Couples were making bows to me, supposedly no more than a simple train driver, in a very strange attitude among our upper classes. They belonged to the richest São Paulo wealthy layers, who for decades had been underrating our railroads. The same trains on seemingly infinite railroads, whose images and sounds were so abundant in my distant and happy childhood.
Suddenly, the engine computer screen began to command me. with huge red letters, to seal hermetically all doors, windows and every kind of opening, as if we were on a plane at a high altitude.
As for the ex-driver, his true story is that getting to know couples were then respecting and admiring me a lot more than he expected, he jumped out from the train to death, throwing himself against his beloved rails. I have been the only one to watch his final moment. Despite an intense grief, as an ex-Blue I understood his despair.
Jovial, glad, polite and gentle my three hundred couples were, too, exquisitely beautiful, surely selected for the scope of perpetuating beauty at some last redoubt of life and pleasure on our endangered planet Earth.
Despite a huge curiosity, I could by no means ask them what was the purpose of all that, cause their glances suggestive I should be aware of everything concerning that strange voyage.
When all the chitchat about the Jaraguá Volcano was finished after my "provocative imagination" being well praised by those three hundred males, couples returned to their seats.
Taking a look at that screen again, I opened for the first time the driver instructions handbook whose first and major command was not yet being followed. All openings had to remain closed until THE BIG DANGER OF CLOUDS had ceased.
I didn't know what kind of clouds were those, but I put the speed to the maximum. It was not allowed us to stop anywhere, since the train were to go ahead uninterruptedly till reaching an unknown point on the map staying 4,9 hundred miles away from Light Station, the departure point.

Death Nearing Jaraguá Peak
Thinking back, I wonder whether since the beginnings all events have had some kind of a connection, perhaps an easily evidenced one, in spite of any recondite and esoteric meanings:
Light Station, six wagons and this iron horse, our Brigade that was allways radical fighter for the sake of purest beauty, were all these hidden conncted symbols?
As already mentioned, I have never fully incorporated Blue group's cause, and always felt myself a borderline, elusive and careless member there. This might explain why my delay was allways the greatest among them.
There were doctors as Green Brigades members, as well as several pharmacists. Maybe at some meeting at Riviera, to which I delayed more than usual (or have I been absent?), my massive use of anti-emetics became disclosed to everyone. People then had to decide to slaughter me. Green doctors got in contact with the drugstore where my pills were sold, then bribing clerks to sell me any lethal poison, under the false label of metoclopramide.
As on every morning, I took countless of those tablets just after waking up. Yes, still in bed I felt a physical need to do so.
My first conscious thoughts were quite enough to bring me quickly the group's Ideology. Violent nausea would hit me then right away. In past times, when I was just a Green newbie, I had severe vomits in public places. In those times I allowed them to get out of my mouth in spurts: all of such wordy and foolish nonsenses. Maybe the Green Brigade rules were then more dovish, less violent, hawkish, cantankerous.
Despite becoming thereafter so aggressive a member as other Green activists, I had never killed anyone.
A heavy burden on my conscience has begun here on this same so queer travel, when in order to get exclusively in my hands all power, I felt obliged to murder the former driver, simulating his suicide. No witness could ever have seen his final moments, if not for another reason simply because nobody knew two men were within that driver's cubicle. Otherwise it was evident such a strong and stalwart man would never throw himself upon his beloved iron parallel rails.
I've had no choice but to thrust him out of the train, since the moment when it came to my mind a mistrust thinking he could call the police as soon as a major city neared the horizon's line.
During all armed revolutions plain words suggesting good faith are not enough to build a reliable friendship. Despite this, I managed to kill him in such a way even himself would believe it was an accidental fall. I've had to forget our being buddies, but as for him, unaware of my intentional collision to his muscular pretty, buttocks, he died loyal to me at least till his heartbeat ceased, perhaps even after it.
No I am not allowed to any regrets, since for keeping tightly on my mind our major Green Commandment:
''If your enemy who does not love the Green puts at risk your might position, just kill him soon! Remember to kill him with a sharp blade; for the sake of Orchids and Hummingbirds kill him in a Green way!
For the sake of all Earth's living beings, you have to kill our enemies, but only with a shining Green dagger''.
Undoubtedly, ''Green dagger'' here was no more than a symbolic way to get access to a deeper understanding of our sacred Manual of Green Prayers and Meditations. Nonetheless I am uncertain as whether that Esmerald rule has been strictly observed by myself while assassinating that guy.
Only for not being a member of our Brigade, would it be true he didn't love the Green, to the point of being considered our enemy? On the other hand, have I killed him with a "Green dagger"? When I think the right answer here is negative, his shattered skull amid those red jets coming out from his torn aorta comes to my mind. All sunset images around our train, which passed slowly so near the rainforest covering Jaraguá Volcano's hillside, come vividly shining before my eyes. I become then sure those wonderful trees have seen such a low and disgusting color, a bright, flashy red then gushing out of my friend's corpse.
If my thoughts go the other way, I see so clearly that killing him has been strictly loyal to the Sacred Green Scriptures. Accordingly, on these occasions, I am able to regard the same Jaraguá Peak's rainforest as symbolically equivalent to a "Green dagger". Being written many centuries ago, those sacred words actually need much more than a bold allegoric interpretation. Only random and quite free association searching for still not grasped meanings might be enough to disclosing their ancient times writers' deep intentions.
Speaking to passengers for that first time, I felt rather baffled. This train must have a previously stablished destination, but it was by then completely unknown to me. Besides this, I could not help but seeing me as ugly and awkward before those hundreds of gorgeous lustful couples.
Someone there paid attention to my awkward look, looking into my eyes as recognizing me. More than that, she stared me as if we were accomplices of something I could not guess what. In secret that pretty female has given me a little note, which turned me her glances clearer to understand. She was also a Green, and was ordering me to follow still more attentively all computer's Instructions. I was supposed to wait for another message from her, no matter how long it would take. Closed all its doors and windows, our locomotive was due to speed up maximally heading towards a point eight hundred seventeen miles away from Light neighborhood's departure station. At that distant place something quite new and unexpected was supposed to happen.
From then on I was supposed to follow not only panel's Instructions, but also the notes eventually coming from that fucking gorgeous, horny woman. Reading her message I became finally able to understand why our train had not yet been besieged by any clouds of hummingbirds. For me, it seemed then those convoy's riddles were on the right way to an elucidation.

Downstream The Paraná River
To kill the former driver was not necessary, absolutely! Rather it resulted enough all decisions were due only to me to induce that good man's suicide upon rails, certainly feeling there were no more reasons to keep on living then demoted to a mere menial position.Facts and reasons about his death were then logical and reliable enough in order to allow speeding up engine, saying a poignant farewell to that landscape as the sun set behind the huge extinct volcano Jaraguá, my beloved mountain.Very intrigued by that traveler's note, who, whether really a Yellow activist, I speculated how could she live among the wealthy, having agreed to such an old fashioned marriage? Moreover what could be the purpose of blindly obeying those computer instructions which required the closure of absolutely all possible entries of sunlight, thus leading to the immediate locking up of train's interior to all sun rays, thus plunging us in total darkness without any cue about for why or for how much time?
What might be the point behind preventing even the coming of the sacred Sun rays to our eyes? What could our Brigade's ideology have in common with such weird way of life of those sexist couples?
By the way, those so gorgeous patners were constantly looking into my eyes as if inviting me to an impossible orgy? Well, perhaps there was no random coincidence, everything being just a wild tactical game before the arrival at that far faraway place on the South American map thirteen hundred miles from São Paulo. Would it be within Brazil, or over there beyond the border at Corumbá? International limits were absent in that chart on screen, I could not understand why.
Those mandatory computer's commands had my prompt obeyance, but not without before being judged by me, regarding coherence with our Yellow ideals. Fortunately, there were countless boxes of metoclopramide amid first-aid equipment, so I would be able to take those pills during all this wonder travel.
How silly was I to believe in those physicians from the emergency room! Surely, seeing my heavy use of the drug, they chose to frighten up and said I could die from a smallest amount of metoclopramide entering my bloodstrem. Drinking a small droplet of it would be my suicide.
But I did take it and nothing has happened. A false labeled bottle of metoclopramide must have been sold to me, probably as part of a plan plotted by some envious Yellow comrade who rivaled my leadership.
I had a great relieve when I got aware he Yellows were still in action, at least here within this convoy. I could keep on vomiting in jets abundantly, notwithstanding I have never done it at all. My Yellow ideals are my life.
At daybreak the Paraná River was appearing on the horizon, while by phone I wished them a good morning, also adding some words about my supposition theirs had been a very 'hot', plenty of pleasures night, notwithstanding those uncomfortable beds. I finished that greeting with my sincere personal desire that all erotic impulses could have been fully satisfied.
No more than three men laughed at my joke, which was supposedly sexy. All speeches were coming ready on computer screen, except this latter, obviously written by myself.
Believing to have used appropriate intonation and nuances, enriched with horny lust brought upon for seeing all those gorgeous couples, I believed for a moment in a horny reply by some of those people, what promptly recalled me those times when I pretended to be the maximum boss among Yellows as if all final decisions were up to my hands.
Within all those wagons there were only artificial, weak lights because the train had indeed all its orifices hermetically closed. Nobody, except perhaps me, would then be able to see even the tiny first returning sunbeam.
I could not be sure as to that tiny light beam seeming to cross the blockage of those colossal clouds of birds (some looking like hummingbirds, others so huge, bulky and black as condors) along the whole horizon line. At a sudden, an unexpect call from a wife asking to visit me came from stateroom 6-A. At arrival her lustful, seductive blue eyes were inviting me to take a glance at her left pink, excited nipple she had freed from a thin bra. She had come to tell me, in revelation tone between accomplices, that all had taken place as expected adding it had been very easy to kill his husband. From that moment on she would be exclusively mine, assuring his corpse soon would have disappeared from sight without any cues.
Compelled to pretend being aware of all that plot details, I could'nt disguise feeling very perplexed after hearing from then on she would be only mine, plainly because I would never be able to leave even for a second this small cubicle, at least during this travel, whose duration it seemed quite impossible for me to divine.
If I asked her any kind of question on her husband murder, my words would inevitably disclose my condition as a mere hijacker, perhaps even as a killer.
That female of "mine" went back to her seat without saying anything more. Just before leaving she gave me an ardent kiss, and rubbed her nipples on my chest while mentioning the first phrases of our group's sacred prayer:
"Yellow as Sunset and the Golden Trumpet Trees."
To which I replied:
"Yellow as Gold and Sunrise"
At that moment, only clouds of tiny birds were preventing me from turning off artificial lights. Because I couldn't anymore see those huge black birds but only the smallest ones, some hopes grew that the sun would reappear after the crossing of the Paraná River. After that first one, three hundred wives took turns to visit me that same morning. Each of them secretly told to be a Yellow member. Mysteriously, they seemed never to have talked to one another.
To all of them I had no choice but pretending to be aware of the whole plot, never minding what could be at stake there. Every female let me see their pretty nipples rubbing them on my chest during deliciously prolonged kisses. All of them whispered to be only mine, before returning to their staterooms. In spite of a so intense desire for so hot a females, even to the point of feeling such well known scrotal pain, I couldn't help but being appalled when imagining what had just happened over that large bridge: three hundred corpses of young brawny males thrown onto the Paraná River, one by one, solely through the hands of each gorgeous killer wife.
Abruptly, an intense drowsiness got me, as it always happened after swallowing too many of those pills. Nothing could be more commendable, according to "The Great Bloody Book of Red Revelations", than the mighty position I have conquered in this weird transcontinental train.
Notwithstanding such an accomplishment being so praiseworthy according to our ideals, during my whole life as a Red, I had never conceived anything similar to this deed of mine helped by those three hundred female comrades.
So sleepy by those pills, but still with nauseated, I decided to utter a new enthusiastical discourse to congratulate them. But I couldn't read it, because it came then to my mind a role could perhaps have been ascribed by group commanders to me as unwitting protagonist within a very complex Red plot.

Crisscrossing the Andean Highlands
Metoclopramide,
Almost death by an allergic shock,
Escape,
My friend's suicide through my own hands,
Three hundred of the most gorgeous, sensual and exciting couples,
The Jaraguá Volcano and the search for the unreachable destination of this train,
Giant clouds of birds,
Absolute darkness, artificial lights,
Ardent kisses,
Pretty nipples rubbing my chest,
Myself then burning in lustful flames,
Yet alone and too busy as the only driver here,
The three hundred husbands' slaughter,
Their corpses carried downstream the large river,
Absolute power so close to my hands,
Those so pretty females now only mine,
Despite being impossible to fuck them.
A renewed warning against any not necessary realease of seat belts, since that was an extremely dangerous railway tract. Train motors would not be allowed a stop before arriving at a hamlet twenty-eight hundred miles away from Light Station, pointed out by a blue dot on the Andean Highlands in an arid, cold landscape.
As on every morning comrades took turns to visit me.
"Blue as the Titicaca waters.”
“Blue as the open sky of spring mornings"
Hearing then my reply:
"Blue as your eyes"
All riddles would be solved if at any time I were able to overcome my impostor condition. How should I explain that to them? Or how to forget it all forever? Train was crisscrossing now a sinuous path leading to highland's top, contouring many deep abysses.
Low speed was again mandatory, board computer kept sending many commands programmed by unknown agents, whose purposes were quite unattainable to me. We would, yes, someday reach that mysterious, elusive point on map towards which our convoy was heading, where all enigmas surrounding this so variegated travel would be unraveled. My wives would finally reveal the esoteric meaning of all this, and I would have courage to tell them my true story.
Suddenly, there weren't any more birds in this so clear sky above us. In the middle of such a bonanza maximum intake of anti-emetic pills was ordered on panel screen, up to a level never reached before.
The meteorological radar was foreseeing a huge storm for soon, emitting an urgent, private warning to every passenger to follow instruction AZZ-71271- UE-BL-EM. EM, supposedly is an abbreviation for emesis, vomits. By then, while crisscrossing this typical Andean plateau landscape, a very singular and never seen kind of clouds came over the entire horizon. Soon it would fall over us. Fortunately, I had time enough to open all doors, windows, and any kind of holes for the eyes of my gorgeous comrades of color and terror to see. It was a pouring rain, a Blue rain. That hateful screen hasn't any more data concerning any stops. We are no longer in need of an end of on this railway. It is enough this blue storm never ends, enabling us to keep watching this wonder spectacle forever.
It's pouring a Blue rain, infinite Blue gleaming drops.
"Blue as aquamarines"
"Blue as the open sky of spring mornings.'
"Blue as Nothingness".

As Crianças, O Brincar e as Realidades

Crianças, ao brincar, criam e recriam realidades, a partir do que lhes chega aos sentidos vindo do exterior a sua volta. Sim, a essência de qualquer brincadeira é inventar realidades.(Que ingenuidade a de quem pensa que realidade só existe como um absoluto singular!)

Bem por isso não podemos deixar morrer dentro de nós o menino e/ou a menina que fomos. 

Dado que imaginação de criança é sempre livre, dela pode brotar-nos a força pra vencer adversidades. Tantas vezes os obstáculos intransponíveis impõem-se a nós  só pela incapacidade de pensarmos as situações concretas da vida sob ângulos diferentes.

On 'Time', a chapter of 'The Last Owl'*

 

A Glimpse of a Landmark Chapter: “Time”

One of the most discussed accounts (cited in the book’s jacket copy) imagines the dawn when humans broke away from the animal kingdom. Before time existed, creatures enjoyed life without any awareness of their own mortality. The author paints a scene of simultaneous orgasm involving three bodies and attributes the origin of language to the woman—a spell, a form of sorcery that interrupted the natural flow of life. The “Father” subtly rejects; the “Mother” desires the “Son” more. The result? True humanity is born the very moment the animal within us is annihilated forever.

It is pure philosophical erotism: desire, myth, and decadence all at once. Language as a curse that separates us from animal happiness and condemns us to a conscious void.

Reception (Scant but Visceral)

Sylvia Loeb (psychoanalyst, Instituto Sedes Sapientiae): “*The Owl of Minerva* is exceptional. The narrative—combined with culture, delirious imagination, boundless audacity, and courage—is impressive.”

*The author of this comment, to whom I am deeply grateful, remains anonymous. *

A Poesia Emana da Natureza!

"Quando as aves falam

com as pedras

e as rãs com as águas -

é de poesia que estão falando?"

Manoel de Barros

Indivíduo e Realidade

Cada ser humano vem ao mundo como portador de um conceito, ou teoria, singularíssimo do que se chama de realidade. Do nascimento até o fim, o confronto com os fatos é a busca de uma confirmação ou negação dessa "rede de pesca" que lança pro oceano da vida, em busca de suas 'verdades'.

Su «Il Tempo», un capitolo de «L'Ultima Civetta»

Uno sguardo a un capitolo fondamentale di questo romanzo: “Il tempo”

Uno degli episodi più discussi (citato anche nella quarta di copertina) immagina l'alba del momento in cui gli esseri umani si distaccarono dal regno animale. Prima che esistesse il tempo, le creature vivevano la propria esistenza senza alcuna consapevolezza della propria mortalità. L'autore dipinge una scena di orgasmo simultaneo che coinvolge tre corpi e attribuisce alla donna l'origine del linguaggio: un incantesimo, una forma di stregoneria che interruppe il flusso naturale della vita. Il “Padre” rifiuta sottilmente; la “Madre” desidera maggiormente il “Figlio”. Il risultato? La vera umanità nasce proprio nel momento in cui l'animale che è in noi viene annientato per sempre.

È puro erotismo filosofico: desiderio, mito e decadenza, tutto in una volta. Il linguaggio come maledizione che ci separa dalla felicità animale e ci condanna a un vuoto consapevole.

Accoglienza (Scarsa ma viscerale:

Sylvia Loeb (psicoanalista, Instituto Sedes Sapientiae): L'Última Civetta è eccezionale. La narrazione — un connubio di cultura, immaginazione delirante, audacia sconfinata e coraggio — è impressionante.”

*L'autore di questo commento, a cui sono profondamente grato, rimane anonimo*

Acerca de 'O Tempo', capítulo de 'A Última Coruja'*

Vislumbre de um capítulo emblemático: “O Tempo”

Um dos relatos mais comentados (citado nos textos de orelha) imagina o alvorecer em que o humano se desprendeu do reino animal. Antes do tempo, os bichos gozavam a vida sem consciência da finitude. O autor pinta uma cena de orgasmo simultâneo de três corpos e credita à mulher a origem da linguagem — um feitiço, uma bruxaria que interrompeu o fluxo natural da vida. O “Pai” rejeita sutilmente; a “Mãe” deseja mais o “Filho”. O resultado? A humanidade verdadeira nasce no exato momento em que o bicho dentro de nós é aniquilado para sempre.É erotismo filosófico puro: desejo, mito e decadência num só golpe. Linguagem como maldição que nos separa da felicidade animal e nos condena ao vazio consciente.Recepção (escassa, mas visceral)

• Sylvia Loeb (psicanalista, Instituto Sedes Sapientiae): “A Coruja de Minerva é excepcional. Impressionante a narrativa aliada à cultura, imaginação delirante, audácia infinda, coragem.”

*O autor desse comentário, a quem muito agradeço, não se identificou. 

Upon The World

"Yes, but who will cure us of the silent fire, 

the colorless fire that runs at nightfall?..."

"Sì, pero quién nos curará del fuego sordo,
del fuego sin color que corre al anochecer?..."

 Julio Cortázar

--When I met him, we were students, and we then had very little contact. It happened only one single day on which our eyes met. Nothing more. We never had any kind of date. Immediately transfigured after glancing me, he wrote short, interspersed verses, then pulled away abruptly, as someone who sees the possibility of something like God, and wants, needs or is forced to remain atheist. He averted his eyes from mine, as if to turn away their eyes from the bright sun of noon. Soon thereafter began, in front of my home, the building of a most exquisite bridge. In just days, and no one could understand how, it was ready - for crossing the broad avenue - a medieval Florentine style catwalk. Yes, a huge walkway with frescoes by Giotto. Architects rushed to examine it with telescopes since nobody would dare to touch or even get close to such a masterpiece. International experts pondered about taking it to a world exposition that would take place in the same Padova, where Giotto once painted so many bright expressive glances. I did not let them do it.

We lost one another, me and him. We followed separate lives, each one of us with a maze of searches, illusions, love, children, times and places. We barely knew whether the other one was still alive. Except for the blue catwalk every day there. Except by the glances of the figures of the frescoes.
I always knew it was built so I crossed it alone, no one by my side. Naked, walking to meet him, from the first night the catwalk was there. I never did it. We never met together there, both naked on a warm night - while hundreds, thousands of cars come along the avenue just before dawn - making love like cats in heat, like insects flying in copulation. No, we never met there, in spite of this being the sole purpose of this piece of art full of glances, namely, our secret meeting by dawn, as do so many lovers, so many dogs, so many beasts. We follow different and distant lives: I barely know where he might spend his afternoons and nights until the coming of the full Moon. We are born again every full Moon, as when we first saw that ours was to be the most intense desire. But only here over this magnificent bridge, where our naked selves are seen only by the figures in the frescoes, by those so beautiful eyes! He tells me that this painted woman on the left is la Beatrice di Dante, and that my eyes and hers are one and the same.
No, we couldn't keep on living just as those whose automatized lives make of them trite things, who stay adrift on Earth in a short helplessly solitary Existence. That's why, since our first moment, you and I have come from a different corner of the city, meeting together on the top of the walkway.
Under the full moon, both naked, he tenderly caresses my face and kisses me. He touches my breasts with his warm tongue and devours them. Then touches my thighs and penetrates me so tightly as the male lion penetrates his female under a tree in the savannah. Hard as a rock, thick, soft and tender, he tells me that my eyes are indeed the sun, and with the strength of the sunlight he has been able to build this bridge, where we have never been.

--- It was in broad daylight that she could be seen while crossing the catwalk for the first time. She had come in search of me. Naked, she stopped right on top where, without ever being there together, we were making love under the glances of the frescoes' characters. She seemed to be missing me. She was afraid of not finding myself anymore, since that was the first night on which she was seen alone over our huge avenue, under splendorous Moon, amidst the glittering blue of the frescoes, waiting even a single moment for my coming.

Naked, at noon, only your eyes could dare to beat the beauty of your thighs, of your hair, of your breasts, of your pussy, of your mouth, of your feet. Because of not finding me, since none of us actually have ever been there over the catwalk, you looked at those bright meaningful eyes in which Giotto represented Beatrice, and you finally understood. You saw that truest lovers are eternal, never meet, and keep fucking hard under the moonlight during the warm nights of a perpetual summer, crossing bridges over small obstacles, such as the world. This world that humans see from within their cars. And that their bodies penetrate each other, yes, so much as do the roaring lion during his heat, over a transposing bridge built by the burning of their lustful looks.

---It was, thus, under noon light, that we were now for the first time indeed, quite possessed by this same intense heat here over our catwalk built upon the world. No longer do I fear thy sight, as when I did compare them to the Sun god (which, admittedly, was a pretty poor analogy). I do not fear thy eyes. They are God.                    

            "No one will cure us of the silent fire,          of the colorless fire that runs at nightfall."

                 Julio Cortázar, Hopscotch,Rayuela 

                "Nadie nos curará del fuego sordo, del fuego                  sin color que corre al anochecer.              

This poem's author also published 'The Last Owl' on amazon.com .  Just click to get a FREE sample: 'The Last Owl'

El Condor Flies Over

"Alguma coisa acontece no meu coraçãoque só quando cruza a Ipiranga e a avenida São João"

                                   Sampa, by Caetano Veloso 

For a long time in my life, I had not this fear of them. I even think that there has been a time in which they were scarcely known by me, so distant they were. Most probably they have been even admired by me in those times. I search for the causes for such a feeling of mine but never find them. Some people advised me to recall the first images, supposedly plentiful of a vague embryonic angst. They said such was always the beginning of all irrational fears. But seemingly not in my case. At the origin of my woes, I am not able to find any notable fact except a single ridicule event: an innocent talk regarding the correct pronunciation of his name. Paco, my Peruvian friend, living in São Paulo so distant from his country for long, was talking to me about the splendid flight of the condors. Speaking Portuguese without any accent, he nevertheless pronounced the word CÔndores, so putting the tonic accent on the first syllable, as is the correct way in Spanish, but an evident mistake in Portuguese. I right away corrected him: "The accent must be on the second syllable, Paco: conDÔres and not CÔndores.'' ''You are wrong. Their name is CÔndores.'' ''If you are speaking Spanish or even English, which is correct. I am aware of this. But in Portuguese, the right pronunciation is another. We say condôr, never another way." Politely, or presuming to act so, I did speak only these few phrases and nothing else. Nevertheless, they were enough for Paco uttering his trite but mighty words. That same utterance that at once and forever disrupted everything, and which I have been repeating incessantly in my thoughts since then. He looked into my eyes, resembling an Inca prince with his cabezita negra and displaying a subtle and ironic disdain, he launched into my ears a just sarcastic utterance. This latter however revealed itself fatally for me:

              [End of Sample]

Can you guess what comes next? Look at these singular interconnected tales making up a single novel!

A Kafkian tale? This short story is part of the book below: 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004FGMTRC/ref=rdr_kindle_ext_tmb

Narciso e O Outro

"Narciso" habita camada primordial e profund da mente humana, pilar mestre a partir do qual se estrutura nosso "Eu" (Ego), nossa personalidade. É força vital que perdura enquanto vivermos, pois o amar a si mesmo se confunde com a própria vontade de viver.
O 'narcisista' a que se referem as descrições clínicas de transtornos de caráter, é apenas um desvio grotesco dessa fundamental pulsão de vida.
Ao nascer, cada 'Narciso' logo se depara com a existência de outros seres humanos, que, como logo percebe, também são 'Narcisos'. E é no olhar do 'Outro' que o recém-chegado 'Narciso' encontra sua DANAÇÃO incontornável, o fim de seu gozo por si próprio, que soube extrair de sua própria imagem. É a efetiva expulsão humana do Paraíso.
No gozo autocontemplativo, 'Narciso' atingia a afirmação plena de si, enquanto a totalidade do existente único que julgava ser, dado que nada de externo lhe dizia respeito.
A imagem do 'Outro', então, imiscui-se e lhe rouba o protagonismo que busca ser o absoluto na cena do mundo.
Todo 'outro' com que se depara está, entretanto, nessa mesma busca ávida do orgasmo autocontemplativo de si, que prefere tomar por eterno.
Toda identidade pessoal, todo Eu/Ego que se mostra ao conviver na cena humana do mundo não pode ser senão máscara, armadura de combatente para uso na guerra dos Narcisos, nessa grande tartufferie que é sempre a convivência social.
Ninguém usa uma única máscara, nem cem, nem cem mil; seu número tende ao infinito, pois que se exibem a infinitos olhares e/ou infinitas perspectivas distribuídos pelos infinitos instantes fugazes da existência humana.

Buffaloes

Sudden and simultaneously all, absolutely all, the inhabitants of New York City turned into buffaloes. The same wild buffaloes whose huge herds crowded, the American prairies some centuries ago.
Twenty million wild buffaloes at least.
Exactly at rush time when men and women formed the biggest crowds, inside malls, shops and banks, or even within countless brothels and temples, or driving on large avenues, and also aboard ships. Everyone had become a buffalo, and as such was anxiously trying to free their large bodies from remains of suits, shirts, skirts now mere rags.
Things went all right for those individuals who had been just walking on the streets, because once newcomer bovines they simply had to keep on marching westward in a lengthy migration, surely nostalgic of the good old prairies. Buffaloes don't like the sea, so opposite to my own taste since if I only could I'd throw away this freaky torch and swim to the southeast, in search of the hotter waters of the Equatorial Atlantic.
The descent from the great buildings has not been that easy, for l think buffaloes don't know how to manage elevators, nor are they able to go downstairs, by any means, without great difficulties. Thousands of them arrived at street level, seriously excoriated and with several kinds of fractures. Worst of all, many threw themselves against glass windows, which caused their bodies to burst on streets, yielding huge blood pools.
When the survivors saw such bloody corpses, they started to run in the hundreds of thousands. This sped the emptying of the entire Big Apple.
Within brothels, however, some delay took place. It seems that the sudden change did not interfere with love making. On the contrary, couples possibly felt even stronger desires because, all of a sudden, money lost any kind of meaning... Sexual intercourses became once and for all very hot bovine lust, like that of bulls and cows.
In the first moments following the Great Mutation, while many of them were still grazing in Central Park, I saw dozens of planes from the U.S. Air Force on the horizon line. All of them fell and plunged deep into middle of New York Bay.
Despite seeming now so improbable somebody will ever have from a reliable, neutral source, any information on what did actually happen within those crashed planes, I keep wondering whether pilots, or anyone else therein, were able to avoid becoming buffaloes. I'm right now seeing a decomposing bovine corpse, amid rags of a USAF uniform, to float half a mile from my feet.
Anyway, I must confess it's been rather difficult for me to understand what's happening all around me. For a while I thought I would also be changed into a bronze buffalo, thereafter becoming a symbol to these before enslaved animals' apocalyptic liberation from mankind. Nevertheless, that did not take place, and I don't believe anymore it can still happen.

                                    ΩΩΩ

This tale is part of The Last Owl, a novel you may get clicking HERE

'The Last Owl's Main Thread

How to finish off sleeplessness when counting sheep no longer works? A journalist not able to take out from mind so many pictures of Nature's widespread destruction, nor of the various miseries and horrors faced by mankind, is trying hard to fall asleep. Despite this, and while being quite alone in his empty bedroom on a winter night, yet overflowing with desire, he begins to remember past love affairs, with their so many delights, but which led to so hurtful frustrations too, until the moment in which he finally makes up a perhaps infallible tactic to fall asleep. 
His last thoughts before choosing this new sleeping game:
"Living plunged into a world taken to be the only real, human beings disdain those people who confuse dreams with the concreteness of full vigil life, calling them 'mad'! Nonetheless, paradoxically we all love the works of art, which suspend that 'so obvious' difference between reality and unreality.

'The Last Owl', published by amazon.com , may be found on:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004FGMTRC/

https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B004FGMTRC

or on other amazon sites. 

Em português:
'A Última Coruja':
https://www.amazon.com.br/Sobrevoo-Coruja-Minerva-Marcos-Wagner-ebook/dp/B00F17WEII/ 

Coração Mentiroso

Meu coração tem verdades

Incompatíveis entre si.

Justo por isso são todas,

Igualmente verdadeiras.

Por amor, 

Eu faço mundos! 

Por amor,

Meu coração mente!

               

NOTA: O autor deste poema publicou o romance 'A Última Coruja',  que pode ser baixado como amostra grátis clicando numa das ligações abaixo: 

https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B00F17WEII/ref=rdr_kindle_ext_tmb

https://www.amazon.it/Sobrevoo-Coruja-Minerva-Portuguese-ebook/dp/B00F17WEII/


Available too in English translation:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004FGMTRC

https://www.amazon.it/Owl-Minervas-Overflying-rainbow-English-ebook/dp/B004FGMTRC/

https://www.amazon.com.br/Owl-Minervas-Overflying-rainbow-English-ebook/dp/B004FGMTRC/ ]

Rumos

Ponte do Sentido da Vida, Praia do Sonho

A vida

Cruzou comigo agora,

Vinha sorridente e me disse:

Bom dia!

Também sorri, também a cumprimentei.

Seguimos então rumos opostos,

Sem saber pra onde vamos.

Finjo,

Fingimos não saber.

Real-Irreal: Filosofia, Psicopatologia, Arte

#Sartre, Superego e Selva

Visão Amazônica do Paraíso: "Ao homem que cavalga por longo tempo por terrenos selvagens, vem desejo de uma cidade. Finalmente alcança Isidra..." Ítalo Calvino...

'O Outro Céu' de Julio Cortázar

Ponte Sentido-da-Vida, Praia do Sonho, Itanhaém

A tensão entre Eros e Thanatos maximizada em Paris, onde a intensidade de viver do narrador chega ao clímax, onde a vida lhe dá os prazeres mais intensos. Josiane é o amor maior, paixão fugidia, Eros explosivo. Laurent, o assassino de prostitutas, traz a ameaça constante da morte, Thanatos.
No Sul-Americano, indivíduo esquivo e misterioso, Cortázar incorpora a imagem de Lautrémont, o escritor franco-uruguaio, que viveu seus últimos dias na Paris cercada pelos prussianos, em 1871. Em seu longo poema em prosa, Maldoror, todas as máscaras de bondade caem, e o ser humano se mostra capaz de wcabrosas maldades, dignas de demônios. Semelhantes às atribuídas a Calígula ou ao Marquês de Sade, além de gratuitas e quotidianas.
Já a vida do narrador do conto é bem diversa: corretor de bolsa de valores em Buenos Aires, seu quotidiano é tédio puro, rotina massacrante dominada pelas aspirações de sua família. Tem uma noiva, num relacionamento maçante.
Pode o desejo deixar-se sufocar pelo tédio?
Em Paris, Thanatos atiça Eros, dando vida à paixão por Josiane,.
Em Buenos Aires, o tédio e o nada, simbolizados pelos mosquitos da ilha dos pais de Irma, é tudo o que resta.

El Condor Pasa

 

"Alguma coisa acontece no meu coração,

 Que só quando cruza a Ipiranga e a avenida São João"                  Caetano Veloso, in Sampa

                       ["Algo sucede en mi corazón// Sólo cuando cruza las avenidas Ipiranga y  São João"]  

Para un buen momento en mi vida, yo no he tenido este miedo de ellos. Creo que durante décadas estuvieron tan distantes y poco conocidos, que me acuerdo vagamente solo de admirar su vuelo lejano en medio de cumbres andinos inalcanzables.

Cuando busco las causas para la transformación radical de mi sentimiento, nunca puedo encontrar nada. Muchas personas me han dado consejos para recordar las primeras imágenes que tuvo de ellos en la infancia, porque esas frecuentemente son ricas en temblores embrionarios. Por lo que serían estos, por ejemplo, al inicio de todos los miedos irracionales. No obstante, en mi caso no hay nada que se pueda conectar a la fuente de mi terror, salvo un hecho ridículo: un diálogo inocente sobre la pronunciación correcta de su nombre.
Paco, mi amigo peruano, que vivía en Sao Paulo, tan lejos de su país hacía ya mucho tiempo, me habló del espléndido vuelo de los cóndores. Casi sin acento, un experto en nuestra prosodia Paulistana, sin embargo, ha pronunciado 'cóndores', así poniendo el acento tónico en la primera sílaba, como es la forma correcta en español, pero un error conocido en portugués.
Empedernido sabelotodo, lo he corregido de inmediato:

"Se pone énfasis en la segunda sílaba, Paco: condôres, cóndores nunca".

Paco me respondió de pronto:

 "¡Necio! ¡Se llaman cóndores!".

Yo: --"En su idioma, sí, Paco, soy consciente de ello. Sin embargo, en portugués, ¡no! La                pronunciación correcta es condôr, nunca cóndor".

Hablando cortésmente, o pretendiendo actuar así, yo le dije, en ese momento, sólo estas pocas palabras y nada más. Pero aquél pequeño dialogo ha sido suficiente para que Paco reaccionara pronunciando su tan común, sin embargo, tan poderosa verdad. Esta misma obviedad que, de una vez y para siempre, provocó en mí la tormenta en torno al cual mis pensamientos incesantes no pueden alejarse.
Me ha mirado en los ojos, con su rostro de príncipe Inca y su cabecita negra, y, al mismo tiempo que mostraba un desprecio sutil y sarcástico, me ha tirado una perogrullada al decir aquello tan demasiado cierto, pero sarcástico e irónico. Sus palabras, sin embargo, fueron fatales para mí:
"En Portugal no existen cóndores."
Dejó claro, una vez más, lo inteligente que era, así como creativo y dueño de un fino sentido del humor. También se puso de manifiesto la fragilidad de mi
Inmediatamente me puse a reír a carcajadas. De esto surgió riendo mi terror. Esto que, minutos después, se asentó en mí con toda virulencia, para no dejarme nunca.
Paco no aparentó haberse dado cuenta. Quanto a me, sin decir una palabra más siquiera, he salido de su estudio, ya incapaz de mirar hacia arriba. Era como si se trataran de repente, cerca del centro de Sao Paulo, recién llegados desde sus cumbres andinas.
No tengo miedo de que me ataquen como lo hacen los falcones con sus presas. Eso sería estúpido, porque siempre supe que, a pesar de su tamaño, los cóndores no captan animales vivos. Mucho menos un ser humano vivo. Me temo, sí, de volver mis ojos al cielo, y por eso ser obligado a confrontarlos cara a cara. Con miedo de enfrentarme con su negrura y su apariencia, aquí, en medio de este montón de hormigón apilados en que se ha convertido esta megalópolis enorme y deprimente donde yo vivo.
Detengo mis paseos por breves momentos, sólo para poder mejor imaginar su vuelo por encima de los rascacielos, mientras que construyen sus nidos dentro de los apartamentos abandonados. A soñar despierto, soy capaz de verlos, sin tener mi mirada fuera de la tierra, revoloteando alrededor de las decenas de torres de radiodifusión sobre la avenida Paulista.
Cuando, por alguna razón, las personas preguntan qué me hace parecer tan desanimado, incluso en lugares tan cerrados como el subterráneo, yo trato de hacer oídos sordos, desconversar. Si insisten en el tema, digo que estoy un poco triste, ya que se trata, por ejemplo, de una postura típica de personas tristes. Pero eso es obviamente una mentira. ¡No hay tristeza en mí, porque mi terror no me nunca hace triste! Por el contrario, muchas veces me hace más alegre.
Me regocijo cuando aún aterrorizado, imagino este cóndor, que sin cesar me sigue por las calles, permanece así tan ocupado solo de mí. Tal vez todos los cóndores han volado a través de nuestro continente hacia el este, sólo para asustar a mí, y a nadie más. Oh, sí, pensar de esta manera me hace contente, y creo que he encontrado un sin número de prosaicas y cotidianas pruebas de la realidad innegable de la verdad de estos devaneos.
Yo soy el único que queda sin cesar mirando al suelo, ya al momento en que despierto, porque siempre duermo sobre mi espalda derecha, y parezco buscar algo por el alfombrado de mi habitación cuando abro los ojos.
A partir de estas observaciones, deduzco que los cóndores no causan ansiedad, miedo o pánico a nadie más que a mí. Por supuesto, a pesar de esto, no puedo tener certeza, de manera definitiva, de que no exista otro residente en Sao Paulo en situación igual a me.
Sería posible mismo que hubiera un sin número de otras personas, multitudes o incluso tal vez millones de personas como yo. Pueden ser todos los 22 millones de habitantes del Gran São Paulo. No tengo ningún dato para refutar esa terrible posibilidad, que sea, de que ahora todos los habitantes de este extraño metrópoli vivan en esta misma condición, todos en esta misma postura. Siendo imposible para mí volverme y mirar otros rostros humanos, no podré refutar de ninguna manera tan triste conjetura.
Mantengo en un rincón de mi mente, sin embargo, la convicción interior de que los cóndores han llegado a São Paulo sólo por mi causa. Migración en masa y definitiva. Me siento muy honrado y glorificado, y luego busco algún hecho pasado de mi vida que pudiera hacerme digno de esta elección de los cielos andinos.
En las noches cuando me puedo dormir, yo siempre sueño con que pierdo todo el miedo y miro su cara directamente. Sueño especialmente con este mismo cóndor que me sigue siempre por todas las calles, plazas y avenidas - el más hermoso y fuerte entre ellos. Él me habla en español, única manera que hemos encontrado para hablarnos porque yo no sé una sola palabra de su quechua:
---“No deberías aterrorizarte por nuestra simples existencia y migración en masa de San Pablo. Ni amigo, por el hecho de solo caberme a mi seguirte constantemente”.
Yo respondo a él que su existencia, o el mero hecho de que me siga sin descanso no me asustan en absoluto, y añado que mi único miedo es de verme obligado a enfrentarme cara a cara con él.
En realidad, sin embargo, tengo miedo, sí, de verlo lejos de mí, o de escuchar el fuerte ruido de sus alas portentosas, aunque sea muchos metros por encima de mí. Sin embargo, puesto que estas calles y avenidas son muy ruidosas, nunca escuché ningún ruido que pudiera atribuirse a mi cóndor. Y para mantenerme seguro contra un repentino inesperado silencio, incluso tan improbable, de las máquinas todas de esta megalópolis, he comprado un par de auriculares para protegerme, incluso más de las razones de mi pánico personal. Así equipado, empecé a vagar por las calles con los lunares negros en mis oídos.
Ya que no tenía conmigo ningún dispositivo para reproducir sonidos, algunas personas se quedaron perplejas al ver mi postura cabizbaja, con grandes auriculares. Tuve que decirles que era una receta para evitar el estrés de los ruidos urbanos, pero pocos dieron crédito a esta alegación. Así que, finalmente compré un smartphone con radio FM que nunca oigo. Mi aparición, sin embargo, se convirtió en menos excéntrica, y finalmente he podido tener alguna esperanza de que, aun mirando al suelo, no habría nada que diferenciara a me de lo que se considera un habitante normal de Sampa en estos días del siglo XXI.
Durante todos estos años de cabeza hacia abajo, he podido observar, en los breves momentos que desplazo el centro de mi atención de su figura negra y calva, que existe dentro de esta megalópolis un microcosmos de heces, cucarachas, ratas y basura de todo tipo. Pero pronto me refugio detrás de mi miedo intenso, haciéndome incapaz de ver nada relevante sobre el suelo de esta fea ciudad, en cuyo terreno las buenas semillas ya no brotan más desde hace muchísimo tiempo.
Yo no puedo darle la espalda cuello: yo estaría sujeto a entrever su sombra. Nunca la miré. Nunca me encontré con su enorme silueta en el suelo gris de esta monstruosa ciudad.
Algunas cuestiones clave se repiten en mi mente, me persiguen. Los cóndores, que ya viven en Sao Paulo hace décadas, están acá sólo para asustarme. Sin embargo, nunca he podido ver siquiera un pequeño vestigio de la sombra que proyectan mientras están a volar tan cerca. Ni siquiera de aquella de mi cóndor, el más grande y hermoso entre ellos, uno que jamás amanece fuera de mi ventana, y cuya función es seguirme incesantemente. Porque ni mi cóndor mismo no tiene permiso para dejarme ver, ni de forma rápida, su contorno que se proyecta en el suelo. Dejé de girar el cuello hacia los lados, tan pronto me he dado cuenta de las cantidades enormes de energía, hechos por mi cóndor, masivo como es su cuerpo, sólo para mantenerme lejos de su proyección en el asfalto. Como yo no busco por nada más, manteniendo siempre este impulso angular fijo único hacia abajo, sin mover en ningún momento mis ojos, se me hago seguro que mi cóndor ahorre el máximo de energía mientras vuela.
Voy a seguir viviendo en Sampa. No soy más capaz de salir de esta infernal megalópolis, mientras los cóndores permanecen en ella sólo por mí causa. Tampoco viajo o viajaré: traería graves problemas para mi cóndor, cuya familia vive en la parte superior de mi edificio, y come de la carroña que solo él captura durante sus vuelos sobre mi cuerpo.
Algunas personas, a quienes he susurrado en cartas mi terrible pavor, pero no mis certezas, me aconsejaron consultar a un médico. No, yo no creo que mi cóndor está enfermo, sea por el estrés físico o por la frustración crónica sobre las explicaciones siempre insuficientes que yo le doy, en los sueños, de mi miedo real.
No, mi condorito, yo no temo tus fantásticas presas a levantar mi cuerpo fuera de las garras de tierra, tan fácil que soy de agarrarse e ir de aquí, tan delgada es mi ser.
No temo ni un poquito que con tus poderosas alas me cargues para siempre de aquí, llevándome hacia tus altas cumbres andinas, flotando por el cielo azul de nuestra América. Todavía con menos miedo si pusieras a mí en tu nido, y me dieras para comer de eso que cacerías diariamente, teniendo cuidado de mí como fuera yo un condorito, tu hijo, depositario entonces de tus planos para que yo fuese idéntico a ti algún día, un otro navegante de los cielos de la cordillera donde viviríamos juntos.
No, ¡no son esas en absoluto los motivos de mi pavor!
Porque lo que me causaría, sí, horror mortal, es la mera visión de su vuelo tangible, concreto, crudo y exuberante sobre mí. Estaría muerto por sus penetrantes ojos, lanzando en mi cara pálida unas pocas verdades, ya que no soy capaz de volar, y yo estoy irremediablemente atado a este enorme laberinto de piedra. Laberinto hecho de pilotes amorfos de hormigón, mezclados de forma caótica con vidrio, plástico, asfalto, sólo para hacer muy firme esta construcción vacía en la cual se ha encerrado mi existencia. Y erigido sin orden, sin ninguna planificación en esta meseta baja para ti, demasiado fácil para tu nariz potente y tu vista exacta, en una tierra a que puedes llegar en pocos días de tu vuelo.

"Porque és o avesso// do avesso// do avesso// do avesso"

                                           Caetano Veloso,in Sampa

[Porque eres el reverso// del reverso// del reverso// del reverso"]

'El Condor Pasa' es parte de la novela "A Última Coruja" (El Último Búho), publicada por amazon.com a finales de 2013, la cual se puede acceder mediante el enlace:
http://www.amazon.com.br/CORUJA-MINERVA-Marcos-Wagner-Cunha-ebook/dp/B00F17WEII/

Novela disponible también en inglés cómo "The Last Owl".

El Condor Passa (original em português)

 
Alguma coisa acontece no meu coração,

Que só quando cruza a Ipiranga e a avenida São João”

Caetano Veloso, Sampa. 

Por um bom tempo em minha vida, eu não tive este medo deles. Penso que por décadas me tenham sido tão distantes e pouco conhecidos, que apenas me lembro de admirar vagamente seu voo, tão solitário, por entre inalcançáveis cumes andinos.

Quando procuro as causas para tão radical transformação de meu sentimento, nunca encontro nada. Ouvi conselhos para tentar relembrar as primeiras imagens que dele tive na infância, supostamente ricas já em angústia em estado embrionário. Assim seria, diziam, no início de todos os medos irracionais. Não, porém, no meu caso. Nada há, que possa ligar à origem de meu pavor, exceto um único fato ridículo: um inocente diálogo acerca da pronúncia correta de seu nome. 

Paco, meu amigo peruano, vivendo em São Paulo, tão distante de seu país há muito tempo, falava-me do esplêndido vôo dos condores. Quase sem sotaque, exímio aprendiz de nossa prosódia, no entanto, pronunciou a palavra cÔndores, assim, colocando o acento tônico na primeira sílaba, como é a maneira correta em espanhol, mas um erro bem conhecido em português. Eu, assumido sabe-tudo inveterado, o corrigi de imediato: “acentua-se a segunda sílaba, Paco: condOres, nunca cÔndores”.

Paco retrucou: 

“Você se engana. Chamam-se côndores”.

Respondi:

“Em sua língua, sim, Paco, tenho ciência disso. Mas em português, não! A pronúncia consagrada é condor, jamais côndor”.

Polidamente, ou presumindo agir assim, eu disse, na ocasião, só essas poucas frases e nada mais. Foram suficientes para Paco proferir sua frase tão banal, mas poderosa. Essa mesma frase que, de uma só vez e para sempre, desencadeou em mim esta tormenta em torno da qual meus incessantes pensamentos não conseguem afastar-se.

Mirou meus olhos, com seu rosto de príncipe inca, com sua cabezita negra, e mostrando um desdém sutil e sarcástico, lançou-me aquela afirmação, aparentemente apenas tão verdadeira e irônica. Foi-me, todavia, fatal:

"Em Portugal não há côndores."

Deixou evidente, ainda outra vez, quão inteligente era, assim como criativo e dono de um fino senso de humor. Evidenciou-se, também, minha fragilidade de sabe-tudo.

Imediatamente pus-me a rir em voz alta. A partir desse mesmo riso emergiu meu pavor. Este que, minutos depois, se instalou em mim com toda virulência, para nunca mais partir.

Paco nada parece ter notado. Sem dizer mais palavra, saí de seu estúdio de fotografia, já incapaz de olhar para o alto. Era como se estivessem subitamente ali, próximos ao centro de São Paulo, recém-chegados de seus picos andinos.

Não temo que me ataquem como fazem os falcões com suas presas. Isso seria estúpido, pois sempre soube que, a despeito de seu porte, condores não capturam animais vivos. Tanto menos um humano vivo.

Tenho medo, sim, de dirigir meus olhos para o céu e assim poder encará-los de frente. Medo de defrontar-me com sua negritude e com seus olhares, aqui no meio deste amontoado de concreto empilhado em que se transformou esta gigantesca e deprimente megalópole em que vivo.

Paro minhas caminhadas por breves momentos, só para imaginar seu vôo acima dos mais altos arranha-céus, construindo seus ninhos dentro dos apartamentos abandonados. Devaneando, sou capaz de vê-los, sem tirar os olhos do chão, esvoaçantes às centenas ao redor das torres de radiodifusão do planalto da Paulista.

Se, por qualquer razão, me perguntam o que é que me faz tão desanimado e cabisbaixo, mesmo em locais hermeticamente enclausurantes, como o metrô, procuro fazer ouvidos de mercador, desconversar. Se insistem na questão, digo que estou apenas um pouco triste, uma vez que esta é, dizem, uma postura típica de uma pessoa triste. Mas isso é, obviamente, mentira. Não há tristeza em mim. Este meu pavor nunca me entristeceu. Pelo contrário, tantas vezes isso me faz mais alegre.

Alegro-me quando, mesmo aterrorizado, imagino que este condor, que incessantemente me segue pelas ruas, se ocupa tanto só comigo. Quem sabe tenham vindo todos, atravessando nosso continente no rumo leste, só para me amedrontar, e a mais ninguém. Ah, sim, pensar desta forma me faz feliz, e julgo ter encontrado inúmeras provas quotidianas e prosaicas da realidade inegável desses pensamentos. 

Sou o único a permanecer incessantemente com o olhar fixo ao solo, mesmo logo ao acordar, pois, sempre dormindo sobre meu mesmo lado direito, já estou olhando para o carpete do quarto quando abro os olhos. 

A partir dessas observações, deduzo que não causam ansiedade, angústia, medo, pavor ou pânico em mais ninguém além de mim. Claro que, apesar disso, não posso certificar-me, de forma cabal e definitivo, de que não exista outro habitante de São Paulo a viver em posição idêntica à minha. Seria até possível existirem inúmeros outros, talvez multidões ou mesmo milhões de pessoas como. Quem sabe todos os 22 milhões de habitantes da Grande São Paulo. Não visualizo nenhum dado empírico capaz de refutar a hipótese terrível que cada habitante desta estranha metrópole esteja agora a viver nesta mesma condição, assumindo uma postura idêntica. Sendo para mim impossível voltar a olhar para rostos humanos, não posso de maneira alguma refutar tão triste conjectura.

Guardo em um canto de minha mente, contudo, esta convicção íntima de que os condores vieram a São Paulo só por minha causa. Em maciça e derradeira migração. Sinto-me muito honrado e glorificado, e então procuro por algum feito passado, que pudesse fazer-me merecedor de tal escolha dos céus andinos.

Nas noites em que consigo adormecer, sempre sonho que perco todo medo e os encaro face a face. Sonho especialmente com esse que me segue tanto pelas ruas, praças e avenidas -- o mais bonito e mais forte entre eles. El Condor fala comigo em espanhol, a única maneira que encontrei para conversarmos, porque não conheço uma única palavra da seu quechua.

--“No deberias aterrorizarte por nuestra simples existencia y migración en masa de San Pablo. Ni amigo, por el hecho de solo caberme a mi seguirte constantemente”. [“Você não deve aterrorizar-se por nossa mera existência e migração em massa para São Paulo. Nem amigo, pelo fato de caber só a mim segui-lo constantemente".]

Respondo-lhe que sua existência, ou o mero fato de me seguir sem trégua não me apavoram em nada, e acrescento que meu único medo é vir a ser obrigado a encará-lo.

Na verdade, porém, temo também vê-lo à distância, ou ouvir o ruidoso ruflar de suas asas portentosas, mesmo que muitos metros acima de mim. No entanto, dado que essas ruas e avenidas são extremamente barulhentas, nunca ouvi qualquer som que pudesse ser atribuído a mi condor. Apesar disso, para manter-me seguro contra qualquer silêncio repentino, mesmo tão improvável, das máquinas da cidade, comprei um par de fones de ouvido para proteger-me ainda mais de meu pânico pessoal. Assim equipado, passei a vagar pelas ruas com bolinhas pretas em meus ouvidos.

Uma vez que não portava comigo qualquer dispositivo para reproduzir sons, algumas pessoas ficaram perplexas ao ver minha postura cabisbaixa, com enormes fones de ouvido. Tive que dizer a elas que se tratava de uma prescrição médica para evitar o estresse dos barulhos urbanos, mas poucos deram crédito a isso. Assim, finalmente comprei um smartphone com rádio FM, que nunca acionei. Minha aparência, todavia, tornou-se menos excêntrica, e pude, finalmente, ter alguma esperança de que mesmo olhando fixamente para o chão, não haveria nada a distinguir-me disso que hoje se considera um habitante humano normal de Sampa. 

Durante todos esses anos de cabeça baixa, venho observando nos breves momentos em que desvio o centro de minha atenção de sua figura negra e calva, que há dentro desta megalópole um microcosmos de fezes, baratas, ratos e lixo de toda espécie. Mas logo me refugio atrás de meu intenso pavor, tornando-me incapaz de ver qualquer coisa relevante sobre o chão desta cidade feia, chão no qual as boas sementes já não brotam mais.

Não consigo mais girar meu pescoço para trás: ficaria sujeito a vislumbrar sua sombra. Eu nunca a vi. Nunca me defrontei com seu enorme contorno sobre o solo sempre cinza desta cidade.

Algumas questões-chave seguem recorrentes pra mim. Os condores já vivem em São Paulo há décadas, só para me aterrorizar. Apesar disso, nunca me foi permitido entrever sequer uma sombra sua. Nem mesmo deste meu condor, o maior e mais belo, que amanhece sempre do lado de fora de minha janela, e cujo papel é seguir-me incessantemente. Pois nem mesmo mi condor tem permissão para me deixar visualizar, rapidamente, seu contorno projetado sobre o solo. Parei de virar o pescoço para os lados, logo que tomei ciência de que mi condor desperdiça enormes quantidades de energia, colossais como é, apenas para manter-me distante de sua projeção sobre o asfalto. Uma vez que não olho mais para nada, mantendo sempre fixo este único momento angular pra baixo, e sem mover os olhos de maneira alguma, sinto-me seguro de que pode assim economizar ao máximo seu bater de asas.

Prosseguirei a viver em Sampa. Não seria capaz de deixar esta infernal megalópole, enquanto os condores nela permanecem só por minha causa. Tampouco viajo ou viajarei: isso traria sérios transtornos para mi condor, cuja família habita o topo de meu edifício, e come da carniça que captura durante seus vôos acima de meu corpo.

Algumas pessoas, a quem segredei por carta meu medo terrível, mas não minhas certezas, aconselharam-me a consultar um médico. Não, não creio que mi condor esteja doente, nem pelo desgaste físico, nem pela frustração crônica diante das explicações sempre insuficientes que lhe dou, em sonhos, sobre meu verdadeiro medo.

Não, mi condorcito, não temo tuas garras fantásticas a me levantar o corpo do chão, tão fácil sou de se pegar e levar daqui, tão magro é meu ser. Não temo, nem um pouquito sequer, que tuas asas potentes me tirem para sempre daqui, para levar-me até teus altos picos andinos, revoando pelo céu azul de nossa América. Menos ainda temeria se me colocasses em teu ninho, e me desses a comer do que tu diariamente caças, a cuidar de mim como a un condorcito, tu hijo, Depositarias, então, em mim a confiança de vir a tornar-me idêntico a ti, um navegante dos céus da cordilheira onde viveríamos juntos.

A nada disso se deve meu pavor. Causar-me-ia, sim, um horror mortal, a simples visão de seu voo palpável, concreto, bruto, e exuberante sobre mim. Eu estaria morto por teus olhos penetrantes, lançando em meu rosto pálido umas poucas verdades, como que não sou capaz de voar, e que estou irremediavelmente atado a este enorme labirinto de pedra. Labirinto de pilhas amorfas de concreto, misturadas caoticamente com vidro, plástico e asfalto, certamente construído apenas para tornar vazia minha existência. E erguido sem nenhum tipo de ordem, ou de planejamento, sobre este planalto baixo pra ti, fácil demais para o teu faro e tua visão tão certeiros, numa terra que podes alcançar em poucos dias de voo.

"Porque és o avesso do avesso do avesso do avesso".             --Caetano Veloso. Sampa