Meire

Meire is another part of the story. The only friend I could keep, not someone you say hello too, but someone who can listen to you and share her innermost feelings. She used to work as a volunteer in a suicide prevention phone service in Santos called CVV until a suicidal phone call psyched her out. Someone called her and said he was going to commit suicide. The police identified the call and tore down the apartment's door, only to find the guy dead, lying beside the phone. He had taken 2g of carbamazepine. 200mg is already too much. I don't think she was prepared to hear a man's agony on the phone, even a mild one, induced by carbamazepine. She stayed for some time under psychiatric care. I worked in a clinic I had, by the CVV's switchboard.

She called me today. The afternoon was beautiful. I remember walking at the beach, shin-deep in the water to force my legs, exercise them. Long periods at the computer can make you or break you. Mine is second alternative for sure. But I need this contact with the sea water. It does me so good I can't help it.

I rise from the computer to answer the door. It's her. She greets me, sits down and takes a long time to say something. Sometimes I think she could have been born in another century. Not because I don't want her around, but because she sometimes doesn't seem to belong to this time. She doesn't seem to belong to any time. She asks me what is going on and I said it was alright. She asks me about the Painter, whatever happened to him and I tell her I haven't seen him maybe since 1995, so the question seems to me totally out of time. But what don't you excuse in a friend? Within limits, either we try to accept our friends as they are or they'll depart and leave you, adding to your loneliness a little more.

Though I don't feel I'm lonely, I like to have friends as everyone else except for Rainer Maria Rilke. I have my computer, my books, my clients who will call me at the most absurd hours of the day. I don't care, as long as I don't have to leave my bed at night. I talk to them on the phone, lying on my side, talk sometimes for hours to come. I get involved with them against all logic and all ethic. When I stop to reason about it, I have already done it.

Natural Science | The Making Of A Thousand Gods