Seeing out the angel

The doorbell. It must be Meire, coming for a classic weekly visit. She looks nice today, much nicer than the last time I saw her. More confident, she always says she likes to talk to me. That I'm the only one to really and fully understand her. Before she asks me about my husband's whereabouts once again, I take a shortcut saying there's still no trace of him anywhere near here.

Then, we start talking about the weather. About the life that is led in Santos, under a baking hot sun and amid the still, stuffy air of the town. About Meire's husband, that if hasn't stepped out to buy cigarettes yet, might as well be up to buy something else.

Meire asks me about my work. I like to talk about my work, but not always. I find it interesting to talk to Meire about it, because she comes up with typical insights from an outsider, insights that sometimes fall so well into context that could even be used as guidelines for some of my procedures.

I show her my blog and she is amazed at how many times her name appears on the page. Suddenly, she gets alarmed and asks me with a sense of urgency if I register everything we talk about. I tell her there is a filter for these things, that only trivial things are recorded, and she seems to feel more reassured. She looks interested in yesterday's post about the boy bullfighter (looking at his picture she finds the Mexican the cutest little thing in the world), asks for more explanations on the issue and I do a bit more of talking over it.

"Well I'd never ever let my son do it. Not at that age, he'd have to be a major to do it, 'cause I'd never give him any support. I find bullfghting only stupid carnage, that's all", she says.

"Ah, it's so hard for us to control our very own passions, let alone others'…"

"But it is not a matter of controlling passions, Stella. There's more to it. What if something happens to the kid, what are we going to do?"

"I can't believe you are able to defend this carnage, my dear!"

Meire

I told her I did understand her position. That's common sense, not that common sense cannot be discussed, but that there is a great deal of sensibility in what she says. However, in a time like this, when more is risked being at a school yard than at a plaza de toros, people see it as a sign that comparing the risks, the passion per se for the activity would compensate for them all at once.

"Would you let your son do it, Stella?"

"I don't know. I could never have children, this is not a kind of subject that would worry me, I mean I, Stella Freitas-Grisam as a physical person. But I do have to try to understand other parents' feelings toward that, if you ask me. This kid's parents seem to think all risks are offset by the glory of waving bulls' ears and tails under a rain of roses at thousands of people witnessing it all. Seen from inside the bullfighter culture, even if it's not right it's not completely absurd either."

"I can't believe you are able to defend this carnage, my dear!"

Meire looked like one that has just lost a friend. I explained that sometimes you have to think with the others' mind to try and find out why they like what they like.

"When I say all of this, it is said from the viewpoint of the others. There is no judgement from me, right or wrong."

"You know, I think it's an outrage to have pleasure from the sufferance and death of an animal…", says she, in a very serious, shady mood.

I decide to tease Meire a bit. Told her the people in attendance at plazas de toros enjoyed visually what she enjoyed in taste at a sophisticated restaurant. She was outraged again and said she'd never want to witness the sufferance of the oxen.

"You don't have to", I said calmly, "slaughterhouses are way far from where you live."

"Stella, please! This is hardly what I tried to say!"

She was red, apparently shocked at the dimension the chit-chat had assumed.

"But this is exactly what you said", I retorted as calmly as before.

I told her this was way much more common than she could ever imagine. It happens to me, to John and Jane Doe. With the whole of the world's population. Still the difference between restaurant and arena-goers was that the restaurant ones won't desire the animal's sufferance or death, but what of his finely treated meat dish if it doesn't happen?

I do believe most of the restaurant-goers would love to obtain their meat dish without much or even any sufferance for the animal. But I also know, or at least imagine how the meat is going to be obtained anyhow. And I also know that the motives for not wanting such sufferance are (sometimes) less noble than we can imagine, for instance, not letting the animal's pain and tension make its meat harder.

"I didn't know that was your idea about me."

I seemed to have offended her deeply or touched her deeply in her self-image.

"Meire, don't take it to heart, I'm not talking about you or anyone in particular. And no, that's not my personal view on you."

It was no use. I didn't even need to see her out. Well, shit happens.

The bloodthirstiest kid in the planet | Astronomy

Radio Universal.