Celebration day

No one in Taurinos would miss the City Party. It was big a party for such a small town. No one was staying home that night, so why only me? It was Meire's last night in Taurinos, so I thought it was time for us to have at least a decent goodbye. She was going back home, back to good ol' Santos, land of my childhood and youth.

"You might not believe me", I told her on our way to the Town Hall, "but I guess that in Santos, it won't have been more than five minutes from the day you first set foot in town until the moment you're back there."

"Oh, you're so right. I don't believe it, Stella" and we two laughed, though she had seen in my eyes I really meant it. She stared serious at me this time and said it clearly, "this is where I want to go when die. If you find I can stay."

"Meire, this is hell, this is no joke at all", I was slightly annoyed with her.

"I know, Stella. This is why I'm being serious."

"Now it's my turn to say: I don't believe it, Meire."

"I guess you'll have the whole of the eternity to be surprised, my friend" and she smiled, leaving me all puzzled. I hadn't had choices but… What about her?

At the Party, all together again. Master Danilo, Bruno, Adriano, Anderson, Andrés, Arthur, Bruno, Guilherme, me and Renan Augusto. Taurinos' Ancient Society united one more time, this time for a more pleasant kind of night than the ones we had been having. A night to unwind, to write our goals — if many could be written in our new reality — to talk, eat, drink and listen to music.

But, not to say everything was a bed of roses in this paradise that is on its own way a valley of tears, the looks of Renan to the family and friend who disowned him moved me. I spent the week in endless talks with "sêo" Octávio and Donana. She seemed more flexible than her husband, but only time would settle those issues, I thought. In that moment, I didn't have a choice other than housing the little renegade for the time to come.

From the enormous terrace of the Town Hall Palace we were looking at the night outside; first it was Andrés and I. Bruno walked up to us and stayed there too. The vision of the world down there was fascinating. I had always wanted to see things from above, and this wish of mine came true in a fashion I would never have expected. Simply would never have expected. Looking back at all I had been through, saw happen and took fundamental part in, I now think I have survived my own death. I was as alive, after all, as everyone in town. I clutched to what I had already known. Maybe it was my fear of the unknown, a fear that was so appalling that not even my fear of death would overcome it. Everybody would like to live forever, I thought. But when you live forever, what do you live for? For the eternal fear of the unknown? For the eternal fear of loneliness?

Taurinos was ours forever now. With its paradisiacal landscapes, with its houses with their roof tiles all made on thighs, its colonial architecture, its medieval and Draconian customs, its cutting edge technology; now it was all ours. With its mysteries that would never end, with the uncertainty of the Great Vizir by my side, Andrés, eternally the bearer of light, eternally the silent wise man that would observe it all and would ever say nothing. With Bruno, eternally in his healthy doubt about me and about everything else. With Arthur, whose courage got paid tribute to by the population in only one voice. After all, he thought he'd act for the town even after he died. I thought how I had ended up doing the same. We were twins in what we had been through for Taurinos. Andrés is someone to respect in town. The memory of all he put up with, silent, while his survival plan was bring executed made me think of to what extremes one is able to go to preserve the little of life one has managed to conquer.

Now, looking at this all from up here, surrounded by all of the boys that found us here in the corner of that enormous terrace, I see that maybe it was all worthwhile in the end. Where else would someone like me go to after death? Does everyone have a scenery like this prepared with care and blood by someone who looks like any of the patients I had worked with in my lifetime? I thought of Dr. Romeu, first psychologist to open the doors for the work that one day would bring me to Taurinos. Thought of the Hypnosis Center of Santos, where everything started for real on some day lost in 1994; thought of Santos, a city I'll probably never see again. On this night, on which I feel completely welcomed to town at last, not the outsider that one day came here anymore and from which everything was deftly hidden, I close this narration. Somewhere in Santos, my publisher collects everything I write — even not believing in a word that is said — and is organizing my notes in a book. I wish him success with the endeavor, but can't promise to be there for the signing of the books — if it ever happens. To those really following the blog — as some American readers, a reader from Moscow and another one from Ile-de-France, Paris, among some Brazilian and even Mineiros, a bit unaware — I leave the certainty that the story goes on, at least while someone who has gone off to another plan is allowed by Blogger to keep posting. But I must put my fingers to rest for a while now. I promise to come back with the narration soon since this city has left me and now I can't leave it.

I'll be in Taurinos, where things really happen. Where I wanted to stay permanently. Once I had a husband and with him, the hope of us being a family, since I could never have children. My husband disappeared in the thin air, clearly showing me how wrong I really was. Meire would never have to ask about him again. And I, who never had a family, ended up with a 2,000 Mineiro-people-strong family. We wouldn't fit a portrait if there was to be one. But Taurinos' Ancient Society would fit a portrait and it did, added with master Danilo this time. Where else could I get light from, but from the dark liquid he served in his cups? The photo turned out beautiful: the boys are serious, the countryman is serious, I got a Mona Lisa smile on my face. From the digital camera, it goes right to my digital desktop in the computer. The Taurinos' Ancient Society Class of 2009 united once again and this time would be forever. In the province of the mind, once so brilliantly spoken about from the inside by John Cunningham Lilly, a normal Mineiro little town in its everyday life, but a town that contradicts some of the poets I have known and loved, a town where forever was bound to be forever. For ever.

Renegade |