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| The "jungle" I walk past in my daily commute. |
As
I engage in my 5-minute walk back home, countless thoughts flourish amid fears of a shrinking end-of-month budget. The
light rain that falls this evening brings the gentle music one needs to feel
happy or sorrow. Umbrella up, leaps down the watered street, my body reflects
on the asphalt mirror like a character from a noir movie: Humphrey Bogart or so, it only lacks the red-lip lady looking sneakily
from a side porch. Life’s a movie then,
you play your part, sad or thrilling, giving up on a happy ending.
Hiking’s cheap, flying’s much better.
So many places to see, you can’t help remembering that song, “So far away from
me”. The year was 1979, maybe a little earlier, people rallied on the streets
for democracy, there were still militaries everywhere, overseeing us, lecturing
us on whatever they wished or thought they should. We strolled pass them and
glanced at the armored cars, because thoughts are free as far as they don’t get
out of the enclosure of your mind; they can turn into anything from nonsense to
glory. She wore bleached jeans, a white t-shirt with a light-hearted line
written on it (“You’d better not follow me”), her breath could be felt in a
distance – I mean, some meters behind.
-
You should go faster or we won’t make
it to the bus station on time.
-
It’s your fault if we didn’t get a
taxi.
-
Ok. Let’s call one.
-
Too late, look at that car pulling
over.
-
You think that…
-
He will
accept to take us up.
-
What do you mean, “he”? Hey, wait!
A lift isn’t something to turn down when you have
a suitcase to carry and is trying to get to the city airport by 7 P.M, last
call. How could I catch the guy stopped on purpose?
-
Where going?
She pretended not to know him.
-
To the bus station and then to the
airport.
-
Coincidence! I’m going to Montalbino.
-
That’s…
-
Next to the airport, right?
-
Right across. Get in…
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| Funcionários neighborhood and downtown Acesita - Timóteo, MG, Brazil. |
Fifty meters up, I’m strolling along the wood that
grows thick on both banks of the stream that flows at the bottom of the valley.
It’s springtime, the first rains dropped three weeks ago, reviving the thirsty
land and nature is now so lush. Drivers speed up, they don’t even notice this
small piece of forest thriving in the heart of town. I hear buzzes, shees and
light hammering crickets, sounds like the night party has just started and
there is no time to lose. Abundance of insects and a favorite nestling time for
birds, too. I wake up every morning and look out, mesmerized by the green blanket
below, cause I live just three hundred meters ahead. The boy has already spotted
the multitude of birds that take shelter in the trees with his hammer-and
sickle-embellished binoculars:
-
We should watch and classify them by
species, he says.
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It’s easy now with the internet.
-
But we need a “real” camera with 20X zoom
and Carl Zeiss lens.
-
Carl Zeiss? What’s that?
-
They make the best lens, dad. We’ve
got to buy a range-finding focus apparatus, as birds won’t come to our window
to pose from up-close.
-
Must be right, but who will pay for
that?
The boy’s right, we can’t hold back our dreams just by saying “it’s
impossible”. Suppose someone has gotten fed up with his old Canon and would simply
give it up to a curious eleven-year-old still in bud. Why not?
We could put a notice
somewhere stating that “a passionate bird watching infant seeks desperately the
means to fulfill his dreams: a pro-rangerfinding camera with 20X zoom and Carls
Zeiss lens”.
For now, we’ve got to close the glazed windows, as my wife complains
that “the apartment has been filled with bugs, moths, walkingsticks and even ugly
spiders, due to this sick jungle we live close to”.
The boy can wait. It’s never too late.
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| Night silence with city lights. |
©
Abrão Brito Lacerda
30 11 16
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