The Church Of The Brother Thomas

About the Author Edmond Grimwood it's the pseudonym of Joaquim Cantarinhas, born in Lisbon on 14 of August 1974.

After twenty years on the other side of the law, it was time to change. A runaway child who became the runaway adult; of controversial and mysterious personality, a man who doesn't know how to bring an end to the momentum initiated many years ago. Well known by police investigators, he decided to try another sort of fame. A hypocrite; an arrogant who, failing to understand himself and the way he walks, now writes great accounts of what others are about and through where they go. Someone with an atrophied conception of someone else's virtues and abilities, treading in a world as good if existed or not. The riddling case of the stride that caught itself at its pace, crushing with its step, the man who wore the shoe.

The Impossible Fantasy

Edmond Grimwood

The Impossible Fantasy

Olympia Publishers London

www.olympiapublishers.com OLYMPIA PAPERBACK EDITION Copyright Š Edmond Grimwood 2020 The right of Edmond Grimwood to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All Rights Reserved No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with the written permission of the publisher, or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended).

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-78830-642-3 This is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, places and incidents originate from the writer’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

First Published in 2020

Olympia Publishers 60 Cannon Street London EC4N 6NP Printed in Great Britain

Dedication In Memory of Silvia Cantarinhas

Acknowledgements This book was written while the ground was shaking, and again, it was only possible due to a great commitment since the first day. Though, the steadiness of my hand, the peace of mind that I needed through these years to learn the language and to present this work, besides time and other little things that could help me to become a writer in the way that I did, I owe to the Amsterdam authorities, especially to the ‘Burgemeester’ (mayor) of that force; to you, my esteemed sir, a recognition of the size of philosophy.

To the agent, José Andrade, a special ‘obrigado’, and to all those who always treat me with care.

Here I present my apologies to all, particularly to those, if ever there were, who felt bounded on their duty; it was not in vain, and all I did, I did it with conscience and, as you can well see now, I then was not your duty.

To the street agents of the Handhaving who didn't bother me much, my apologies for have to see me pass, it worth all that was nothing compared with the result.

Amsterdam is a wonderful town, though its full of dead souls, and unfortunately there is no one capable of perceiving merit so quickly as the worthless, and from those no help is given to the virtuous, so that I keep counting with all who wear that uniform until I can subsist entirely on my own.

Passing immediately from the other side of the law to their care (since the first report about me was written near seven years ago) taught me a valuable lesson; my rehabilitation, and in the way I did, in the limit of all acceptable, might say something to some agents as well.

To my friend Charlie, who might well still be thinking, ‘Who’s this guy?’ Thank you, Charlie! If ever anything ever failed, I knew where to find you, and that was also, through many winters, a particularly

important thing, which brought me peace of mind.

For last but not the least, Ti Ti, the girl from Eritrea; something special; for her these last words, who appeared to destabilise everything and make me care less if this book would happen or not.

I A Strange Doctrine

At the end of an odd and inauspicious night, through which appalling and ghastly shades, who resembled beasts or half-men, were seen encircling the pale and serene face of the moon, and phenomenal forces caught by astronomers disturbing the melancholic and lonesome stars, it's finally morning of the most infamous day in the calendar, Friday thirteenth. The news-channels are reporting the fantastic disappearing of a ship during the night, in the Bermuda Triangle, and the even more disconcerting and astonishing recovery of two others, with their crews safe and sound, reported missing in that same area, over two hundred years ago.

Tonight, preying animals didn't sought for prey, neither those who dwell in caves came out. Since twilight, men were seen strangely possessed, and during those secret hours, a hellish appetite for murder and treachery came upon, giving them wills even more distorted and wicked, and tonight, a greater thirst for the blood of their neighbours. An outrage to the deities and to statues of the Mother of God who now cry crimson tears in churches all throughout South America.

Thomas, a man studious of the ways of God and men, philosopher, and the protagonist our story, rather ignored all these great portents and omens of ills to come, and is now opening the doors to another day as a preacher of a religion of his own. He had a young layman who Thomas tenderly nicknamed Augustine. The devotees started to arrive, curious to listen what this preacher could bring of new and original to something dull and tedious as spiritual matters had become.

Tireless Augustine welcomed the guests as they were coming in. 'Welcome to the church of the brother Thomas, you who share fortunes with the dead! If you are in need of spiritual counselling, or in search of guidance for your life, or if you feel linked with such a bad energy, as strong as you cannot break; or if you have any questions, about how great is our God, how tricky and cunning our foe; or even

what torments await one in hell if here one won't repent, just ask, our minister is a prophet of our Lord!'

Soon the church was full. Thomas walked to the pulpit with the semblance of a man who comes with two buckets of fresh water taken from his well. He was a man of middle age and medium complexion, who had once known different places and different countries, before life again called him back. When he returned, he talked of strange things, and of the commons in a way others couldn't make head or tail of what he was saying. Some called him a dreamer, others, visionary. A sensation was created. Legates from the church were sent to enquire if he believed in Jesus. From the court, dignitaries arrived to know if he found justice in the Law. Chefs came to wonder about his favourite dish. He bought a mountain bike and rented a P. O. Box. Put an advertisement in the newspaper to find a housekeeper and reduced by a teaspoon the sugar in his morning milk. He wore an overcoat in the winter and sandals in the summer.

Shaved every other day, and organised a book-study group which met once a week. Sometimes he would take a walk in the morning, more often in the afternoon. Had a pair of grey eyes which others often said it were green. Wore his hair neither long nor short. Brushed his teeth with up and-downward movements in the front, as he could in the back, and in the dark had difficulties to find the right key to his house.

Besides this, he was no ordinary man. He could recite by heart Anabelle Lee. Talked with God, and pauper men in the street. Could see into the past and into the future. Had the power to hold or to let go; to heal or let in agony; to discover or to hide in darkness. He was going with confidence and returning in victory; feared nothing in this world or in the next. Approached the intangible closer to perception; the darkness to more near the light, and when he felt was ready, opened his church.

It was this man who was now facing the assemblage. Thomas raised his arms as the Messiah might once have done, when preaching the word of God many ages ago.

'Brothers,' he started, 'if there is a heaven somewhere, with the divinities ready to celebrate for their children here gathered in communion, this morning we gladden their hearts, or else they've forsaken us long ago. The shadows are nowadays so commonly taken for substance, as the illusion of happiness for happiness itself, that we roam in endless search for what, with our feet, we scatter to far from our sight.

Here we gather rather than disperse. It has become with the ages less what is purchased at birth, and it seems that today, all that our lives amount to is to feast and to give satisfaction to the base desires of the flesh. This meaningless way of living inevitably will lead to a sensation of emptiness and frustration; frustration for life being so small, when indeed is infinite. But is not this the message I bring today. Let common mouths tell you of trivial things. Brothers, the champion won, was given a reward, and didn't know what to do with the prize. He tried to handle it though his hands could not master it; rather, he seemed as an ape trying to handle a delicate device. For in these days, men lowered themselves to such demeanour, more likely to befit a primate than one of the special race. Thus must ensue, the primate to grow dull with the gadget, and the keeper wearied of the primate and of the experience.'

These words let one of those present pensive and confused. He was going through a middle-age crisis which is likely to arise at some moment during the fourth decade of one's existence. When realising the prime of life had forever deserted one, abandoning him to a morbid and slow decadence, with prospects not altogether favourable for the future. When many attach but little importance to this fact, to himself, it brought him melancholy and infinite hours, against which he used to fight with a bottle of gin. Near the end of the bottle strange figures appeared on the walls and ceiling of his room. They could be faces, or moments had lived; relevant or not. All those follow then before his eyes as nonsensical characters of a

dumb show, bringing in the end of the play, in some ludicrous manner, a disconnected summary of what was just seen. When he was not in the mood to be disturbed, he closed his eyes. Sometimes the figures would migrate from his sombre room into the darkness of his mind. Not seldom the uncanny shapes were insolent and abused him. He abused them back and threw the alarm clock against the wall. In these moments he would stand up, open a window and breathe in the fresh air. The inhaling deeply of the cold air of the night, bringing in the pleasant smell of the adjacent pine grove, always caused him a great pleasure. If it rained, he would stand for long at the window of his living-room, looking out into the ebony, listening the rattling sounds of the raindrops against the window-pane, thinking he couldn't remember what. He was as man looking to a building which he had seen many times before, with nothing but monotonous thoughts coming to his mind. Someone who, walking in a dark alley, finds two men eager for his wallet, and running, back perceives the knaves sent a dog after him, might have a feeling similar to what he felt in this phase in his life, and of the disposition which of late had come upon him.

Within him he found a place as a cliff from where horses leaped to death. Looking from there down he felt like letting himself fall as well. No matter how he tried he couldn't shake it off, he just couldn't. In these moments he felt crushed as if he had the weight of a thousand earths oppressing his heart. He longed then to jump from that cliff, but he was afraid where it might lead. For with all that was said, he ended up by believing in some, and his mind formed a dark panorama for the time beyond. He turned the light on and sat on his bed unable to sleep. Besides these infernal nights, there wasn't much more his life amounted to.

Often, when pacing the streets lost in thought, he would lose the notion of himself and walk absentmindedly, usually arriving at a different destiny than what he intended to. This upset him overmanner. He would notice it with wonder often taking a while to realise his lapse. He would make his way back trying to keep alert. Muttering vexed to himself; luring self-reproaches for his weak mind. He laid the blame on the anabolic steroids he had taken in his days of gym; in that distant time when he still cared. Later he married and everything turn the whole lot different. In those long gone he didn't saw yet visions. Back then, he looked at life with romanticism; as a bee going from flower to flower, or the eternal wind whispering in the sky. The visions started when his wife died. Then all enraged inside of himself. It was like entering a cave at night; nothing but a savage darkness until as far as the eye could perceive. He could never find the way out of there, and with the years became who he is today. If one were to ask him who that was he couldn't really tell. That was exactly what he was still trying to figure out each time he was alone with his thoughts, as a reason for his coming into this world. He felt that all his life had been a battle for the last place. Ever more often, he found himself wondering, when paging a magazine waiting his turn at the barber's shop, if the energy needed for a utilitarian vehicle to maintain a speed of a 100km/h, would be greater or inferior to the energy a man needs just to step his feet out of the bed in the morning. The resistance of the area exposed against the wind; the contact of the pneumatics with the asphalt, and the movement of a mass with well over a ton in perpendicular line with the forces of the gravity at such constant velocity, compared with the effort demanded of a man just to go about another day. This annoyed him and he gave up thinking about it. He felt as a solitary man treading upon a rough road, escaping from something and heading again to the same; to the same of which he was so tired; too tired even to try to escape it.

When he thought at the ways of the world, he found in those the same sense as in a man who going in

a boat through a dire current, would suddenly cast the both oars overboard. In this unnatural behaviour he thought to discover a peculiar kind of faith which not even the most feverous believer possesses. This seemed to him a fine thought. Men had gone from the day into the night. And they smile, erroneously thinking to discern afar in the ebony, what when in the clarity they altogether missed.

One night, he had a surreal experience. It was about to strike twelve. In the sky just a vestige of the bright moon could be found; next evening it would be only darkness. All was quiet with stars all around in the sky; only the crickets could be heard chirping the last tunes of the season. The surroundings brought upon him a drowsiness as one might feel emptying the third glass of champagne of one go. He felt himself invisible among the shadows. "As a shadow! Quite right!" he said to himself. And he thought that all were shadows with no substance anywhere. And when one is going from here to there, from one errand to the other, from one day to the next, he's passing from shadow to shadow, from illusion to illusion, from an unreality to another within the two extremes of what it has no beginning or end. All had, in the conclusion, turned out differently from what he had been told. Now the summary he made of all scarcely could fill one page of a little notebook. He could even tell it all in one sentence here improper to repeat. He thought that whatever else could be said about it, was the struggle of unsatisfied spirits, as the last sounds a man makes before he drowns. For this reason he had always looked with surprise and suspicion at the amount of books released every year, and it struck him as nothing less than fantastic those writers wouldn't run out of what to say, and without ever had fingered through the pages of a book, he conceived a depreciative idea of what they might contain, considering all those who engaged in read them, basically a bunch of fools. As to God, to himself there was only black and white, and the grey and misty areas, dubious and of winding ways, through where those writers were so eager to lose themselves, nothing but a sleight distraction from the matters urgent and mandatory for a man to ponder about, in order to avoid the state of absurdity which caught the world by the hem of its cloak. This he realised as important and felt happy with himself for he had understood it when others failed to see it or even denied it. He thought to possess the clarity of spirit the world lacked. The vision of the world, he had just concluded some days earlier, it was in all similar with a man's inside a barrel, falling down through some waterfall. The image this caused in his mind pulled a sigh from the depths of his being. He greeted a lady he thought to see with a bow and was surprised to listen the running waters of a brook murmuring their everlasting song. This brook passed on the opposite side of town from where he lived. With vexation he realised it had happened again. He turned back by the same way. What had been left of the moon had meantime climbed a little higher in the sky. Now he wasn't moving like a shadow, but in accord with the structure of his tired middle-age body. He walked annoyed with what was happening with his mind. When at last reached home he laid dressed in his bed and fell asleep.

He picked up another magazine. He hated that barber for how long he had to wait. No matter how he tried he could not keep himself positive. Sometimes he was angry with himself for not trying hard enough. In these moments he addressed whatever he thought there was out there, reproaching it for not had made him like other men who can pass through everything giving it the same consideration as one spends to a dog relieving itself at the side of the road.

These memories were triggered when he listened the word ape. For so much he felt as one sometimes; a dull, clumsy and lonely ape.

The congregation felt they liked their minister already. Thomas told them next of a strange and

uncomfortable situation he had recently found himself in.

'It happened in one occasion, when I met a minister who, instead of preaching about God and the angels, would preach instead about the Devil and its crew. I found this perturbing, and, displeased, called his attention, telling him of the great blessings he was losing by exalting the wrong lord.

"Having the Bible so many pages, and with so many better themes, why you insist on bring about those?"

And he told me in sad words how it all came to happen. I know of dire places full of stories like his.

Drooping his arms in dismay he said he had learnt his doctrine not from the sweet voice of God, but from observing the moon and the stars, and the dynamic forces which propel them across the universe. "I," he said, "learned my doctrine filling litre bottles from a many litre barrel. From sleeping in hard beds, and sitting at secret hours discussing affairs. From meeting with the sway, and with ladies unfaithful to their husbands. I learned my doctrine kicking men in the face! From names and nicknames; from men tall and short. I learnt my doctrine cleaning marks. By looking at myself by the sight of police guns, and at the world with defiance and presumption. I," he cried flashing from his eyes, "learnt my doctrine opening with the crowbar; breaking in and coming out! Running away with what others possessed. From luring at distance studying men's routines. In codes of honour and books of law. I learned my doctrine from the harsh voice of judges. From CSI's and Live Comedy Shows. I learned my doctrine going up a slope. From counting the stars seated on the steps of the church. From aiming sharp and failing. From looking at the sun behind a cloud. I," he cried almost in fury, "learned my doctrine selling cheap. With a shovel tunnelling into the ground. From the soup that must be proper after gall and march to school. From Lumber Jack's and Mother Stones; from the ironies of the fate; cotton fields with iron gates. I learned my doctrine here and there; braving my way ahead through where others would not pass. From luggage controls at airports, or seated in a taxi, crossing half-glad the Holland Tunnel, coming at night from The City. I learnt my doctrine asking the time to strangers..." And I couldn't stand any more that description which could well be record of the Devil's past and left feeling myself desecrated by what I had listened.'

'And yet was nothing,' said one to the despair of all. 'But one day of the many I lived, or deeds for a child to brag upon. I born from seven brothers the last, in an old cottage, near where until today is called, The Place of the Hanged Man. It was by the turn of the year; and if in the first days I was favoured by the spirit of the happy season, soon they dissipated in the dull and cold winter, vanishing forever in the damp atmosphere. In a short, times of trial seemed to have come upon the world. A door opened which led to darkness, and everywhere men were seen aiming eagerly towards that door. Early I left to know the world; other men and their costumes. Their cunning way of dealing didn't scare me. I bought their souls with all their load. From place to place I visited, instead of feeling refreshed as one who sojourns, I was gathering within the strange and the sinister; the division against myself, and the agitation through the serene hours of the night when the rest of the world is asleep. When one gazes at a book leaning on a shelf among the many others standing, for the whiles that it takes for one to lay one's eyes upon something else, forgotten of everything, with the mind far away from that room, that everywhere gives token a lonely man lives in the house. ‘To myself the prospect isn't clear. A grey mist stands in a dark wall and that grey is faith. In our minds, first and most of all, death claims to be ultimate. This, to the most, is as scary as to a child be told to spend one hour in a dark room, which just the idea of it can turn her gentle heart in a racehorse's

galloping upon the track. Neurologists claimed to have isolated Faith as a disorder occurring in the left temporal lobe, just below the cortex. Although, in these times of great derangement, evermore fewer and fewer come forward claiming to have witnessed a miracle; a paradox which scientists cannot explain. In these confusing circumstances one follows through life as a passenger of a train, travelling in a compartment all the way with the curtains closed, with little notion about the time, and totally uncertain about the destination. Someone who had once looked at things from this perspective may one day find job in a vegan shop; join the Mormons or the Jehovah Witnesses, and later in years, with spirit still unsatisfied and searching for answers, he's likely to engage in philosophies, and sing old tunes in the shower which remind him of the bygone days of his youth. ‘When times become pregnant with these maladies they gave birth to a new kind of man. He works less hours and is better paid. Goes to gym three times a week. Lives in houses with functional kitchens and cheap pictures hanging on the walls. In his late thirties, he listens a call to forsake his parents’ house and find an abode of his own. He will still pass by for the meals during the first years, but to himself, a sort of independence just begun. He's afraid of spiders, pigeons, and outside the office there's not much he can do for himself. He's a slave of the moments vanishing as they pass. All his life was made of moments staying behind without he could take from them any profit. One day he realises the same happened with the life he lived. On that day he will buy a wide screen TV and order a pizza and two cans of Coke. He observes meticulously the remote control and the design of the article until the dinner arrive, concluding to himself it was a good purchase. One day he might look at it trying to remind where he bought it unable to do so.'

Silence fell with all striving to find sense in those last words. 'It was not before my way was halftrodden that I, when feeling but a great fatigue, decided to stop, and when looking back, I realised I had come down the wrong road. Much passed since I left saying I would return. And one just can't understand it more than one can figure why there's a moon in the sky, or why some kinds of spiders have such great amount of eyes. Some were victories, some were falling a dire fall, and today a strange kind of energy seems to irradiate from all. As heat from a stone long after being taken from the fire. Only that's not heat.

And one rack's one's brains out unable to tell what it is. It's something more similar with the smell of the fish which can still be felt when all that is left of it is but the guts. Anyone seeing from a distance a funeral procession aproach the gates of a cemitery would quik reach similar conclusion. Though, in the meantime all became much more complicated than that, and the past, mutated from something good that stood behind, into something complicated to remember, that haunts and chases one wherever he goes.

Someone given to name everything would call these Times of Little Peace. Driving our vehicle somehow one feels secure, knowing the spare tyre in the back. Although in life there's no such thing. It cannot even be said that is one who's at the wheel. In fact, so strongly one has the feeling of going all the journey in the passenger's seat, that one often follows totally absentmindedly; hands behind one's head; indifferent if it turns here or there, until the moment one has to stop short or prepare to face a collision. One of these moments happens, for instance, when one receives in the end of the month an electricity bill near the double of the amount one expected to pay, or merely when one loses the grip of the bottle of wine making a mess on the table. These almost hilarious situations bring one back into reality. Without them one would end up by living alienated, going through life as an empty bag goes with the wind. Men who later became enlightened claimed it was in moments such as these when they first saw the truth. When something

happened within them as when the water reaches the ebullition point, or when an abnormal amount of energy is released from the sun; similar with what happens when a cat’s tail is stepped on, bringing all its senses to alert in an instant shorter than takes to one to cry Watch out gilrs, time goes fast!; when the reality seems to have turned upside down and all the furniture too had fallen on the ceiling. In such a state of inner chaos that one to forget the name of mother and father. When doors open and no one comes in.

The moment when one becomes a channel through which it flows the mighty energies of the universe!'

And with a final wave of his arms he ended his speech, crimson and panting as if had just seen a dead man come back to life. Astonishment was in the eyes of all. It seemed that after such eloquence none would venture forth another word, when Thomas began, 'Men are busy making iron out of gold. Progress came upon the world as a dependency of the realm of the defeated, causing what was special to lose its magic, and the soul to be spoiled of its happy environment. There were times as well when I trod the wide path, until one day I found myself wondering to where it was leading that way, to realise that my steps weren't taking me to victories and cheerful celebrations, but to a thousand troubles; to long and painful distances upon a winding road, which wouldn't be worth the walk if a thousand wonders were to be found at each step. I decided then to make a pause, and as a good pupil in the classroom, I learnt the world anew, and quitting the wide path through where many wander, followed through where it go but a few. Among this audience I see as well some who were enchanted by what has no magic, and gaze dully at a sky where there are no stars, but instead, night and day is dark. Here we ask deliverance from that foul.'

'Once I looked at life with apathy and distrust for what it could bring me next,' started one, seeming still suspicious. 'In the morning I would wrinkle my brow and keep it so until evening, and rather than to think merry at the prospects of what was to come, I foresaw a world of difficulties and travails waiting me ahead. Convinced me of the gods against and I alone in a world alone; of a place to where one called and no one was in. Of the seven ways to hell; of an eye watching from the future, another from the past, when I realised the shortnage given me to live.

‘From early I look with tediousness at the excitements of the world and pitied all labouring for its rewards. It appeared that some strange insect had bitten them, infecting those with a slumber from which, it seemed, now no shaking could deliver them. Prophecies of old were being fulfilled. My heart sank within me. I thought the living about to die, and the dead to arise to the Judgement Day. There I blamed the Devil for everything; for my unwillingness and theirs, gladly forgetting how much of all it had been my fault. For how long I had looked at the right road and disdained it, until one day I couldn't find it anymore? I blamed the Devil for everything and my evil stars. For all that I had gone in chase of, which seemed to be the easiest and soon became more laborious than to engender the burning of another sun.

Disdaining and looking with contempt at what was to be achieved with effort and sweat of brow. I blamed the Devil for everything. For what is along and what is across. For all we wonder without understand. For our dreams which so seldom thrive. I blamed the Devil for everything. For the mould growing in the bread. For the plainness of my goat and for the gout in my knees. For all what until today was hindered or frustrated. For all I blamed the Devil, who is a little less capable than an imbecile, until one day, at last, I could blame myself. This was my road and what today made me come in; to ask you, ‘Who do you blame?’

'I? I blame those who chose indolence when the moment is to stir; and those who go though not in the good charge of themselves. Food in the mouth of their ego; rotten in mind and speech, and all that would

shame a dog. I blame the thinking creatures who do not think and throw themselves in such ridiculousness as a common beast would shun to go through, and all that shows that status often causes one to have less mind than a simpleton, and the same accurate perspective of life of a ten-year-old girl who learnt of the world playing with her dolls. Those I blame. The proletarians who sold all to the patronage just for the salary, and now annoy the streets wherever one goes. However, I make my business from hope. Hope, that the tomorrow which I will no longer see, won't deliver what I perceive coming on the way.

With time became less what is defended in the world, until that the individual is no longer protected for his virtues and laudable values, but for all the importance which has a labouring force to the patronage. Here we hide from that malady and here it does not reach us. ‘This reminds me, brothers, of a grievous man who once told me that while the commons were shown with green valleys and flowers blossoming, to himself only stormy and revolted skies appeared over his head. By these words, I could tell at once he was strange. He had the manners of one who sees cunning in everything, with eyes peeking from under thick eyebrows, and quick and often jerks of his head from side to side. We sat a while and in simple words he told me the complicated story of how the birds stopped from flying above his house. "It were times," he said, "when only the rats were dear, in the cantonment or upon the deck. I was a soldier who everywhere saw war. Thus, instead of calm and peaceful years succeed from my childhood, days trials and uncertainties instead were decreed from above, seeming eager to avenge at once on my poor back, The Treason, The Crucifixion and The Burial. Each new day came upon me as scourging upon the damned. I cried my pains in silence on the trenches or in my bed. The enemies kept coming more than I could kill. I wanted to quit the war, but I was still holding a gun in my hand. Day and night the battle with my indecision went on, and I kept the wretched soldier at the hands of a mighty enemy. Thus, while others gazed with comfort and delight, I was looking with apprehension, fearing and loathing more to come. In those days I saw treachery in the rising of the sun, promising at each new day what is not to come upon, to myself or to anyone else. All were to leave disappointed by what was promised in the morning had become still at noon. Thus, as the play goes on and on, the actors act dull in a so-so stage, as strikers returning to their posts who didn't saw yet their claims ratified. “One day I sold my gun to a world maddened with rage. Now again the birds do sing, as if above my house was an endless spring.�

'I was caught in autumn instead; monotony and an endless grey,' started another who seemed to remember one of the falling of the leaf; in his eyes there's still a shadow of the hope which had forsaken him, as in December some leaves in a tree may be found, waving at a sun which can no longer be good for them.

'Once a child, I was told of things which I couldn't do, and those they called allowed seemed to myself boring and uninteresting, as a drawing of a child, or a caricature made by an untalented hand. In the end, as if one would shovel a tunnel into the ground to find one's place in the sun. Thus, I married; was once the defeated candidate to the organisation of a kermis, and besides, there isn't much more I can say I did with my life. One night I decided to quit it and join those who are at rest. For a while I laid aside my wife. I looked at the clock; it was three-fifteen. It seemed the perfect hour to end it all. The moonlight bated the room; she slept soundly. For some moments I was kept in glances between her and the watch.

The minutes passed slowly. I visualised my stagnation, laid aside with a woman who saw me as a loser with no prospects of better for the future. With no children it would be only her to mourn for my loss. And what loss would that be? With a world waiting to rush in through her door just as soon as I would be gone. Thinking at my situation as one who at last tries to attain focus after all perspective lost, I saw myself in the way between her and her happiness, and decided to step aside letting her enjoy whatever good her fate might still have in store for her. I looked again at the clock; it was three twenty-seven. I decided to rise at three-thirty, somehow comforted in my heart by the magnanimous act I was about to perform. Staring dejectedly at the ceiling I stepped out of the world and out of time. I remembered my infancy; first my father dead, then a few months later, my mother as well laying on her coffin, ghastly and loathsome to look upon. Another minute passed. Soon I would be no memory in no men's mind. I vowed curses to God and to the Devil for they had forsaken me. For I felt that led by the hand of both I had reached that dead end, as many others before. The doomed candidature to the organisation of the kermis.

My early ingress in the school of arts that was not last‌ I felt in those instructed by some occult power that afterwards let me in the lurch to stand to another defeat. ‘The clock marked at last the three-thirty. From the church the bell with a single chime announced it one moment later. I stood and took a last glance at her. She slept like an angel. I accounted it as nothing and left the room, resigned to not see her or anything again. The world was twice my enemy. Walking down my hall I had the visions of a damned on his way to hell. As I aimed for the kitchen the walls vanished and the dark gained contours of another world. I could be pacing my hall or any other place in time; I could be striding to my end or be already dead. I felt a strangeness as I had never felt before. I could perceive no time; awake though perceiving the hour with the illusion of when one is asleep. I felt if the hall had a thousand years length I would, still young, reach the other end, then with demons to sit at the table and dispatch the task that was urgent. I advanced reluctantly on my way, convinced that until the kitchen it would be my last walk on earth. The hallucinations followed me down my last way. They were the faces of those I knew; phantoms of the dead and of others still living, all now encouraging me on my way; enticing me as if aware of the shames I hide, and all eager to see them avenged with that moment and beyond. I prompted my ear though nothing was told, but in my mind I was listening speech, telling me of things none but the Devil could know, or one reading from a book which the pages were damned. I tried to understand it but in vain; to ignore it, though it seemed to inspire me to the very marrow of my bones. Had I then been one of might and I would surely had screamed. At last I reached the end of my hall. My fear caused me to stagger and near halt in my march, as I felt upon me the cares of the excommunicated and of all who died enemies with the Lord. I advanced towards my doom, with my hands groping the doorway. Soon I would be counting demons in hell. I switched the lights on and displayed in front of me appeared my regular kitchen. About to collapse I seated at the table. I kept there for a while with my mind being not my own. Unable to carry out my design, I rushed out of the door to never see her again. Five years passed when I, still consumed by my action, decided to return. I was told she had died four years gone, pining away with grief. Since I knew her dead I strive to find reasons to go through the next hour. Today I would gladly give my eyes just to know her alive.'

'You were a fool! You can't bring her back had you as many eyes as Argos to give for pledge.'

This fellow's unhappy tale left one of the assemblage with the feeling one experiences when perceiving a dark cloud on the horizon, after he had decided to come out of the house without umbrella.

He was one on those fellows who fill the rows of chairs outside the shrinks' consulting rooms. He found nothing irregular about it, and even saw some chivalry in that fact that would escape to anyone who didn't share his distorted view of the world. He worked in an Import-Export company, and as one who working all his life in the wings may nourish a dislike for the stage, this fellow despised the market and the laws of competition. For seventeen years he worked in the same company without ever a word from his boss except "You're late again," or "Where is that report I asked ages ago?" This was all the same to him, but he would come at last with the report, and would try to keep his punctuality for the next two weeks, only because he hated to be spoken to without being looked at, and his boss when addressing him, would keep his eyes on a piece of furniture as if he wasn't worthy of being gazed upon. In seventeen years his boss had never looked to his face and would be likely not to recognise him if he would stop him in the street to wonder about the time. He could no longer remember when he started to dislike going to the office. It was maybe after an incident in the beginning which caused him to be the laughingstock among all his colleagues . He was just starting to know his desk when he invited a pretty lady who worked in the Expedition to dinner. If things had turned out differently than the way they did that would have been his first conquest. She said "yes" with a smile. Fifteen minutes before the hour proposed he was already standing there, with a bouquet in hand, while she was laughing with her sister from behind the window.

He waited for three long hours until, when feeling he couldn't stand the cold any longer, he left, convinced that some major reason had kept her from coming to the meeting. When he got home, he put the flowers in a jar and laid dressed in his bed until the next day. When he arrived at the office he could tell at once something wasn't right. Some colleagues were laughing themselves to tears and pointing him out to others, who, as soon as they saw him, also burst into roaring laughter, while she in their middle bragged of her prank to all; of his waiting in the cold pitifully holding the flowers; as a hunter of a good shot. They mocked him all throughout the week until they seemed to forget him. This incident would mark his personality for the years to come. He engaged in a meditation class for a month quitting with the excuse the position was breaking his back. The truth is he felt bored for sitting all that while with the eyes closed not really understanding the point of it, nor from where had sprung all that fuss about Meditation.

Later on he tried a gym, though he found it so laborious and incredibly extenuating, that he never went back, not caring for losing the amount of the fee and the Lycra equipment, which now he didn't find any other use for it. Bit by bit his world became smaller. He started to see life as something with no escape, that or one would feast of it or it would swallow him up. Though he could never bring himself to that desperate attitude of an eager feast upon such exquisite meal as is our lives. In the office only the most tedious and tiresome work was given to him to do. He was ostracised by his colleagues. Instead of eating with them in the canteen, he lunched sandwiches alone in the office. The third year was the hardest of all.

The pressure of being himself led him to start drinking. Often, he would go to the office barely awake from spending the night on the sidewalk; with clothes all messed up, still half-intoxicated with his head about to explode. They looked askance at him and murmured. They thought him a queer fellow. His signature ended with three loops of the pen followed by two dots marked somewhat distant. Such was a weird thing for one to lay one's eyes upon. One day his boss came to his office, and, gazing at an oil of Marie Antoinette, told him, "What the hell is your idea with that folly?" He asked him if he could change it. Though, the fellow said he signed so since his first grade and kept with the three loops at the end of his signature, followed by the two dots oddly distant. Something else that it's pertinent to say about him is

that he always carried an aerosol for his protection, in the eventuality that a human or a dog came too near with intentions which until he couldn't say were good. As well, this man felt disturbed when he listened the chime of bells. This happened ever since he could remember. He wondered if not maybe for that reason he was not a devoted man. All his life had been made far away from the church. He lived in the opposite end from it and always avoided any errand near those parts. To himself the clamours of hell couldn't be scarier or cause greater panic. He thought those bells called men to death, and of each time they tolled someone knew his grave, and in all one should avoid them for as long as possible. He thought they were the cause of manifestations and catastrophes; of bad crops and rains out of season; what made ghosts pass from one world to other, and the reason why bad authors start to write. In the fifth year he started to take his shoes off in the office and have a nap in the afternoon. He couldn't care less if he were to be fired or not, and this nonchalant attitude kept him in his job all those years. Without it he would never make it. Now he chewed noisily when until with care to do it in silence, that his colleagues could listen passing in the hall. All this came gradually and without him be able to notice the changes occuring in him. One day they had come upon and he could never find the way back to his old self. He realised in life there's a great deal of what cannot be changed, and what somehow could, it didn't make enough of a difference to be worth the effort. As the years passed by he felt something dire was closing behind him.

Though by then he still looked at life with the eyes of a youth, a sort as one gazes at some coins in the bottom of a fountain, imagining wonders about the folks who threw them in. Such kept him from seeing what was coming on the way until was too late to avoid it. When the net of life starts to close its mesh allows but little to escape of our previous actions and decisions. Unaware of this fact, he had always compromised the content for the outlook, and somehow still convinced himself of bright days for the future. Though the future came striding with melancholic and sordid steps. He was taken by surprise and tried to react, as a pugilist when taken to the ropes gains a new momentum forward with the elasticity of the cables. This brought him some initiative at first. His attitude changed. He started to speak harshly to colleges and ignore beggars in the street. Stirred his coffee with the index finger; changed from coloured to dark clothes, from fake jewllery to silver, though, he could never find what to do with all that impetuosity he was feeling awakening inside of him. Soon, and as with everything before, all cooled and flattened as a monotonous ocean. In his fifth year in the company his presence was unnoticed, as it was his passage through life. When his mother died only one of his colleagues came to give him the condolences. For the years that followed he could never forgive them for their "merciless hearts" as he put it to himself. On that sad day he waited behind his desk to see them at last being forced to "step down of their pride", another expression of his inner lamentations. Though none came by but Omaley. Omaley was one of those whom he had, since the beginning, disliked the most, though, now, was being forced to conclude he might had been wrong about the fellow all along. Omaley blinked uncontrollably and darted his head around while he spoke. He’d worked in the company for the last thirty years without ever arriving late, getting sick, or asking for a raise. Often, he was nominated Employee of the Month, and in the canteen his name was tenderly given to dishes and desserts. On certain days was possible to eat a Stake at Omaley's and have an Omaley sweet rice for after-meal. For this he nourished him that bitter hate. When Omaley came in, with tearful eyes, saying how hard had been to himself when his old mother passed away, this turned all animosity and virulence into the deepest respect and veneration. He rose from his desk, thanking Omaley for his words while shaking his hand. It was the first time he was shaking

hands with a colleague. He took a while to observe it. It was slender and warm; he thought he could crush it right there if he wanted to. He passed his thumb over Omaley's skin. It was smoother than his. He admired it for some moments; it was white as marble; delicate; almost feminine. The nails were done. He could feel the blood being pumped through the veins across the back of the hand. It seemed to be still some attitude and vigour in that blood. He looked meditatively at Omaley's eyes. They seemed lost somewhere between fear and surprise, blinking as he never had seen before; he gently released the hand.

The visitor left as soon as possible. He thought he could never repay Omaley for his attention when all the rest ignored him. He bought him one year of parking lot; started to bring bottles of expensive wine and leave them on Omaley's desk, and three days before Christmas, a big, fat, living turkey. Such caused a sensation and Omaley abandoned the company so dear to him.

When he completed a decade working in the company it could be noticed arriving the traits of a mature face, even if his behaviour became more and more unrestrained. One morning his boss came to his office, and while contemplating the worn purple of the old curtains, told him there's certain movements one must bring oneself to perform to keep at the surface of the flow, and that he seemed in all not inspired to venture upon those. As he spoke his eyes wandered between the curtains and the chandelier, then to gaze uninterested at Marie Antoinette's stern countenance. He said the boss stands to the subordinate as the mother who sustained him in the womb with her nourishment, and the everyday work, as the umbilical cord which links both. In all others, he told, that channel of nutrition was healthy and sound, while in his, some sort of gangrene seemed to have developed infecting the blood of the baby. And now, the moment had come to sever both, the progenitor and the child. All this was not said without emotion, causing warm tears to flow abundantly down the listener's cheeks. He started sobbing. The hiccups held him mute jumping in his chair. His boss told him "a sinner cannot remain unmoved when his ears are listening to a message telling of his guilt". He observed that in such moments a redeemer is at hand to listen the one who would ask for redemption, coming at last to save him from himself. With a half dozen more analogies between a boss and a divine to those under his rule, he left to never again return. While looking to Thomas he revived all this as if it had just happened. He kept more heedful of Thomas’ speech at each word.

'The monsters we create,' he was saying, 'don't go in chase of others but of ourselves (the evil and the good knows their master as a horse the way to its manger), here we hinder them on their track. Let me tell you now of one occasion when a man approached my door, who stood indecisive at the entrance.

Augustine went to welcome him in, though after whiles, still unsuccessfully. Seeing this I went to talk with the man myself. "Hello, brother. Won't you give us the pleasure of your company? If you want to go to heaven, here you buy the ticket. What do you have out there? What they will give you, that, they will take it back." He stepped in at last. It was still a while before the service. We remained seated for a few minutes when he told me of the certains and doubts which made him to stop inquisitive at my door.

Mournfully he told me that all his life he had been more inclined to believe in fantasies and superstitions, than in the reality he saw every day before his eyes. "Thus," he said, "what was plain I didn't see it coming, the most dubious, this I guessed it. At each morning increased my impatience and dissatisfaction towards life. I longed to find what I had been promised; the fulfilment of a joyous soul. Though soon I discovered that a joyous soul does not mean happy full of idle laughter, and its fulfilment can be in all an endless questioning. And in this restlessness soon I fell." This man told me that once he had an agenda

and was called from the other side of the street. Was told gossip and received invitations to parties. He was searched for counselling of who should be hindered and who should be advanced; what suits to grant and those to decline, until the direction of his fortune changed abruptly. Soon, he, who once dictated who shouldn't advance, stood behind. Those who came asking what suits to grant were declining his. “I," he said with a wave of his hand as if hushing the vision of it from his eyes, "who once was host to so many, had become the unwelcome guest." Life had blossomed to its greatest trait. This, he told me, was what had made him stop thoughtful at my door, hoping to find what his legs were tired of searching for. He was a simple man critical of the modernity of the days about. The world where he grew up moved at a different speed than the incredible velocity with which all seems to happen nowadays. His kids used to mock him and called him square and old fashioned when he told them how he had held their grandmother's hand until she expired her last. "What are kids?" He used to reflect to himself. "One raises them and they go their way." Though there's some resentment... an inner wound which didn't let him bear all so well as he spoke. He still begrudged having been abandoned by his sons and called them "ungrateful ones". Although he realised they had grown in a selfish and rotten world, and he had lost them to that world, as much as if they had gone to their graves; they thought the world had better things to offer than himself, unaware they were rather victims than folks in good command of their actions. To himself these times were as a monster devouring the souls of those who announced themselves alive, crying from inside the beast's mouth to others standing in line to be the next. The ways of the world confused him and he saw them as a swamp with quicksand threatening each step. He said he had reached this sad conclusion after long cogitation at matters others took lightly or seemed not to mind at all. As the boys left the house he was left with time to organise the ideas on his mind, and he did it as a climber organises his gear before the formidable escalade. Inside himself he found a place as Stonehenge from where he gazed at the rising of a new sun filling him with a radiance for being alive. At night, and just by the dim light of a candle, his mind would take him across fantastic places with nothing he could do to hold it still. In this distress he thought to see plain and clear, and layer by layer dissected each question, until he reached its essence. If it was a payed job one had to call him a perfectionist. He tried to make as many approaches as how many perspectives in a subject he could find, instead of eagerly trusting the first conclusions he got from a subject. When a new one defeated an old theory of his he smiled, as a man when letting fall his cigar in the water-basin while he shaves. With greater accuracy came greater understanding, with greater knowledge, greater responsibilities, and a world until then unseen appeared to his view. From his early years he felt himself destined to something great, and that greatness, though he was still far from knowing what would be, he was nevertheless certain, it was so needed in the world as the sun that warms it every morning. He saw the world in a desperate need for what could cause something new to come about, which could lead men towards a real instruction and a real development, individually and as a whole.

Instead of all going through life as leaves with the wind, while within one listens a voice claiming one is something mightier than that. Such was the trait he saw on those walking down the street, following as ants upon the lane, in more or less large numbers, carrying home groceries and toilet paper. Embarking on Regional and Intercity Trains. Eating their lunch from Tupperware during stipulated intervals. The systemisation of what cannot be formatted and is taken out of the individual. He comes by night and leaves by night. When he speaks no one listens; he walks and no one sees him go. He passes without notice nor leave token of his passage behind him. When he departs no one misses him. He came to

witness evils and disasters happen from the window of his living room, all the way down to the sea, contaminated with the bodies of those who drawn. His criticism aroused from a kind of heroism in him.

Had he been born in times of a Great War and he would have gone killing his enemies without remorse, or would become a philosopher as those who crowded the shelves of his bookcase; or join one of those esoteric groups who claim to have been informed about the motives of the universe and of the meaning of life. Listening him speak I realised that were the limitations he said he always knew in his life, what discovered his potentialities and awoke the genius in him, as the running waters of a brook reveals and brings to sight nuggets of gold burried in its bottom. Things came to that I told the fellow that these times had reached a state of bankruptcy, and the present generation living in a great depression they call progress. With the Gross National Product increasing every year, the suicide rate grows correspondingly, as the great disorders caused by the depression they call progress. ‘Brothers, Augustine is pointing to the watch. Here ends our morning service. Satisfy your stomachs and return for the afternoon.'

By now Augustine was exhausted and sat in a chair unable to speak, recalling the strange members who formed the congregation. He had heard of such ones existing somewher in the world, but how they all found their way to this church, such astonished him beyond measure and left him apprehensive for what was going on with society. One year passed since he had been volunteering in The House of Saint Vincent. A shelter to minds corrupted with disorders, who could be considered the most reasonable and trustful people if just compared with these folks. It was an old building on the outskirts of the city, which the great development elsewhere seemed to have forsaken, with access by a dirt road that led into the forest. On the sunny days, the inmates would pass a few hours working in the vegetable garden created as a therapy to those for whom there was not much else to be done. In the winter, a warm fire blazed in the hearth and the time was spent between cigarettes and incoherent tales. There seemed to rule a different time and to reign a different god. For the time for them didn't existed, and the word god to those exempted of everythind, was a sort as a ballon which deflated and was let on the floor. Their malady can be envied sometimes; the capacity not to linger on a thought, and the disposition always to smile and to be happy, as if life was a big fair just with amusements, and all that we lose in it, but a ride in which one can go next, or a dive to enjoy one other summer. At night demons seemed to rise from hell and possess those poor souls with cries and blasphemies echoing all throughout the bleak halls, reminding one he was in a mad house. At dawn all quieted and silence would reign for a few hours, until again the commotion of a new day, in all as the last, with a nun reading a passage from the scriptures before the breakfast, which was often interrupted with discontented shouts and improprieties proper of such environments, begin. After a few months, Augustine ended his volunteer work in that institution. He considered it a valuable service to the destitute and for those who born without soul. Thomas called him out of his stupor and took him to lunch. In the afternoon, the members arrived early and hastily took their seats eager for the message. Augustine received them as they come in.

'Welcome to the church of the brother Thomas, those about to the grave! Believers or heretics! If you are troubled in your sleep, and in all a voice tells you not to try. If the gore attracts you, and the killing and the violence... If you reached a stage in life, that each day charms you, but not too much; if the Moon it seems to you vain, and the ocean appears of a blue, they say, deep, though, when you look, it seems not so much. If you are feeling you walk but with tired steps to find no path, no matter to where you turn, here you'll find a direction, and words with which to comfort your wearied soul. If ever

disappointments and disagreements made your way; if ever chaos reigned in your life and seized your living, today achieve peace.

'Come forth, brothers, and on this ground bend your impious knee.'

'My knee is stubborn; my faith is weak! It has been ages since I could believe!'

'Then be damned and go to hell! You who follow revolted and at each day against. And no more rued Hecuba to see her Priam slaughtered and chopped all in pieces, than I, all, to see you go. Today make something start, and a man will set his foot and conquer ground that before wasn't his.'

'Once I listened a call, stood for battle and lost,' said one never before victorious. 'It was a siege of years; longer than from the beginning of Troy's, until wearied Ulysses arriving home. The foe was mighty and savage attacks seemed to come from all directions. I dug the trenches alone, and battled day and night, trying to avoid death, and to recognise the errors in my manoeuvres, suffering casualties at each day in ruthless incursions against my pride and honour, as it would make the soul of any man bleed, and scorned all conventions of peace and human amity. After more than thirty years my spoil rotted; the enemy lost his interest and revoked the siege, and I declared myself victorious of a victory, that now if I try it, it tastes like nothing. At night I sit looking at the walls remembering the war, and promising to myself one more action and one more controversy before I go, seeing now down my road a sign that before I could not read. Once, when looking at it, I went to commit mistakes and to join the troop of those who were going lost.'

'Brother, it saddened and gladdened me to listen to your words. Did you ever think to be a disciple?'

'Of evil! when I was little. When I was a little boy my mother told me a tale, as after a divination, when in her dreams a man appeared, pointed to the sky and shouted, “The Devil is our lord!” she felt pregnant, delivering nine months from that day onwards, hidden in the sties, one not from this world.

‘She said that I had born damned to a frame of man, despised by God. Almost with fire in her eyes, one night she explained that I was destined to destroy the world, and one day to have my own hell. Times came indeed when I destroyed everything, got my own hell, and reigned there like a king.'

'Such wages the labours of the wicked. Was your mother an impudent woman?'

'And she laughed disdainfully when I told her the name of God. She performed in our village the offices of the night. Joined was what was not meant to be together; with dark skill separated those who would die if ever apart, and could see better into any man's future, than he could perceive his way ahead at noon. If at night the moon was round, she would leave to do her wicked doings alone into the forest.

When she needed cover, the clouds she would bid to gloom the sky; if to see sharper, the charmed moon, of the earth, would draw near. To her nothing was really impossible, and lost at night through those abhorrent ways, she would open a portal through which the other whole dimension would visit this one.

Then, dire scenes here never occurred, commons but at the gates of Hell, happened beheld by none but by outraged Jove.

‘To tell you more I say that until today I was alone, and that it was an evil tide, what indeed brought me here.'

'May a merciful one soon take you back, man of foul ancestry.

‘Brothers, today is Friday thirteen! The only day when God declared the Devil could rejoice, and let his troops work on men. Thus, I see you here, a multitude with arms outstretched and with nothing out there to hold, to whom a dream is a moment destined to end up in nothing. Piteously you cry before you

reach a land where you are to suffer; where eternities heap endlessly in the matter of time. Fortune, then, that even to the dogs its favourable, and lizards, and to vultures who seek for rotted, shows at last how fierce and savage to deal with the souls of men. ‘It was the lid about the coffin opened,' Thomas continued, 'a great mourn filled the room, and a man laid motionless, repugnant corpse to all but to the Devil. Ghastly creatures ascended from the depths to hurl his soul with violence and affront to where despair is, and the doomed souls expiate in vain. I said, "amen" at the end of a short service. The lid felled wondrously loud, as all around the mourn erupted. For a while I stood there, like one apathetic, maddened by the contradictions of life. I couldn't understand it and went from there in search for answers and of my own self. It was when I heard a voice who said, "The measure must be empty, before it can be filled again". I came home that night, emptied it, and just as soon it was filled again. In that happy day I engaged in a mighty battle, conquering until the far lands of Jerusalem, and at the gates of the sacred Bethlehem, I felled prostrated; tired; who until had never felt a weakness. Then, old foundations since always mighty and solid gave in, edifications collapsed, and the rubble, behold, is a thing in itself. Birds now sing, children's play among it, engineers came and took bold conclusions, and the Lord said, "There I will build!". And bastions He made, through where He comes with His regiments in parade; armies of winged creatures of size more or less like me. Now, within, is made of strong and strength; a league which dares not to break. All made but of light and balls of cotton. I came from there as with an armour, now with plans to tend that blasted region, and to become there the sole ruler. The rest was as it was, until the bastion was completed, and a city, all before unforeseen, there appeared, now with towers reaching the heavens. Who would tell? Who would tell that power could be so soft and tender, while we, who have not dominion over one thing, think to have, and thus are ruthless and intemperate, and for a vain lose the gloss. And what were angels bright, we darkened and stained, and made dirtier than a beggar's coat. Thus we loath poverty, but as Gluttony loathes the want, and follow each day despising pauperism, for it reveals the nature that is in us, as the bankruptcy in which has felled the souls of our kin. So we go from here to sell cheap, for no longer give value to what we have. Here the Moon steps an inch away from the earth, when we follow as an Anti-Porter, cracking our jar to pieces, making such a tremendous moment when we give but passage to someone, or perform any other trifle courtesy. Then Hell breaks loose and clatters its gates in alarm; earthquakes and tsunamis destroy here; the earth turns greatly in its axle, taking thus, in that year, phenomenally, the summer more at north. It come times then for one to walk on a plain as if he was climbing a mountain; in an empty motion which leads but to fatigue.'

In this world we are members of a society only focused on profit, organised in such pitiful ways, that to regard values is to be excluded, and to be despiteful and vile is to be called brother. The result is a soul slaughtered by materialism at one's own hands, by the oneself vain and attached with what is superfluous.

And then it comes a point to one to realise that what is really, of that we don't have, and all is so vexing and diminishing, that an image is created to please without that loathes within.'

'You got that right,' said one other mournfully, 'for I dare say that I haven't done anything else all my life. I thought no bad in trying to please, and rather I would tell false words to all, than to say of the distrust and melancholy I had within. Thus, instead of unhappy tales of dreams and wishes of mine never accomplished, I composed fantastic stories, and from facts that I learned from the theme channels or even from the newspapers I engendered a role of lies seeming with the life that I rather had lived, and

presented to all as being my own. My folly, everywhere, was systematically apprehended, and I thus known, was scorned and mocked not always behind my back. My life was by then a web of lies, and soon I found myself so entwined that I felt suffocating as if I could not breath. All became anon in anger and revolt against myself, as the word rejection was once again banging on my head. I isolated myself more and more, and more and more I sought my own world; felt uncomfortable alone and didn't knew what next to do. Waking up in the morning I saw myself as an imbecile; felt powerless and frustrated and resolved not to stand.

‘Last night,' he continued, 'I couldn't achieve anything but an agitated sleep. It happened that during those long hours I rose three times. One to answer a knock at the door that I thought to listen, and other two to make sure if for some reason I haven't opened the door and, distracted, let it thus. Laid on my bed I closed my eyes and saw me as a child. I frowned. Turn my head on the side, but again, there I was still, merry with other children. "Damn this!" I cried all in sweat. I sat up, laid back again, and again into the nightmare. "Do you accept this man as your lawful husband?" "I do." She did, damn it! The rope. I must get resolution for the rope. The rope is the better end! The visions didn't let me and constrained forced me to keep seeing my marriage day. "No," I cried, "all but not this. Is dead, let it be." And I saw her when pregnant with our first girl. Then she with our second in her arms, pointing me at me and telling the baby, "There's Daddy." Daddy? No, daddy. Daddy is a damned fool."

‘O, men! How can I still remember her so well...how could I destroy us... destroy everything? "It’s now," I decided to myself. "I will finish all now. I will finish all this pretending. To whom am I lying with all this? Not to me. No! I'm the most aware." And I stood up in the middle of the night, went to the kitchen, and from under the counter brought a rope which I had purchased just some days before. Then, angry with all... angry with myself, for I had reached such an end in my life, I tightened the lace around of one of the beams of my living room. I was crying and sobbing like a child, thinking in all that I had dreamt and hoped for in life now about to finish like that, tough, I could see no better prospects for the future and stood on that stool thus resigned. "A gun would be worse," and I put the rope around my neck.

I remember that I felt it coarse on my skin and I tried to make it all more comfortable with the collar of my shirt. That thing struck me. That concern with such minor annoyance when the torments of Hell were there waiting for me. Though, after a while of standing there, crying on that stool, I took the rope from around my neck and went to sit on my bed. It was cold. Soon after I started to freeze and got under the blankets. "Coward," I muttered to myself in the warm. "It's still there. Now is cold and for nothing in this world I would go out of these blankets. No. A gun is better. One is, then he isn't. Damn! Someone is knocking at the door again... no. It’s the illness. I must find a way to make it stop. Damn it. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... Damn it! I'm mad!

"William," someone is calling… the neighbour. What time is it? The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. Horse shit! What have this ever done for me? How did this remain in my mind? I am what I am, and that's all! "Theodore!" Now that whore! I become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. Thank you! It didn't save me. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. My mind is weak and it's going worse. Behold now, I had taken upon me to speak unto the lord, which am but dust and ashes. Out of the depths I cried for the Lord... And never anything else than silence. God damned it! They went a whoring after other gods and bowed to them. What is this? Will my

illness now dictate me the bible from end to end? "Tomorrow I have to buy two litres of milk instead of one. Today was short... No! No tomorrow. I’m done with tomorrows. I don't want more nights like this.

No more life like this. I must do it in the morning. No, milk, unmanly creature." I opened my eyes. Stared a while in the dark; closed them, and, "daddy". In the morning. I must do it in the morning. Closed my eyes and her again, "daddy", god damn it."

‘This was always something in me that I never knew where I got it from, but made me envy all my life the peace of those who are meek...'

'You are as a man whose life demands a resolution. Another who went adrift and was caught by the flashy lifestyle which starts and ends under the spot; under the spotlight where all is in darkness. Times are these, contraceptives to the spirit, killing what within wants to flourish, and thrives the market where one's soul is a bargain. Now, at night the dull moon mourns our fate when the sun makes men drunk with its light. Thus we forgot the essential; to one to understand what it is to be here, in this world, and here to make one's place, giving place to all else; the mandatory in order to one to achieve happiness; to understand that our next is just the same; that an animal is our brother, and a flower is God. 'But I say, do you have gold? For an ounce of it and I will take your guilt, and you will rejoice leaving from here with the mind of a child, and I with mine burdened with a thousand years. For a measure of gold, and an eternal discontentment added to mine, and perpetual ache to my bones, and to you, cheer and gladness, and a child seeing the Lord. For a measure of gold I left once from my father's house stealing his measure of gold. So I say, that for a measure of gold, I will go to hell, and there announce, that for a measure of gold, the Sun one day rose and went down on my measure of gold.'

'Listen then, you who discourse with God!' said a blasphemous one among them. 'Creature of a thousand dreams and a broken mirror. Ask him if I'm really going to never again come back.

I was told that you are the new prophet; the Master arrived to guide us all. Tell the world what you've seen! Give to us simple mortals our salvation! Bewilder us all with tales of what you know about the Kingdom of Death, and make of this whole hour the most damned of our lives. Speak! O, speak! Be it in favour or of terror, speak! Make me tear my hairs and gnash my teeth. Or go! Leave! and take your answers to someone else, and forever let me nourish this good of not to know, and to remain here, on this shore of oceans and sailors, with wishes of millions of years and a broken oar.

‘Faith? I left it slayed on the field of battle, along with my best friend, honour, and all trampled under my enemy's feet. I planned strategies; settled in fire my own house; appeared to myself from the other side, as my mighty foe, declaring me war and rejecting truce, spoiling my own possessions, giving meat to the dogs to eat. The dire never scared me, and rather a thousand perils I faced with a smile, than one single tedious hour. I had a nature for action, it didn't matter if I moved by day or through the night. I struck, and in front of me saw men collapse, always with a heart harder than a stone. They called me The Man of a Thousand Bones, contemptuous, I was once, until the marrow. My din of war was a cry of victory; an outrage even to the air.

‘But what I really wanted to say is this: you who consorts with God, ask him if I'm really going to never again come back.'

'Man of a Thousand Bones, how merited thou thy wicked name?'

'It was night; and ahead I went into the fantasy, and into what seemed to me a way. When I could realise it too late, and I was charmed by the blemish and the freak; couldn't feel no attraction but for the dark, and to everywhere I turned I could see but men disdaining their lives. Loneliness became a harness.

Life was passing without myself being able to tell if I existed or not, obsessed with the two ends of existence.'

‘That was the dreadful fronteir you've so unfortunately crossed. So you go, arrive and leave before you go in through the door when you realize that your presence is not there wished. But is too late, they noticed and inside they are laughing. Is a story with you as protagonist that now is being told, and you can feel it on your way back until the littlest detail. They know everything, you could never hide and they since always knew. You run faster and faster as trying to escape their words, from their laughter's, manage to escape God and the Devil, and at last reach home alone. There is no one. In the birthdays is no one. On Christmas it's no one, and in your world, you feel safe; endlessly safe, owner of an impenetrable armour, all made of the isolation of a man. The dog died, the wife ran away with the neighbour, and even the damned parrot learned to say fool. That was his death sentence, of course, but it didn't help, and now its words are the wound through where you bleed. "Fool! How did you let that happen?"

‘Listen to me! Brother, two oxen under the same yoke, stumble together, recompose together, bray together, eat and drink together, sleep together, pull their loads together, suffer together, please their master together, and I am here with you. Listen to the scholar of a thousand nights; life is bigger than two moments. But you follow deaf and blind to all this. Let then be carnival but let me mourn, for if God had given you the awareness that it's in me, your hairs would stand on end. And you would jump backwards and engage in other unnatural things. And you would loathe the end of the journey, and you would ask, "If was for this, why did I come forth?" And you would believe with equal faith in promises and in wickedness, and performing festivals of sorcery, you would still not to know. If God had given you the awareness that it's in me your hairs would stand on end, and you would listen the Dog barking, and you would kiss the bread before you throw it away; and you would bend the joint of the stiffened knee, and in all find a way to say, "Thank you Lord". For if God had given you the awareness that is in me, your hairs would stand on end, and at your birth would die an angel, and your eyes would be on frenzy on their sockets, and you would see a pig playing on his filth, and you would open wide the door of your house welcoming the visitor and comforting your neighbour, for he is your god and you are his. I if God had given you the awareness that is in me, your hairs would stand on end, and at your birth, the dead would feel vexed on their graves, and Atlas would quake with his burden, and you would know a fantastic thing. And it's in this disappointment that I grow, and in me, this addiction of beguiling the night with a glass of liquor, while my mind goes here and there; thinks in this, then on something different, and in you this strange of going dull through magic places. Go through the desert with that! or when in hell use it to cheer the Devil. Here I'm given you the helm. Hold it and it will be yours. See, this place is magical and I the wizard, and all the world it's like a sphere, and your reality is what at night it shines here, poised on my hand. Take now from me your reality to your life, for it's here, in my hand; always here; since always here, just as you and me. As I’m here now, and the reality, and I will always be, here, no matter where I go, with the reality; I will always be here with you. You, who had once been lost, will never be alone again, if you can look, and see now, your reality, here, poised on my hand.

‘Brothers, from here I see apathy and custom in my peers' eyes. Two major hindrances to growth and to development. The times about lead to it. It depends on one to fight against it. In the morning, see, the Sun is a messenger from God to tell at each day something new. To all who cannot listen it, little hope there is. Tomorrow it's possible that one of us will be no longer in this world; that's how fragile what we have. To what are we living up to? To flatteries and endearments, and to make trifles of our souls! Such was once the scope of the Devil and of others felled as he.

‘All our strategies and contingencies brought us here, where each of us stands, comfortably or not,

and here is the place to reflect, and to decide the next accurate strategies in which will be settled our future. The enemy extends all through the plains, with merciless soldiers who feast on the hearts of men.

They devastate the earth, and at night revel in the air, mid-space between moon and land. Tireless workers of evil and of practices of death, who never sleep, neither know fatigue. Men welcome them in their hearts, rage, die, and go to hell.

'If you will try here to remain neutral, you chose to do it in a place where such does not exist; then it is when you in the plain start to climb the steep. No neutrality here, whatsoever, always the plain or the tiresome steep. Here everything is distorted, though, not one thing distortable or manoeuvrable, but all infinite times more rigid than steel. And all here that there's to find at the end of each of our searches are but doors, which open to more doors, through which, though, the image behind presented not real, still one can pass.

This strange causes that when I fall asleep I'm forced to dream with a place...a mysterious realm where none is but the king and a priest, who from the white pages of a book, tells a silly sermon to an empty church.

There in the kingdom, there's a place where night is engendered and comes out by a hole on the ground, through where Light goes in and the Dark comes out. Making the Day, the Night, and the wonder of the orphans of that realm, little children who gather round, looking into that hole on the ground, from where Light goes in and Dark comes out.

It's truth, brothers, and no one ever saw him again. I warned you that this would be a sad story, or it wouldn't be rightly told.

‘Is you out-there who behind leaves all hope?'

'I'm here,' answered a man with the image of hopelessness mirrored in his eyes.

'What do you see ahead?'

'Darkness, I see, and a fantastic land. The sense senseless for evermore, when the soul, to which loathes a cold body, disintegrates and is gone forever.'

'What sort of man are you, and from where did you come? Did you come across the waters, or through the air of our countryside?'

'A little by sea I came, the rest stepping ground.

‘I come from some far lands where I am the seer of my village and unveil to men what Time carries in him concealed. They arrive merry and with wishes to know, and depart wearied, loathing and wailing to have discovered.'

'It's God or the Devil who shows you?'

'None. They both hide but I see.

‘In time I see divisions, and in those I see windows through where I peer comfortably into other days; previous or still to come, and look eagerly at what was never meant to be seen. A knowledge was not given to extend so far, and thus I see, and I suffer. I try to look now at the commons instead; at the trivial and see the simple.

‘Today I close my eyes and disdain what others consider preferring retirement and my moments of introspection, pondering at my glories of the days of old.'

'Philosophies!' Thomas cried. 'Another who, handless, aims to untie the Gordian Knot! Go not those ways. Once I knew one like you. Through the dreary nights he stood awake, gloomy and worried, trying all through those bleak hours to come up solutions to questions which didn't exist but in his own mind. He read a thousand books, and often, as one distracted, he would pace through his room, discoursing and

signalling into the empty air, reproaching the authors for so much stop-short and contention of speech, accusing them of being afraid of God. He decided to take all further and reach beyond, and to tell words such, as the nature of the divines wouldn't allow them to ignore.

‘He affronted the gods with poverty; told heresies and learned to blaspheme in a damned language.

The gods, outraged and disturbed so far, plotted behind him, delivering him with a fate capable of breaking the backs of a thousand men. He stood to all ills. The gods admired his tenacity and called him to be of their own.

‘The rest is told more plainly in odes of poets, and at the fire where all these events took place, and where the folks still gather at eventide to listen to these tales and let their fancies be taken to fly.'

'To myself,' started another one from the strange assemblage, 'all was given with an infamous hand and snatched away again before I could ever hold it mine. Into every errand I went one day, seeing wickedness enough to make you discredit many times the race of men. A boisterous one I met one day; a savage; who told me that to him God was a monkey that he had at home and used to annoy giving the hopeful animal empty husks of peanuts. I was revolted and outraged listening to all those insolences, and all just made the stomach within me twist. As he was talking, I imagined God in heaven stirring at once to labour in one more accurate and painful punishment to greet that fellow in hell. At night, his eyes would glow when he explained that one day, full of thirst, he sold his soul to the host of a tavern for a bottle of sack, what made the gods loathe him ever since. Grinning, he said that near him the Devil was not half so cunning, and throughout long and rueful hours, he brought upon tales of his deeds of treason, and frauds committed on those who trusted him, in words so distempered, as would demoralise one who still believed in justice. I shivered until my soul and thought that right there I would die.

‘One night, while he was on the middle of another outraging tale, now telling as he used to slap that monkey with banana peels, I jumped on him, and my hands are stained with his blood until today. His offensive voice I forever quieted, and squeezing his throat during the while as it would take to one counting slowly to reach two hundred, his doomed soul I hurled down to hell.'

'Nature can go out of order sometimes, perspective be lost, and one to make of all but as if it didn't happen. We woke up here to a magic trick and still rather go dull.

‘Brothers, to a poor man the idea of wealth is but to count gold coins. Thus, adding, he builds to himself an amount, but of how much he lacks; the satisfaction of the greedy is so far. Give now ears to listen from the inside of my soul, from where come words to all spirits revive; never a man went away the same, who first has reached my company.'

'Once I thought that I was a tough man,' said one of the strange crew. 'I wanted all one day, and all that I got—and mistake me not, I got all, I paid at my own expenses. With each having I was but the more tormented; adding height after height to something already feeble in its bottom. One day all crumbled as it was announcing; and, with communications and men under cover, all ended right there. In a highway, they had come to say stop, and to put a hold in a race that somehow, I couldn't understand how it had begun, but tired, I just craved for its end. It was near Christmas, and I tried to have faith and to believe in the impossible. That night I could not sleep neither bare the awareness. At each moment I was taught another lesson, all showing me in what I had failed. When the morning came, I had already failed in everything. On the next day, I came home, glad for my steps restrained, as long as I could still walk. And more I walked, further, farther away from reality, into more dubious roads and more into the lost lane,

until one day, I just asked to break my legs. In this more sinuous path, I knew a different hell; bolder I was with more to lose. They knew and started to knock on my door; I never opened it. The pressure of being me became unbearable, as at each night I was going to more and more distant from myself, being the more lost, and the more tired to the next race.

‘At night, when I went to whatever luck, I let at home one simple, impressed by the complicated that was going on during the hours when she was asleep. In the morning she felt me at her side, "All went well," she would think in a simple conception of a much harder reality. There were never words about, and we just held each other and rested for a while longer in our fragile peace. Today I still consume myself in silence, never breathing a word about it, but when discoursing with my thoughts.

‘All that I had then it was as anything in the hands of a reckless child; meant to be destroyed and not to last. The day came,' he said for last, 'when I lost everything and found myself, who in the middle of all that stuff had always been lost.'

'You gave me to think, man with no match. The most subtle can indeed obscure and obfuscate a light, though, the most tenure flame through any darkness can break.

‘Anyone here thus burdened, who wants to share his freight and so not to carry it alone?'

'Would you help me with my load?' Asked a wearied man. 'Take heed, for it has weight enough to worn you too.

All that was said until were but words of those who can consider themselves fortunate.

‘Look and see; my eyes tell a tale plain of doom! Now, prepare yourself to listen to the most infamous sounds that ever reached your eardrum.

‘I will spare you of my firsts ordeals and start my tale when I was already out of my mother's dead body, laid athwart her bed, her entrails all exposed. The scene seemed a butchery. Let Homer sing of how horribly men died in his time, for bloodier than Mother's they died not. For long no one in that room could tell if I would survive. The doctor, with clothed blood all over his face and gore until the elbows, was still busied trying to pull from me one breath after the last. The priest approached, and seeing the struggle in which I was in, said, "Leave him! Give that one to hell. Announce him dead." The underworld revelled all that night. The Devil went to kneel before God and begged Him for my soul. The almighty granted it. "A trifle! I'm telling you," he bragged in hell, "it was what it cost me!" After, through wherever I passed, strange events started to occur that were to stay impressed for long in the minds of those who witnessed them. They, bewildered, thought that the laws of nature had rebelled against their rules, and each one developed his own theory as hell was being established on earth.

‘Every time, those who stood against me fell, though, against the time I was powerless, and I started to leave to where it has no reach. To where the clock is collapsed and a second lasts forever. Today I worry but in keep my spirit glad, in a place where the clock doesn't count, changing thus, a thousand fears for a calm; a warder for a shepherd; the owl, I changed for a dove, and a thousand tears bought my song.

Today I advance when others stagger, and bring at each day to under my feet, grounds never before by me explored.

‘It doesn't matter if one is going further than the others as long as one keeps advancing on his way.

Emulation kills the virtue and makes filth of what is holy, turning into pain what it could be the most joy.

Not all resist to a life of vanities, and under the yoke of mirrors and things superfluous, the eye forgets what beauty is, loathes the finest flower, and to them all is a pain. Curse of all those who mind with the

glamour and with what doesn't last.

‘To end I tell you that the eye who thinks that he's who most sees, can well be the most blind, depending all of to where it looks. All this I proved and wanted to share it.'

'And you did well. Was today the day when the witches visit the cemeteries, I, with my mother disturbed, would still say the day was good.’

‘Anyone to talk next, who has at least so much to say as the previous, that will not make shame to what was said until?' An ancient man came forth from the rest.

'My son,' he started, 'I can tell you words so distemperated that you would think to never had heard a man speak, of facts appalling and tormenting to your ears. Disquieted thus far, all perturbed you would follow, and our hairs would turn all white like mine, and in a short you would be tearing them by the tresses, and would go from here distracted as one who had made all the way down to the entrails of the earth and back. When I would ask you "Who am I?" you would answer, "You're the Devil!" and would follow me imploring to take your soul, saying, "Here! It's yours." ' 'Through where had you been to talk thus of hell, and to appear now disquieting the peace of our days with turmoil?'

'Of all the places a man would shun, only my grave yet I did not know. To the man most accustomed with the hazard, to whom a boisterous fortune could never scare, when seated with me by the fire, and listening to my tales, he would pale in his chair, and in cold sweats in his stomach would fell weak, saying, "it's late", and to retire asking leave. When I would shout, "Death to all cowards!", he would feel uncomfortable, and looking askance, his blood would rush to his cheeks, making him blush as a wench when stolen of her first kiss.

‘My whites are not for nothing. I am a man who through the Dark Forest treads alone and yawns at the thought of hell.'

'I met once one pretentious just like you, bold man, who bragged as well that the world to him was small. He was one of those to who somehow it pleased more the fantasy, than to look at his insignificant life. It was in the war, where he used to beguile the tedious hours of waiting for the exciting action, with boisterous tales which took from all the will to fight.

‘With all looking to the same, only he would see different, and would tell us all his distorted visions, in words at which we shook our heads and rued all to have listened, and all rather to see him dead than to have him for the next day.

‘He knew more than any man, and that was the burden which we always saw him carry through the battlefield, which made him sad in victories as well in defeats. For that we loathed him and thought him the strangest fellow that ever had encumbered the ground.

‘With a moon merry and brimming with light, he would tell of his deeds of darkness and appalling tales from the other world, and of such stern frowns of his destiny, as none could believe to have become share of a single man. He said he had spent nights all awake. That he always put his deeds until as far as he told his words; and that dishonour, in him, could be found only in his ageing. He told us that time is patient and knows how to wait, and that one day might still be the time, for what now it seems too late.

‘When the battle came, we had no longer strength, and like sheep were scattered, wandering from the flock. The ruthless enemy killed us even before our cradles, and a sort of dead men's from the belly of their mothers come out.

‘When I took a stand from that day on to fight the war was ended, and the man of ruthless mouth silenced forever. Now listening to you I remembered him, that man whose age brought him but folly.

‘Let your mind change and it will change your speech, and without effort, all in you will be made anew.

‘Once, brothers, and tired of what my life was bringing me, I went on a pilgrimage, and through those pious ways I learned that an arrow when leaves the string, in its fury, it searches for the armoured, as if it could only hurt when first passing through a defence. To the one who doesn't have none, no projectile can harm or injure, and thus, without fight, mighty enemies are conquered, lose their power, and an inner peace then begins, in a country which has since always been at war. While to those, who waste themselves in quarrels and contentions, already let the barrel what will take them down.

‘It was a long way, and singing litanies to beguile the steps, I trod the poor and wasted roads through where my ways were about. One day I knocked at a door to beg for a piece of bread; a man answered and invited me in. In his face, the discontented features of a sad man. We sat at the fire eating of his scarce, when he told me the sorrowful tale of how those heinous traits had come upon him. ‘“It was all a work of the Devil,” he started, and from these followed the most pitiful words that I ever heard a man to speak. He said he had once a large family; a barn filled with provisions, and in those days, an endless train of friends. In his village Timon of Athens they called him for his bounteous heart, and one day, as well, the tide of his fortune turned.

‘The gods, envious of his happiness, descended all from heaven and promised not to ascend again, until this man had been made the wreck among his peers. In the next day, he said, the boisterous knocked at his door, settled in, and only left, when in hunger, there's nothing left to eat.

‘First went the goods, the friends left just as soon, and remained only he, looking at the fire and wondering how all of that had happened.

‘Now he grinned, acknowledging at last how life had broken him and made mockery of all what for once he stood. Waking in the morning, he told me, the discomfort was immense; annoyed him the sun outside, and the semblance of old acquaintances who now looked at him contemptuous and disdainfully in the street. He had become a man too ugly to a world of vanities. His features reminded all of the atrocities which the fate of a man is capable of until its smallest detail.

‘I left and again eager on my way. So little of life I knew until that day, and in all the chapels and places of devotion that I visited afterwards, I learned not so much, as once I did from that sad man.

‘Brothers, how fares with the child who listens to the father talking and takes no heed? Certainly that he won't go about without tears; worse passes with the man who listens to words of wisdom and gives no care.

‘Today, when I walk down the street, I am a man whose notoriety causes to be recognised from the smallest infant, until the oldest grown up that there is. No one knows me, I being the one who knows them all. From this perspective I see them pass, hurriedly, to nowhere, feeling I as that god, who extends all throughout the immensity of the oceans, and who with his trident, can wake up a sea. Sharpened the pencil, the magic hours of the night last until the dawn appears to extend the morrow all throughout the sky. At the surface men are in a mission; to live fast and to die forgotten.'

'I lived once fast, thinking that in such hurried way I would be remembered,' said one, once a longdistance runner, 'in some days, my walks would seem to challenge the very speed of light, as if in a hurry

to arrive, he, who never in life had a destiny. All was disproportionate in those days and I could say only different from what I felt, and soon I could find not a place where I could be me. The trap of life had closed catching me in the middle, and I was there, a man in anguish, trying to escape its grip. The Devil bites not so hard. My flesh seemed by then to be half-eaten, and I not half-alive. All one day was enough to make a grown man cry, and to decide that as such, another day he would not live. The end of this story,' continued the man who never tired, 'was an abandon of all things; forget who I was, and let those memories die and stay behind.

‘Believing that it's never late, I said once to myself that I was still on time and went after it. Never a lion so fiercely chased its prey across the plains, than I from that day onwards went after the sun and of the glory of a dream I had.'

'Man of mighty struggles, you said here that once you walked at the speed of light, and there you made me sin, for I envied men of stride like yours; then, when listening of yourself languishing in a trap, I suddenly felt comfortable, and again abhorred men like you.

‘There is in this throng a man who haven't lived so much?'

'For God sake! Look at me. Here I feel that I don't even exist!' shouted one whom they despised.

'When I listen about life, I feel as if I am being mocked, and more treads the beast in the field impatient and all anxious for another day, than I go down this road.

‘At night, when the moon rises to end all other men's plight, mine begins, with the long hours ahead to entertain with nothing but my thoughts. Two wonders alone occupy my mind; past and future; and how awkwardly they merge and form now this moment that I can't understand. Time can be strange inside of a man's mind, and in mine such oddness had installed, as it would make disturbance seem fair and by the rule.

‘With none but myself, my company was deplorable, as it is every solitude. The vexation was great.

Annoyed me each moment, and the heinous bell from the near church telling me nothing but to fear. Each strike started me as if the herald of the frightful moment there to tell that then would be it. Now I see but as one sees anything under a new-moon's sky, charmed and near dark; half-real is what he sees. Images of what it was and what was not, compose now this image that I show here plain of controversy.

‘Fight I now within, as a wrestler who would contend with a statue of marble; immovable opponent and impossible to tackle down, being at each movement, it, the nearest to the victory.'

'Why talk you here of these things impossible. Those who talk themselves by riddles, cannot complain that only the Devil can grasp them. All should have its limits, and a man should tell about himself in ways to not perplex other men. All men should be common, and if in them some difference must be, let it be common as well, as passive products of a factory, vulgar and all the same, safely covered under the guise of many others.

‘But say, what you perceive ahead?'

'Ahead,' with the air of one who seemed neither lost or found, 'I see the past. When looking in front of me, on the ground, a shadow is what I see; once magnificent, now, in every way is dark. The days, I see them sinking to where eternity is in darkness, as a monster coughed three times at the threshold of doom.

Looking down into the abyss where agony lasts forever, from the edge of the night I see you dead, and swallowed by the throat where it burns sulphur and brimstone. There, there are no ordinary fears... no fears at all; just pain; despair as consolation; everlasting, no mattering until where the times will run. A

land where the swords are alive and time lays dead; where the angels have no wings, and God is a monster. There rules the one unborn until the Judgement Day, then to make trial and to decree souls to doom. A Martial Messiah sent by the Lord of all Trials; advocate of the outraged and the insulted.'

'Stop there! You sound as one of those strange individuals who cannot see light even if staring at noon straight into the sun. Thus, the only colour that you seem capable to discern is the obscene, and from your mouth only monstrosities come out. One like you, when in a cliff, ahead would impend his gait and merrily start to death.

‘Listen now of one I knew tormented just as you. This man had as well a heinous sight as yours, insensible to light, blind as was the damned since the day of his birth. However, such didn't keep him from achieving in life, and this man was a famous doctor; a chiropractor, of who was told, knew better the frame of men than God himself. He composed and arranged many backs, until one day appeared a man whose back he could not fix. ‘"Who broke it like this?" He asked the patient. "A savage!"

‘The man sobbed and burst into tears and passed to explain the cause of his malady. "I was always weak of bones," he started, "and rather I would not go than to risk a fracture. Though, no one can keep his fortune from do him evil, and soon, I could feel my back breaking even on my bed.

“I had always carried loads which others could not see, and if when young I felt but tired, times came when I stooped, and often felt myself so tired as incapable of one more step. Now, with a back broken until it's offensive to my peers to behold, rests me to tread the ways where I know men won't go. Places where no one is, but other ones of back broken like me." The doctor felt sick. His dark world became darker, and he stared at his patient as a blind man would stare at one.

‘And you, now, one to who pleases more the sombre and grim hours of the day, when the sight is almost not needed, made me remind of all this, and to think that a man's destiny is indeed transverse.

‘Listen, brothers, let me tell you something important. It pleased God to call the light day, to the darkness, night, and to the actions of the uncouth man to name it folly. Men primed in their folly with the ages, and now nothing can please them better than a good chuckle pulled out by a fair joke. God saw the ways that all were taking and in heaven said to the angels, "Hell will be populated soon." Men, yet, kept taking no heed of anything, and threw themselves into the dark pit, along with their children and the whole of their possessions; now all to be enjoyed in hell. Pandemonium grew fast and large, furnished with all that stuff. The Devil in cheer announced in hell, "There will be party every night," and at each party the fools became more dead. One day they died on earth and didn't notice.

‘There! You! Say. Why are you so crimson red. It was for you the sermon?'

'No. But often as one in sleep I stood awake, and when at last I could wake up from my heinous apathy, I was already old, and all, with me numb, thing by thing had gone by. It was so much what I didn't dare, and so servile what I tried. Always when something was to start, I would say "tomorrow!" until one day I woke up and the tomorrow was no longer there; it had been the day before. My life I saw as a battlefield, with scattered slayed men, all looking like me.

‘With foul schemes I plundered the foundations of my house. All became feeble and about to ruin, and had I ever been a man of fear, by then, forcibly, I would wake up. One day all crumbled, and down it came even on my head.

‘There I was called to rebuild; stronger, now with a pair of old hands; better accommodations which I

knew to no one else ever be in it. And I rebuilt, and made there a construction that was a work of art, and I sat inside, dejected and alone. The Devil when it pleased him to laugh, would come over, look at me and burst his sides. A more pitiful man had never been in the world.'

'Time make wretches of us all, one way or the other, and in short clears every presumption. He's almost like a god... A god it is. The god Time, whose presence reaches all and everything, who's everywhere, in all the places mighty, supreme and absolute. Though, unlike the other, the god Time is dumb, and nothing knows about good or evil. Men fear this one and not the other, who can wreak such hideous traits upon their faces, and with a few more mistakes, sends them afflicted to their graves, wrinkled as the bark of an old tree.

‘Now tell us, troubled man, how do you busy your days?'

'With plenty. I'm the sexton of my village, and until today I buried as many men as it pleased the Devil to take them. Of all sizes they were; some heavy and tiresome but I feared them not. All I took to the gloomy hole with dexterity, and all faster yet I buried them. The folks of my village loathed me. "Will I... Will I see you next week?" and they turned away from me their worried steps.

Early I felt the morbid attraction, and rather would feel amazed when looking at a corpse, than disgusted and offended as the rest. To the face with no longer expression I gave an understanding of my own, and in that serene and final countenance, found never anything that could scare me. Thus, always that I had a burial, I laboured swiftly to take that man to rest and anon can tell his family, "The man is okay".

‘Today I remember but those who departed letting none behind to remember them, and those indeed I recall as my sad burials. In the nights which I call nightmarish I dream with them, fearing in my sleep one day to await me alike fate.'

'God himself ordered your profession, but He didn't order lonely men.

‘Brothers, to be alive has many perspectives and dead only one; and this one, though morbid and dull, can amaze us more than all the light we see.

‘Each image is unreal and shows us a moment that doesn't exist and which does not make sense but when conceived in our minds, organized in the way that must it reason, in the universe, a lonely conscientious race. Nothing has importance but in the mind capable of engendering concepts and to feel fear. Here's the moment to tell you, that you and your dog exist in two completely different universes.

‘The incomprehensible size of all the matter and of the infinite place turns all in doubts, along with the empty virtues of a strange sort of wanderers of a moment in time, who here, somehow, became able to cogitate about what they see, in a place so vast that it does not fit even in the imagination. All what is out there is God; in all His many shapes and just one splendour. When God wakes up in the morning and open His eyes, that's the rising of the sun; He washes His face, and somewhere it rains in the morning; God smiles, and here we feel happiness.

‘And today, brothers, I'm happy. And to a man, that's no little thing. For life is heavy, and was laid on us on our lips and in our smiles, and to be capable to feel happiness, brothers, it's to have made light that, which, if not, is a burden. Let no other idea beguile you of this truth. And to try to make it light you came here; to find a current of lofty air that could take all to fly. I don't have such breath.

‘Who among us can speak further, and bring us all to feel our souls?'

'A little to all this still, humbly, I can add,' said one who felt but a void within, 'for I'm old; life taught

me; and son, I had learned my lesson.

‘This skin of mine, I tell you, it is no common thing. Now wrinkled, it was once elastic, and in those days, I say, I stretched it until as far as it could go. I became the teacher and the learner, in a classroom which I wrote heaps of theories as it does not exist. As this reality we take for real, is more plausible to be a dream inside some mind, whose sleep lasts all the eternity, and we its fancy, and here a fantasy. A god's mind, of course, to give care thus to the most minor details. For when I dream, I dream with my disasters, and with naked women, and with follies that I wake up to chase in the next day. Though, times came when I of a trick I had done could use no more. I had never been old until that day, when placed in line to start another race, I found my strengths were no longer there.'

'For that you have those eyes now so keen upon the ground?'

'When I look down I ponder at what I don't find above, and while walking turning thoughts in my mind, I think that times were made unreasonable, and that the world rich act like beggars, when we, to not beguile the time with merry, chose to entertain it with fright, and go to run a race which never started.

Making chases and escapes; pursuing a straw, and in the blind run, tumbling eachother down, in a foul emulation making like fools. Not wanting that on which our soul depends, that is to live in harmony. No! That men abhors as the Devil dislikes holy water, and with above them a merry canopy, chose to go to plights and to struggle through another day.'

'What do you know about it, old man?'

'Of struggles, I know all,' he continued, 'and today still remember some of mine so vividly, that I almost live those again; all what makes time sometimes feel uncomfortable as a torment of hell; and of men, I know this little that here authorises me to talk.

‘And if it weren’t to bring about the pertinent, I wouldn't come forth. Listen then, when I say that all passes swiftly as a cloud through a summer's sky, that now one sees, now wonders, "Where did it go?"'

‘In such motion we are to arrive at the land of the dead, where it rises no sun or moon; , no sky above nor ground bellow; not a draft, if by then still anything of us remained which could inhale it. Only misery and annulment in its utmost and definitive form. The end of perception which starts with the disintegration of everything, what makes wonder of why all this moment here. The supreme causality which could open in the null a window full of light and create for us here this supernatural moment in time, before all again go out in darkness.

In all the places out-there, time is sterile, goes dead, and is thing of nought. And here where it's alive, it vexes us and we try to kill it sometimes, and we waste it as a child carelessly wastes sand constructing near the sea, eager upon what lasts but a tide. In one alike shore other children build as well, until where the eye can see; endlessly, until where the shore does last, which as in a dream, it has no end. There I play as well, the child who now is dead, and you; we’re both dead children, and there we are with all who until today came to be. Just see it in that way, that shore where every child goes to die, and where we are all dead. Glad is the world.'

'At the eyes of a happy man. To you the mind shows strange visions.'

'My father killed a man and at home lived tormented by guilt, and I grew up to see things differently from other men. Once I told him that to myself he was like God, who could give life, or of one stroke take it away, and could, when it pleased him, to send a man's soul to hell. He slapped me and I went to cry to my room, with my first understanding that a man's life isn't his.

‘In our village the case was known of all, and the other folks treated him with a contempt as if he was the Devil. "One bread, please," he would ask at the bakery. Though, the man would not put it in the bag before dropping it twice on the ground, "That's good enough for an assassin, isn't?" Father would pay and downcast and desolated leave the shop. The earth itself despised him and refused to bring forth any fruit from seed he would cast to the soil, having we in the months of summer as a poor man on winter's, and during the freeze nothing to eat. He tried farming then, though the animals loathed him and in the pastures stubbornly refused to graze the grass, and indeed, it seemed that there was nothing the folks would wish us that our fate would not send manifold increased, and I admired him, for my father's back was unbreakable. He endured what it would appal a common if told about it, or cause a woman to fall in a fit.

‘Walking down the street the mob would point us, saying, "Lo! There they go; the Devil and his son," and a handful of dirt, or some rotted vegetables was thrown; sometimes the ruthless children with a shower of eggs. It was painful to my father to see me suffer and he avoided to take me, though, I always insisted to join him and to share with him his awful burden.

‘My mother died shortly after the murder; a duel at a sunrise. It was the other, or he, if he was found the less able; and through the barrel came the fire in which his soul now burned in regret. However, to him harder were the nights, seeing again and again the deed which brought our doom. Such consumed him as fiercely as Vulcan consumes rock and whatever sinks there on the depths of the earth.

‘In his last days, one could tell that there was nothing in him left to burn, as he was going about as a man emptied of everything. His eyes were what died first, later, when he walked, even the hurried motion of his gait would remind one of death.

‘One day he hung himself. I was in bed when I listened the beam of our living room sound a little crack, then again all to silence fell, and I into my blessed sleep. Sad, I was happy for Dad to have gone at last to try his peace in some other world. In the morning, his body was still slightly dangling on the rope. I took him down and without any ceremony he was buried.'

'You are a loaded man,' Thomas realised looking at the weird figure.

'A bit more, and at my touch the waters would start on fire; a world less, and I could for once know happiness.'

'Why do you mind with that son of a murderer?' Cried one by then outraged. 'As a stake through the ground let him be driven into hell, aside with the one who killed. Let me tell you of a pig I got, instead, who likes to roll in his own filth, and still the while will be better spent. But let that pig be, for I’ve got something else to say.

All my life I was an observer of the world, of its ways, and of what they brought about, and all I could notice, was that there, to them, all was as a mouthful of ashes, which became more tasteless with the years. Pacing through those ways I noticed as well that one's sleep would not come easily and peacefully, but troubled and agitated, and only when at last, with the body exhausted, the extenuated mind would turn off the senses. There, greatest the elegance less the soul, until at last a lot who shown none of the both ‘I saw the world was going as a beast thirsty for his prey, with a rapacious appetite, and slim dripping from its jaws. With errant stride and foul aim, wanders the beast mindless if night or day, in a land where men wander as well, before be counted among the host of hell.'

'Man of keen sight, with tidings such as these, how come that until now you kept silence?'

'I feared for one here weak of heart, whose death might listen to my words and come. Then, if anyone here has not the nerve to hear of death, now is the time to leave the company, for I will go on. But who could put in words, even if with a tongue so apt for tragedies as Senele's, who night after night forever mourns her lot, the share I saw in omen becoming my peers? Surely not Hero. Sophocles here'd come short, for I swear – and to the one still with tears no better time than now – I saw the beasts near men appalled, when all around men were dying, and others drunk with their blood. Still rueful that to have seen, appeared before my eyes another soul's disassembling image of woe, and displayed through it, all those who God loathes. Endless vastness of multitudes, I saw, with too many to be counted, of staggering souls whom God found to deserve his eternal contempt.

‘The good or evil who showed me this, showed me next, the infinite door of death; width as far as it goes what it never ends, and throughout my mind, I felt a fear as I never thought it possible to feel and go still a living soul, and indeed, I felt my spirit near from leaving my very self. Then some strangeness seized me, that for long whiles I stood gasping and air I could not breathe, as suddenly all changed from that dire to one more awful next.

‘Which words now to express what no mind was ever made to conceive?

‘I, with faith but in one God, warrant here, upon further destruction of my soul, that of a sudden, next a sea I saw, with no beginning or end, all made of darkness, and I standing on its shore. Moans aroused from underneath that sea not made of water or anything, miserable and everlasting, lamented from inside that darkness where were whelmed in cares all the adversaries of good. I strode one step further, cowered and dived my hand across the surface of that sea, I didn't know of what, that I found to be not wet or cold, or anything, as no difference at all I felt or any change.

‘Now, how to proceed with my tale knowing that I will not be believed? For under the surface that sea was filled with chastised souls who eternally vented their agony, and from the other side, I felt their blind hands groping mine. Appalled I rose, receded one step backwards, and again found myself standing where first I stood. The omen ended, and since I had been revealed more than a dozen times.'

'Sorcerer, or whatever thing you are. In you I recognise a man who thirsts as the Nile, from its seven gorges, when before once a year the monsoons come to fill its mouth with water. Thus, you, whose fulfilment cannot attain, rush all, and still ere the due you suffer, and still before the after-death you feel the unbearable, and rage for satiety as a ravenous animal, whose feeding more hungers where it should appease. Then we listen you talk here of things that I thought a man must go mad before he could utter them; of deserts and of things night, announcing a barren season, and so many ruins to go through just one building. That with all you made me shiver, and for an instant made me doubt, and to think, indeed, that the soul of a man could end, when in fact, it cannot. All the anger I see in you, is as of a child who with surge the sea surprised and tumbled down on the shore. She beats its tights, stamps her foot, and shuns to be again caught off guard. Then turning to that great vastness which extends until far away in silence, to the god of that sea she shouts a thousand curses and declares from then on to be at war with.

‘Living always trying to be free, can as well become a prison. If one's soul is a mighty flow that from within one takes its course, no one will be able to mould it or deviate its bank to a course at will, but instead, overflows and becomes all and everything. Here you listen how it sounds when in that moment goes free.

‘Who else is here of soul not shackled that can tell us a tale of how is to be free?'

'Here is one who nothing could ever hold, but rather from every grip I escaped, and enslavement; broke from chains lose, and through a field of blood passed untainted.'

'Him we gone listen next, who could see all the gore in the world and be not charmed by it.'

'The day that I would born unto this world, Paul prophesied it in the scriptures, and told men to fear it, the day when the Enemy would show his power, and with impudence would come to affront the man of good will. "Lo, God, my dirty hands! I'm rising them to thee".

‘In my presence, kings bring themselves to pageant fools, and when listening of mine, make nothing of their conquests, saying with eyes cast above, "Take away, God, my sceptre, that I go to join the poorest." Through the many places I visited, and having seen all I did, I could make but a poor resume, and in men I pitied a burden as on the beasts who in the field trod under the harness I found not alike.

From daybreak till sunset, I saw my peers wandering and finding no direction for their steps, and for that I mourned and pitied them with a grief without end, and myself brought to tears, when listening them to laugh so loud, and still not silence the voice which was crying within, "Hark! How here I am sad".

‘Men came from all around to where I lived, each gloomy and stern, to ask why their days were passing swiftly without leaving trace. I, who could read what the stars above had been placed there to tell, standing face to them pointed them out and replied, "Do they care for time? So should you". And until far was spread that an insight given by God was seeing and telling them things divine, when all that I was doing was talking with a humble heart.

‘Though, now times arrived when my strengths are failing, and I feel in the morning as one would at the end of a weary day, after many loads carrying, and at night, so tired that I cannot sleep, and all the power of the enemy, it resumes now to a pencil and to a piece of paper, to fill throughout the cold and lonely nights.'

'Did you think yourself to be a warrior invincible? None mightiest than Hector and he died. Here no man can be brave; for that God settled the clock ticking and kills all men with the same poison.

‘The while that here we have is exact; exactly good, as all that we see around is perfect. In the middle, we give ourselves reasons to think that isn't; that it is not perfect, and not as beautiful as some say, and in the favourable face of life we discourage, and in its joyful features we set to seek the stern semblance.’

‘You said that you take notes to show the Devil. Of those read us a bit.' '"Now the sun is out,"' he started reading from a bundle of pages, '"and in its place reigns the modest moon, chaste and timid in the sky. Commences now the time when men lie comfortable, forgotten of others and of themselves. For a delicious moment all is suspended, as if men had for some scarce hours made their truce with God. Though, often I noticed that those happy hours, along with the sleep, would deliver fear and restlessness if one wouldn't prepare himself for their arrival, and that in all, those could be more demanding and tiresome than a laborious day. The uncouth way of life made men to loathe their sleep as well the awareness, and soon they despised to be one way or the other. Men called it "Our Cross", for it seemed easier than to find a way of not place themselves underneath it; and soon all were carrying Our Cross, of during the day feel tired, and at night be unable to rest..."'

'It goes on like this?'

'And on. The hours of dark seem scarce to finish my deplorable writing of so many pages with so short a theme, and when the morrow rises, still there is more left to say, and night after night, plenty I find

of the heinous subject.'

'Once I visited one at home, who as well, loathed the world and the company of others, and this man for years lived as a hermit in his house.

‘Studying from books of philosophy, this man gained an utter contempt for world outside his own, as he looked through his window, and saw men living in a way, and carrying with them frustrations as the old lore announced for those who would do so, and from all those he could see, he found not one who having what he got, didn't crave for something different.

‘I went to pay the man a visit to give a chance to God to be face to face with him. I found him in his study room. Soon as I entered the gloomy partition became alighted; the light coming from everywhere and none. I faced the man. ‘"From where did you come?" he asked, listening in my silence argument, and from me a voice who all the while spoke not more than a rock. "For there's no door behind you." I looked at him without a word. Nevertheless, he something so wondrous listened me saying, who until had said as the moon, that he came at once to kneel at my feet, and from his further speech I realised that he was seeing other else than I. ‘"Rise," I ordered him, stern as the wind commands a sea. He stood and stared at me as one who’s in the frightful hour, expecting Death, an angel of the Lord instead in that moment sees appear to carry him away. ‘"Are in Heaven different wills, or to hell new laws ordained, that now I can have hope?" He started answering to the unproposed theme, "I'm a man of a thousand declines, who rather the company of this taper's light, than the host of those outside."

‘I looked at him passionately and he resumed his speech after to listening in his mind more of what I didn't said. ‘"In the loneliness of my book room I look outside, and, seeing their ways, I feel comfortable that I am not them. But if now you came I know that I had been wrong, and that unaware I offend, and that myself am an offence without knowing it. I'm sorry! But I am but a man. Who asked of me to be the strongest, or when did I assented it? I'm weak! As this little taper's light which burnt here, capable of nothing else than to make me sad. ‘“This world tells himself too busy with destruction to give listen to the ideals of old, and to a man who says that all it's not lost."

‘At these words I nodded in agreement. He further on in me mute did listen, who was gazing at him, silent as a sea and until word uttered not, to which more response he made. ‘"I fear not! But here with energetic soul give token of my righteous heart. What! Labours not the truth still in favour of the honest man? Let then the clock be called irresponsible and the afflicted to have no hope in scour, and to those who thirst, to be blotted out the word of relief. It shall never come fruit from toiling; on the ground but death, and the between two steps feared, accursed, and forever nowhere."

‘I looked angrily at him.

"Lo! Now he frowns. He who came not from doors behind; from walls as if from air!"

‘Sternly I keened on him and silence was all I said, and in me so, quiet like an abyss, he again listened more than any eager statement could tell. ‘"Gabriel! Now is the moment when you turn to me your bright face, and tell this wreck, "Heavy is

the world!"? Unbearable silence it would be well more cheerful; boulders up a mountain lighter to carry; watching sores and afflictions more likely to satisfy me and capable to content me, and I call "Good hap!", than to imagine that for my peers there's no hope. Go! Tarry not still if all your mischief is done, and across that wall which you came from pass again, and tell in Heaven that you let on earth an unrelenting man." ‘What led me there brought me back, and again I let that man at the feeble light. It was not the only occasion that I was used by the Lord Almighty, and often I'm possessed by His divine spirit."

Thomas in this moment is told by a vision of one of the visitors.

'Ma’am,' he addressed a lady from the audience, 'the Lord just showed me that you are pregnant.'

'How strange. It's true. Three weeks.'

'Let me commend your baby to the Lord.'

'But he's not a baby yet.'

'Your foetus, then, to the protective hand of God. To guide him from now on until when He will receive him in His grace' 'I'm expecting deliverance as well. See my belly how big it is. It seems about to burst. The doctors said that it can be at any moment,' said one other woman.

'Yours cannot be saved. Is not from God what you carry inside of you. Let me exorcise it, and it will come by pieces, from inside of your mouth.'

'Never!'

'Go home then and suckle the damned. Be aware of the Revelations. You might to be the mother of the Beast.'

'If I am mothering the Beast, then it will be my beast. I will nourish it; give him breast and it will love me.'

It came but to kill its mother.'

'Maybe it will be born now.'

It will not dare to come out with me here. But if I'll touch your belly it will no longer hide, though, you will not survive it. Bring a basin! Water! Ho!' 'No!' 'We need a woman and a priest!'

'No, we need not! Police!'

The police came in. Thomas was arrested, handcuffed, and taken into custody, and the church closed for a week.

II

The Layman

At the end of a prodigal night, in which dreary figures resembling the living as well as the dead, were seen pacing the streets unaware of the word they came from, and clouds of fire displayed dire and hideous forms across the sky, it's finally Monday morning, the day decreed by court to the church of the brother Thomas to reopen doors, after a week of interdiction for engaging in obscure and unauthorised practices.

There's a long waiting line following down the street until where the eye could perceive. The affluence started twenty-four hours early, with the arriving first of those who didn't want to lose a place in the front, to see Thomas, to them the new Messiah.

The crowd was somewhat weird, composed mostly by cripples and paralytics on their wheelchairs, and such other extravagant creatures, as would cause sadness just to look upon. All with faith of being cured of their maladies by Thomas, whose fame as a prophet as extended since his arrest.

Now with some scarce hours of liberty, Thomas finished his prayers and is on the way to his second day of service. Augustine is arriving now after spending the night awake, imagining terrible perils and dire ends to his career as a servant of the Lord.

And it was for this career that our Augustine feared as soon as he laid his eyes on the depressive mob that gathered there.

At that instant, tears came to his eyes, and such strange motions upon his face, as seen on men's who ran great distances in escape of a danger, or on those about to collapse for sudden fit. His heart came all the way up to beat on his throat, and such afflicted indications were made by the contraction of his brow, as when men witness corpses unburied of many days, or looks at a face where hopelessness let its stamp, as flashed before his eyes remembrances of tales of old glories and great deeds of his ancestry; such as compose today the annals of history of his home country and of our world; along with the haunting idea, now more than ever, of quitting the day before it starts; a will that come upon us all once in a life-time, and to our layman, his turn was then.

This youth who Thomas had nicknamed Augustine, was in fact a Germanic young man, descended from one of the most influential families of German's aristocracy; the Hohenfels; now declined.

His name was Holderlin Von Hohenfels; son of Catharina, and Koradin Von Hohenfels.

Koradin's grandfather was killed at Mesopotamia in the First World War. Two of his sons had no better fate; one was killed during the second global conflict, stepping the traitorous sands of Alamein, the other, victim of the cold Russian winter. The third survived, though wounded many times in battle; Freiherr Von Hohenfels; Holderlin’s grandfather.

The Hohenfels were not only an aristocratic family, but its members parts of Germanic history as well. They have a castle between Hohenstaufen and Hohenzollern, now in ruins, and count in their genealogy tree with names of such heroes as, Hidelbrant Von Hohenfels, who could fight afoot against twenty men, and died trying to save Frederick, the First, the great Barbarossa, from drowning on the boisterous current of Calicadnus, a river on the Asia Minor. Later came Anno Von Hohenfels, the prince

of the Black Forest, and great friend of Frederick, the second, and who came to die in Salerno in the arms of his beloved emperor, when was following the year of 1247. Today his body rests guarded by four marble lions at Kloster Irkshaw.

Then down in the branches of such a mighty tree, comes the name not less in valour, of Frederick Von Hohenfels, brave warrior and ever conqueror of battlefields, until being killed at Pavia, after making Francis, the first, of France, his prisoner. Then, to these mighty names, join Waldmar Von Hohenfels, courageous and ever intimate with hazards, and who came to fight his last fight at Leipzig. Another Frederick Von Hohenfels, was might until he found his mightiest, and was conquered falling at Verdun around the 1800s.

These and many other sonorous names, were a heavy heritage for Augustine to carry on his shoulders. From those great ones, descended, Freiherr, Koradin and himself; Holderlin Von Hohenfels; inside whose veins ran almost a royal blood. What to do of all that name he did not know, and, as a young man confused with the times that were going on, he was still searching within him for what one day it would be himself.

With no major goals in life, Holderlin was far from aristocracy as the north is from south. He felt that all those mannerisms and pomp of the court were not to him, and in his attitude he tried to seem a normal and progressive young man.

To Holderlin, life had been a constant adaptation; first, at home, to the god of his father, later, to a life without a god of his own; to his own mortality, and to the strange idea of losing, or not, an eternal life, until he found this god who he now served. This trait of character caused him to ponder incessantly at what he was supposed to accomplish in this world; in his life as a Hohenfels; or even if he should try to be anything at all. He found once a book titled The God of Small Things; he carried it home and laid it somewhere forgotten, imagining that this god, said of small things, could one day be his.

This, he thought, confronting himself with the greatness of those great names that had made his great; to live to the ideal of die honourably, in times which Honour itself seemed to be dead and buried.

Now, when the stories about their greatness were no longer told, to Holderlin, to be a Hohenfels it was but a curse; an addiction which meant nothing to him but endless sacrifice.

Early in his life he got tired of living to the expectations of others; he had had enough of trying to please, and decided then to find a philosophy of life to improve his soul; something that he was still trying to understand what it was. To himself he was but a voice awaken inside his head; and this voice, his mind, someone had told him that such was the expression of his soul; a part of him that had been made indestructible, and that he should care and pay attention to it, for besides, nothing else mattered. Thus he tried in all to better himself, but soon discovered that were the little and spiteful things in him the biggest hindrances, and what was keeping him prisoner of a little and unsatisfactory life, and from even could dream with that ideal which Thomas was announcing. And now Thomas, with his talk about whatever doctrine it was that mix of incoherencies, had come to interfere with his sleep, and the crowd of weirdoes outside, from which he now felt himself one, has come to put his mind into a turmoil.

Holderlin passed by all without a word.

'When will Thomas come?'

'Can he heal my dog?'

'I got a haemorrhoid!' someone shouted from a role of unrelated sentences. That last, made Augustine

sick. Such a lack of everything. His stomach revolted; his royal blood boiled inside his veins, and he lost there a bit more of his faith in Man. Augustine made a disgusted face, as one does when on a pleasant walk finds a run-over dog, rotted of many days at the side of the road.

'Griefs!' he exclaimed under his breath to himself as he climbed the few steps to the door, went in, and the door was again closed to great impatience of all. He had no strength to go any further feeling himself about to colapse and had to sit in the nearest chair.

He was lost in his troubled thoughts when a commotion outside begun.

Now is Thomas, he thought, and it was indeed.

Thomas addressed some words to the crowd as he passed by. A calm came over the place. He mounted the few steps, and rising his hands thus he spoke to his people.

'Only if as you, the world would wake up at last. It has been so since the beginning of the ages, when a society grows thirsty and tired of its ways.

‘Brothers, I had been deprived of liberty during whiles which I thought to be free, and during the last week, as a free man, for no one can shackle those who God liberates, I've heard men say to each other, "He is our prisoner!"

‘I was accused of disturbing the regular changes of the moon, of interfering with the tides of the sea, and of telling the words of one who is in communication with the Devil. They said that I'm impudent; that I disturb the order and annoy the sight of others. I told them that they are blind; that the Order has perished long ago, along with all the decorum and respect; respect for others and for oneself. From here it springs the frustrated man, that more and more often one hears pretending his happiness everywhere one goes.

‘They said that I committed a crime; and I told them of hazards and of outrageous deeds of mine of many years ago; making some of them revolt, some blush, others pale, and a few to ask permit to seat. I told them that "I am the Law!" and about the last moment and of beyond; of judgements made with equal measures; of the angels, by then stern and all in fury, and of more which I knew certain about the end, that all the present wished then not to be.

‘They handcuffed me and bade me to be silent.

I took a deep breath, and following, unveiled to them all, torments and frights, telling about auguries and dire visions which used to importunate me in my lonely nights, and of other ordeals that I know certain and awaiting us in hell, that with the words pronounced the sky outside became grey and thundered, and trembled the ground beneath common feet.

The lawyer came with the priest. Some agents came to take off the handcuffs. The lawyer approached.

"Sooner or later the Devil will come for us all!" I cried.

"Handcuff him again," ordered the Capitan, "and bring in the priest!"

‘The priest came as one who would rather leave.

"My mission here, my son, is to try to save your soul."

"Save mine, Father, and let me save yours. Take me out of my restraints!"

"Set the man free!"

"Let fall the handcuffs," ordered the Capitan, "and take away the priest." The Capitan approached the desk and placing his both hands on it, started.

"I grew up in the ranks! digging trenches where reigned the smell of putrefaction and piss, graduating a Capitan still before beard could grow in my face. I gained my ensigns serving and bleeding for my country, and at the age of twenty, I had already made my commons such deeds, as those for which heroes of great renown gained their fame.

I had sailed from the cape of Algeciras to voyages, each with such perils, as it could not be here told without to shake your faith in God, and in such other hazarded enterprises I engaged then, as it would move me now to tell you, and you would doubt when listen.

“This medal, I gained it serving as a mercenary, when after evading the enemy for many days, I ran my horse to death and made of it my dinner, to again, at dawn, to get on the run, losing myself more and more into the desert.

“Now you appear telling me that there's a God somewhere. I'm a Capitan! I had taken men's lives; as many as I still remember their faces, and I have done such other deplorable deeds, that now No God is my only hope. Don't come you now to tell me that there's a God. I'm a Capitan! I have made babies orphans and women widows, killing since before men knew how to brandish a sword. I'm a Capitan! My ensigns are made of death; the death of those who died, and the death of others still living. I'm a Capitan! To myself all are dead, only my enemy I see alive, and I want to embrace him and set me free."

"You want to be free, Capitan? Now I'll set you free."

"You! How?" "Take heed. You have a daughter at home, Capitan, who, though not appearing it, is seriously ill, waiting her agonising death in a few days. Run home, now. As fast as you can, Capitan! Take your little girl to the hospital; carry her crying in your arms into the emergency room announcing her about to die, and you, Capitan, still can save her.

“You said that you want to be free. Here I set you free.

Are you wondering which of them ? It's the one with anniversary for the next week; your baby girl, Capitan. I'm giving her to you. Run, soldier! You have one more fight. Run! or your daughter will miss her party. You have another battle. Run Capitan; fight bravely and win!"

"It's good that your god isn't fooling you on this one, my friend, for if you are wrong..."

"I'm right, Capitan!"

‘The Capitan went out of the room tumbling down who or whatever stood in his way. He reached home in a frenzy. Snatched the little girl, merry and jovial, from her mother's arms.

"Are you mad?" she asked, while he disappeared with the girl scarcely dressed towards the hospital to make "all the exams until you find something wrong!" To his wife's questions he could only answer, "He said that I must hurry! I must hurry!"

He reached the hospital. Took the girl by then scared and all in tears, into the emergencies shouting, "Help! Someone! Please, my child is dying! Help! My baby girl is dying!" Later the doctors found an aneurysm, "in the nick of time", as they told him.

‘The Capitan came early in the morning.

"You were right. They found it. It was in her brain, my poor child. Thank you. God would let her die if it weren’t for all this?"

"He would."

The Capitan raged with revolt.

"... And I want to embrace him and set me free." He froze recalling his own words.

"To what we value," I told him, "to that God gives no importance, only to what is important." Here ended all the interrogatories until my release.

‘And now, brothers, I arrived and found here this gathering. Such a lot, as one must doubt if ever God could create such miserable creatures as you; and grew in me my faith in the Lord, that all tries to reach, and none excludes.'

There's a knock at the door. Augustine's heart started again wildly inside his chest; his brow moistened; the mouth got dry. "It’s Thomas, now," he thuoght. Composed his hair; opened the door, and someone from the mail stood in front of him holding a package. Augustine signed; noticed that it had no sender, and dropped the deliverance half-forgotten, later to tell Thomas about it.

Thomas came in at last.

'Today we cannot fit them all in,' he said. 'Today we take the church outside.'

Soon all was ready and the service could begin, today in a somewhat different format.

'Welcome to the church of the brother Thomas, you with disabilities; or with abilities as it would be better not to have. If you feel that all your walking is going backwards...'

One signals from a wheelchair.

'Yes, brother. Speak!'

'When half of my life had passed, I turned back to look and realised that I was not moving. Though, through all I had gone with a fury; nothing I could ever notice; and always that something stood before my eyes, it was but to show that I was blind; for I could discern the forms but not their meaning.

‘My vision, so full of riches, was then empty and poor, and I, who bragged so loud of my assurances, was but wrong and confused. Life had come to show me the world and yet I could not see it; numb, I was, and indifferent to each day. If I tried to command them, it was like my legs disobeyed my will; as was I a child in her folly, trying to command the winds, or the sea, from destroying my castles in the sand. My handicap had become already who I was, and I, but this great king of a wheelchair. Others I saw like I; waved at them and imagined them free; but they were not, on their walks, they were prisoners like me.

And now one last thing.'

'Yes.' 'That flower which follows the sun through wherever it goes, teaches men a lesson; that free is their soul, to go and travel all over the world, even if without going out of the place. For that is the trait that makes a man be a man; to remember that the child was fool who tried to command the winds, and built one day, thus near the sea, mighty castles in the sand.

‘Then I heard about the church of the brother Thomas and of its prophet, who preaches that a man indeed can never stop. There, in the restraint of my wheelchair, for the first time I realised that I was bounded but free; a prisoner but of myself, as is in the ocean the Capitan of a ship; bounded to the wooden deck, though, free, just by allowing his eyes to reach the horizon and let his soul to follow them.'

'And who of us here is different? Which of us is not like you in that melancholic wheelchair? Who's not that Capitan? Who does not feel restrained, when in fact, there's nothing that can keep him from being free?

‘Brother, I would ask you to walk to me, though in your philosophies I understood that you have no faith; or if you believe in something, it's in some other fantastic creature, not in the Lord.'

'Why?' 'In all you acknowledged no God, nor ever said a word of respect.'

'You are wrong!'

'If your faith is thus, rise, brother, and walk this length.'

Silence was made and great expectation came all over the place. Someone held out his hand. The man rose and with trembling legs walked towards Thomas.

'Great are the things which faith can do. Here we see that believing all is possible; believing especially in oneself, that one can do that walk.

Go sit again, brother.'

'There's other in my place.'

'The Lord be praised! So, stand.

And you, there! Yes, you, who seem burdened with the world on your back. Come, my poor men, divide your load with me. How did that happen?'

'I fathered once a dead child. After months of planning, my wife and I, the baby born at last, already dead and insensible to the world. His grave was dug on the next day, and I could never recover from that hole. There all ended. All my motives and causes to rejoice died then, still on the womb, along with that child. I was still young, and from one day to another, ages came to settle upon my weak frame. My wife left me, and since, I live lonely and retired; dead to all but to a cup of sack; regretting a fate which took all away before I could even hold it in my hands.'

'Why, man? It's a natural movement! It happens since the beginning of our history. The earth itself shakes down old edifications so that new can be built. Architectures of grey and old, give then place to what is fashioned and desired by the soul. ‘The baby died? God has him! But you man! take care of living.'

'How? How to make lively again the fire when it feels like the flame has turn cold?'

'Search within if you won't find a shore... a little harbour in the main where never a boat approaches, and where you keep, in your refuge, safely, in waiting.'

'In waiting for the end.'

'That may not be yet! Go, man! Stand! and explore the rest of the land; and your fire will flame again.

I tell you that the wind is never adverse, only compels though, to different directions. In some destinies will rule the Doubt, on others the Belief, the mighty engines of the souls of men. By those I have seen big men made small, and small men made big, just by making flourish the field that once seemed sterile. ‘Cheer, brother, I had made anew men far more broken than you.'

'How?' 'With hope, and annoyance to the Devil. Let him lose a soul today. Now we have a new day to fulfil, let us paint it... make it different from yesterday. ‘Listen, brothers, I lived once near a shipyard, where tired ships were repaired and sent them back to sea. It was my custom to stay there, just seeing the broken ships arriving into the haven. One day a ship came in; a wreck who didn't even have strength to reach the harbour by himself. He had to be towed or would sink and be lost. He had two chimneys, and from far, one could tell that once had been mighty. His name was Barracuda, and of the other towing him, The Spring. I stood there for a while watching that sorrowful scene; thinking that it didn't make any sense, the Barracuda to come pulled by The Spring, then

I realised that it did; that in fact, it made all the sense in the world; and I stood there, bewildered, as an incredulous man when he's called to believe.'

'In an accursed hour I came...'

'To nothing else than to grope in the dark. ‘Do you have faith?' asked Thomas.

'No.' 'So, why are you here?'

'I saw a throng and I stopped.'

'So does the Devil. Do you respect any god?'

'The god of the ants.'

'And dogs?'

'I do as well.'

'Through where will you leave?'

'Through a hole in the ground.'

'For this God has brought me here; to minister about the other side, where Death in its throne reigns in the dark; where God is dead and the Death is alive.'

In this, someone else shows the will to intervene.

'Can I add something to all this?

'If it will be found to be true...'

'There's curtain which keeps here the light contained, and not a beam passes to the other side.'

'Very well. Proceed.'

There is our next stage, then to act in darkness, and to perform there a comedy just with death, in a play where our sadness is the show. ‘There all exist in its peculiar way...'

'Avaunt! dark spirit. You're the son of the Devil. From which hell born thou?'

'When I was born, the sun at noon went out in darkness. The earth trembled and quaked; mighty seas enraged and went to kill far into the land, while Devastation plundered behind them all across the shores. ‘When I was born, God for the first time had a doubt and bent his head in apprehension. Nature, itself, revolted and went with fire to undo what it has done since the begging of the earth. Confidence feared for itself, and Courage in that day felt lonely and weak. I had come from the world of the unborn ones, twisted and rebellious, resolved in all to conquer and mystify.'

'Halt there, lost soul. Why are you calling the Devil yours? You are vexing my spirit. Do you acknowledge any rule?'

'I'm a nihilist! The order bows to me. I'm a ruler, myself, God, and two other things.'

'You blaspheme! What other things are those?'

'I carry in me two alien spirits, and sometimes, at night, I'm two other men.'

'Who are they?'

'One is a man who died revolted. The other is a braggart who says that his hand itself, was one of those who stabbed Caesar... gosh, the stories he tells! He told that once he had been a general and owned lives of soldiers, careless, as now I own my shirts. He bragged of had wasted more blood of men in battlefields, than I cheap liquor in bawd-houses...'

'O, brother! Again stop. You are indecorous. Hear me speak.

‘You live in confusion. Your mind sounds as Pandemonium itself, as all the admonished demons you announce to have voicing at once inside your head. You've cast your soul to so far of salvation, that now to you any hope is a heresy.

‘Can you stand holy water?'

'I can but I don't like it, and every time that I step on holy ground, my nature revolts and all in me acknowledges and gives token from where I come; from a world which God forgot.'

'That's not true. Like you I had once my share of turning around in my bed. It happened during the uncomfortable years of my youth; for, I grew as well in a world forgotten by God. ‘It was in a kind of an orphanage, for I was a kind of an orphan...an orphan, though of living parents.

‘One afternoon I escaped and went to hell. It was an all-way down of years. The stairway was made of reveries and of staying awake all through the night; of spending time looking over the shoulder. It was times of kissing and say goodbye. It was like so the walls of that strange corridor through which the passage was made; and at last, the dungeons. There, men are dead and keep existing, not knowing it. That is hell; their hell. Men who eat, though cannot digest; who drink and can never reach satiety; men who live in constant mirth, without for once know happiness. Men who look, yet that cannot see, neither know themselves blind; men who cannot sleep, neither can wake up.

‘I was one of those. My brand of Man had been lost between the fire and the iron; a number was to come on my forehead; it was when God said, 'It's enough!'

‘Hell quaked; the enemy cried, 'I'm still the Devil!' but there was nothing he could do. A tale had ended there of cares and subjugation under the yoke of false freedom.'

Augustine approached Thomas when was checked by the fellow's answer.

'Standing here listening to your words, often I wished that your deeds were mine, and that I could tell of them just the way you did. But all I did was to climb a hill once, though, sad, I could never feel victorious, only tired, as one who had gone alone a long way up a hill.'

Holderlin felt uncomfortable and tried to get out of there as fast as he could. Thoughts which he couldn't control neither understand, had come lately to balance him out of his equilibrium. Holderlin was a lonely man with no aptitude to make friends, as if announcing ‘weird’ on his forehead. With no opposition, strange feelings had come and found a sanctuary within.

Once with more changes happening in life than his mind had time to deal with, morbid stupefaction, and a mistaken understanding of himself, had come to open wide the doors for depression to come in.

Holderlin was there, where sadness of soul was with him.

'And you there, my good man, how was with you?' Thomas addressed another one from the crowd, 'Say, you seem to be different from the rest. For the others, I see, are meek and acceptable, but you seem defiant and audacious, and resolved to all but to a quiet life.'

'The ruthless nature of the winds is in me, and since my tender years, I storm and agitate when I pass.

‘Early in my life my father called me and said that I was a man. And what he told was a cheerless tale of desires and deceptions; of disproportions and dispositions, disappointments, and of other things equally fantastic and hard to believe.

‘Though, with me chanced all in a different way. My fortunes, rather boisterous, early snatched me from my mother's arms and sent me to wars; to plunder; and to voyages across the sea, following in the

route of the pirates of many years ago. To the middle of envious friends, who, artful, plotted and conspired behind my back. One night, great omens and signs came down from the sky to warn me of the rebellious. My next thought decreed their death; my brother was among them.

‘I had fought with men who I knew their names. Had instigated some to riot, provoked others to revolt; and so many other mighty deeds I had done, as those which grace the past of the knights by whom princesses are won.

‘I'm a man of wrong instincts; of a boat in the pier, and miles walked without a destiny.'

'That sounds sad,' Thomas told the errant man, 'and ways of one who doesn't have where to go.

‘I met once a man just like you. What I can say of him, is that he was a man without hurry in the middle of a race; different and always contrary to what was expected. Myths grew around him, and behind, the commons muttered and whispered as he passed.

‘He had the poise of a prince, and by his gait, one could tell that once he had been intimate in courts and princesses' chambers, as guess by his visage, all the tales which he didn't told, of conquests and deeds of chivalry, and of other virtues deeply marked in him, as virtue itself, and his modesty, forbade him from pronouncing.

‘Often he would frown and become stern, and tell us of a place on earth which didn't exist, though, men could make, and without which, they just could not live, taking thus with words of wonder my soul to fly. I was afraid. Longed myself not to know and asked him to unsay what he had just uttered, and to tell instead a tale with words of hope, or if he didn't know any, to say of things common and without importance, which are always easy to listen and light to carry. For aren't we already loaded enough? But though, as if he could not, he stared at me with sadness and went away.

Sometimes I recall that sad man who could never cheer, and you, somehow now reminded me of him, telling here these fantastic tales of a heart so much bigger than your breast.'

'Listen to me, then,' shouted one other troubled fellow, 'that am here disheartened altogether!'

'Yes, brother, I see it. How came that dismay to settle upon your eyes, that bended your sight, head and all to the ground?'

'It was of a sudden, and with nothing that I could do to avoid it.

At the end of a night of pain and suffering, in the morning my mother delivered me unto this world, exchanging in her bed her life for mine. I had born thus into this world already burdened and harnessed to the cares of men. My fragile frame soon hardened; my modes, tender and gentle, became ruthless and intemperate, as I grew contemptuous to all I saw. I could not laugh; and my eyes learn this expression empty and vague, as if telling incessantly an inglorious tale, or a story of dubious moral.

Parts of my infinite soul I left behind, somewhere, as the way demanded; near the sea; lost in the fancy smells of spring, and in the many loves it was. Though, at each day, live seemed to ask of me but what I could not give, and in vain I tried to understand and to find reasons to explain why I failed. Time, however keeps no secrets, and one day showed me that between my wrong comings and goings, my life had been wasted; and I, with all my inordinate and impudent behaviour, that made me be always the centre of attentions, the best that I had managed to accomplish was to my life to pass unnoticed; and I got old in vain.'

'Brother, all this, as you said, it cannot be. In this short, you told of feats enough to compose the life of many men. Yet, your eyes, indeed, seem sad, and in that you cannot lie.

Have you really done all those deeds?'

'And others such, as to tell you it would make day and night to hold their sequence; past and future to join in nought, and all this frame that here we know as reality, would cause to collapse, bringing thus, eternity to this brief. The tormented souls in hell would die at last, and the gods in Olympus would leave to meet in urgent counsel to think a new nature to themselves, admitting at last, "We were wrong".’ 'Brother, if all of this is true, you are indeed a strange man, vaulting in you tribulations such as half would make the Pandora's Box to seem a children's toy.'

'When I born, the priest said, "Destroy him!" though, from the beginning I have a nature to survive, and the power of a god to hold mine the souls of men. In his next glance, the priest said, "I'm yours," and swore to all to have found his salvation. "He's God himself!" he said, "Never again Jove will be important. Death and Damnation from now on just a trifle!" ' 'Brother, you are in the last stage before madness, standing in the brink of what is called by experts, The mind's final frontier. From there there's no return and you are condemned to linger in that obscure region, frightened and alone.

You seem to have abandoned the brotherhood of men and decided to venture through the vague and dissolving labyrinths of reason.

And you there,' Thomas asked to a sad man among the others, 'what is your case? You seem as well to have missed the rule and the ruler.'

'I'm a clown, and in my work, I have at each day greater difficulties to amuse.'

'It's a sign of our times.'

'Once decided to live from idiocy, I scorned conventions and the morals of the world, and sought to bring by idle laughter, my peers to vehement tears. I tickled them bad. Turned a fool; made jokes with what I shouldn't, though, all what those sons of trouble could do was mourn. I told them their god was foul; threatened their children all with death; chased them until their dreams and said, "laugh! O, you creatures of not a smile. Listen me or live in hell!"

"We have no God!" they cried. "And from here nowhere to go. But you, who are but a clown, lives merry and never has to die." ‘I looked then at my handless watch and guessed the time to be around four o'clock, the hour when they held the burials in our village, and I remembered my father and when I took him to occupy the hole dug for him in the ground; the priest, and all the morbid scene; the tombstone with the craved epitaph: Here lies dead the father of a clown, whose son could never please.'

'Clown, your talk is tedious. It leads to somewhere?'

'No.' 'Yet, you seem grave and sage. How did you let that happen?'

'There's a time in my life when I was only worried with fun, and every time that I looked at something with content, I found it boring and uninteresting. I took books to stage only to make them props to my comedies, until one day I found one named, The Happiness of A Sad Clown. I couldn't understand the title and became obsessed with it. I read it all through the nights. It tuned my ear with ballads and philosophies, and suddenly my heart could feel joy, when at last my eyes could see another world that made the happiness of this sad clown. It was when to myself, that all my life had been a jester, jokes had lost their fun.'

'Anyone else to a vigorous account of embarrassing deeds?'

'Me!' 'Yes, brother, tell us all what is within you. For by your constant grimaces and disgusted face, I can see that it's eating you alive.'

'I'm a poor man who envies the lives of the rich.

My tale is a shameful account from an endless role of gored schemes and plans which didn't work out, to try to achieve with idleness, what my peers got with labour. With empty words I bought the trust of simple men, building then a kingdom just with wind, and with my lies, such other fragile things, as could not stand a gust of air.

"Trust me as if I was your god!," I said, "and I will show you liberty and where the fire is, and will put here in plain how we all are within; reckless children incapable of guide themselves, neither can obey a rule." ' 'You said it well, envious men, though, I noticed that blasphemy is your weakness, when you seem to want to usurp the place of the God that already is, eager to throw him down and to reign yourself over the mortals. But say, and then, for from there you couldn't go much further. Who did you envy next?'

'Then I envied the king and the idleness of the court. Dressed myself with mantle and authority, and, with bold speeches and words astonishing to the human ear, made them bow and say, "You are the king" '.

'Covetous men, which was the thing that you envied for last?'

'This morning, an ilusion that I saw in the hands of a little child; her power to hold without strength; her will still to not let go, and an infinite number of other things that I saw in her, when I stood on the side of the road watching me pass. I passed, the child stood back and I got old.'

'Now you are healed. For what can you envy next?'

'The sun who lasts forever and the moon that comes at night.'

'Brothers, we all are looking for something. The time to find it is short, and long the while to live without it.

There's a season of Spring to the soul as well, with the blossoming of the new sprouts and mellow fruits ripening in the sun. To see them hanging there, is satisfaction and contentment of spirit; to taste of them, the fulfilment of men's soul. All else is a chase after the wind and a gathering of loads.

Times are about with a doctrine to empty us and to make us doubt, though, another one is at hand to fill a man top-full of himself. Then a sort of faith will sprung, capable to believe in anything, when a blockade will be issued to all that poisons one's mind with ignorance, what makes one kiss the rod and laugh, and are but strategies of who wants to uniform us and to reduce the entire human race to fit all in the palm of the hand. Here is the place to say, "Not I. I am bigger than that, and strong enough to be myself".

Anyone here to shout that cry?'

'I am bigger!' Shouted one from among them all. 'I came from far, at the end of many deserts and swamps. I have seen the night without rest and the cold sun.

I had betrayed men's who thought me brother; had felt tired to go one step further, and more I did in a role of shames, that the least told in a woman's presence, it would make her to loathe for always the figure of a man.

All I survived; crawled out of there and come stronger on the other side. I had eaten flesh that men

abhor and think hideous to put down their throats. Bothered quiet men's, disturbing them on their graves, bringing their bones with me to make fear in other men. I had plotted with knaves at night under such tempests, which shook the ground and cleared the sky with thundering and lightning’s, as would had brought to fear any other men, not us.

In all, such I did, that Hell quaked for have such a one at the surface. I read the Revelations, and if I wasn't an Anti-Christ, I was an Anti-Law or an Anti-Anything, in a system which since always seemed to be but Anti-myself. For near two decades there wasn't operations smart enough to stop me, and often I found myself in a bar, in the morning, drinking my Martini with a sip of beer, reading in the newspaper news of deeds on mine of the previous day. I smiled every time, though I knew that it was hell; my hell; my place of private pain. Ironically, they stopped me one day in the middle of the highway, with such apparatus as it would make a gangster proud to be taken thus. The case was overwhelming, and today I owe everything to the judges of the same law which all my life I despised and repudiated to myself, who forgave me a sentence from nine to sixteen years in jail. Today I come even to doubt of my own memories and wonder if now my mind does not play a trick on me.

On my wildest days, I settled from the lands of the great king Assan, to voyages back home, as only youth could ever make me do. A journey one thousand kilometres forbidden to the common men, and not to the common heart to sustain, until I reached the non-existent safety of my own country.'

'Brother, those words here do not befit. Those are fairy tales and mid-night stories to make wenches cry, and here, you see, we are all men.

You told us that once you saw danger and you smiled; that you disdained Chance because Fortune to you was contemptuous.

You revolted us all telling of boisterous deeds preformed in the middle of the night, disturbing the eternal dead on their graves, and carrying them with you, interrupting their everlasting peace, bringing them again suddenly to unexpected action (impudence which one day will cost the welfare of your soul).

Hinted here to shameful and obscure meals with forbidden meats, such as had to be eaten alone; then you said of martinis, and of years of champagne drunk with many. Of reveries, you said, in hell, and in this short, such other things equally disconcerting and hard to conceive, that now I regret to have ever let you talk.

Are you alone in this crowd?'

'As I am in the world.'

'For that, fool, you seekest once the company of the dead!'

'At night I listen noises around the house from the hinges of a door that I got in an up room, that for this reason I never open. Behind that door, there's a room which I never use, from where it cries a voice to whom I pay no attention. Instead, I fetched some blankets and quilts which I used to tuck the entrance in attempt to smother that voice. But the damned called louder and louder, and soon, I found myself staring at the stuffed entrance, not knowing what next to do. The haunting voice muted always that I approached the damned door, and I could find no other solution than to fetch a chair, and to spend my nights seated at the door of that forbidden room.

In the daytime, through wherever I went, all over the house resounding, I could hear it still; still calling, still crying, "damned!" ' 'Oh, doomed man! With the words that here I will give you, tonight, you’ll silence that voice calling

inside your head.'

And Thomas begun.

'This is what tells you He, the Sovereign Ruler of earth kind.

"Though, you are perished among the perished, my hand can easily raise you back to among the living. Even if you are rotting, with dogs devouring on your limbs, that’s nothing to me. From my measuring, sunk the depths to their deepest abyss, rose the mountains until their highest peak, and it were laid the cornerstones which mark the width for the entrance to the paradise.

Who invented the suns and composed the constellations, constructed the soul to be indestructible, though, not to survive without its Maker; as I gave Man eyes to see, hears to listen and a mind to discerne.

Let deafness to the deaf, smallness to the little ones, the dawn to the early risers, the fruit for those who sow and the truth to those who seek it. Are you irreparably lost? From where is in the sea that a boat cannot reach a shore? Have you now so better eyes than those that I gave you, that you can see things to me impossible? Look around you; above; perceive as far as until the edges of the universe, and whatever you will find there missing, those you can tell my limits. Listen to my words; seek me, and my voice will silent all others. And, though you are dead among the dead, with phantoms devouring on your soul, a simple caress of mine, can easily bring you back to life."

'Who am I here,' started the man in shame, 'for you to consider me, or when in doubt, for you to comfort me and tell me that I still am? When was I righteous for you to care, or blameless for you to love me; or when did I loved you for you now to call me yours? When it was, that I don’t know, that I have been grace worthy for you to grant me with this grace?

There's not a place in the ocean for where a boat cannot reach the shore, but where is mine; my boat, my shore? Where is my ocean, and what place is mine in this ebbing tide?

Why do you turn at me your favourable eye, and do not cast me at once in the dungeons of forgetfulness? How dare my words now to hum upon your ears, or my soul to believe that one day will be saved?

Why do you slap me in the face with your benevolence, and your mercy comes now upon me as a rod felled on my wretched head?

What name did you called me that it's now worth to be written in your books, and I am authorized with this walk through your garden; Victorious? There's no other that you could find more unsuitable to this grace than I? What is a man, that after to recklessly lose his way to vices you give him the chance for him to find himself again?

Why did you forgive me when I accused you of all my ill-luck, and for had been made the laughingstock of the world? What did you still saw in me when I despised myself, and kept granting me with day after day when I wished nothing but death? What kind of amusement does a man's soul to yours, that you tempt it with temptations, burn it, and when is dying, damned you, you appear and wet its lips with your love?

Why are my joints still tighten, is to pull more loads for you, or must I have a body to expose my disgrace until all my guilt is atoned? Couldn't you, who all can, not just take me now to a mountain and melt me in its snows, or let the wind blow on me until would be nothing left?

For how long musty I to support everything? Does the beast that serves me on the field endure the same? Is the ground that I toil more worthy than I? Then, grant me but the comfort that forgotten, in it, I

can lay down and die.'

'This tells you He that is all!

"How far will you go to turn your back to your God? Should have a mouth, he, that reproaches his Maker? What is he that I took pains to taught him how to speak and now uses his words to tell me that it was not so? Are my decisions to follow your wisdom, or the Earth to set now on a course at your command? It was your breath that came into my nostrils instead, and Man who created their god? If your wisdom in such a measure surpasses mine, will you next gain breath and inform me of who am I? Can a blade be blunt or in my mouth be found words untrue?

Who pulled apart the four corners which hold the world together for you to dwell in? Have me in respect and obey my words, then see if I fail or late to deliver. It was your idea the Moon, or the World of Torments to punish the rebellious? Does not Law obey my counsels and Justice keep me in awe? Is for your name that men call with their last breath, or is to your observance that they command their soul when they're dying? It's you the commander of the angels, or the one who in the last day will settle to wake up the dead?

Who decided for you? Or are you a sort of man came out of the wind?

Of my words "I will come soon," you think to have been at long, that now you find me late and accuse me of being at fault. But what do you know about timing else than when your belly calls you to eat? What do you know about the road that you tread, or about the bump that stands in your way? What place is this? What is next? Are you unaware of it? For there is where my knowledge lodges.

Can you calculate the stars, or figure out by the white of my hairs how old am I? Can you, feeling comfortable and cheerfull, to discern what is behind this place that you know as existence; what is beyond? No?! For those are all things I made. Tell me for how long it will exist the Everlasting. What is an eternity? What is this image that can fill a capable mind with illusions? Sound your answer to those, and I will think you apt and fit and will lend you some reason. If you do not know about these things you see, how can you claim to know of the mysteries which I hid and artful concealed the meaning from you?

Oh, breath of fool! If you can't grasp the meaning of the things your eyes can see, how did you come to think to understand those which I veiled their motive and their reason ?

Pay attention to degree. If you over leap any you will reach but where naught is to hold, but from where you will be at reach of everything. The Great Creator is here at your disposal; do not dispose of Him as one that rejects his own live. You play and bet your soul every time that you chose to affront me, for my mercy is indeed endless, but your time is not."

'What can I say, now that you showed me how wrong I had been? The answers that I'm pondering, acknowledging my part, refuse to be told.

My soul, embarrassed to be in your presence, wishes only to have now a place to hide from you in shame.

Though, I will not hide; I will not run. No. I will stay in your presence as atonement for my wrong doings. Felled, though, instantly and firmly raised by the illustriousness of your hand.

These words...?' He asked Thomas still in trance.

'They were to you alone. I have no remembrance of them in my mind.'

The moment was solemn. The congregation was in silence pondering at those words from God when suddenly a murmur arose, as a man with a patch in one eye come forth carrying a raven in his shoulder.

'It's you who talks with God?' He started.

'My heart listens humbly to what He says.'

'Tell Him that my remainig eye is tired and asks for sleep.'

'You can tell Him yourself, if thus you think the time has come.

What happened with the other eye?'

'It's dead. One day I will feed it to the bird, and let him have the sight which once saw things the world would doubt.'

'You are a strange man.'

'It's not I who claims to listen voices the commons don't listen.'

'What would you do if that voice would settle your bird all in flames?'

'I would believe.'

'And so would we all. But such would not be faith when shown by evidences, and Man in his credence would find no merit.

Creature of uncommon vision, gazing at you my reason conceives nightmares while I'm still awake, and in my mind I look down on abysses through which I never thought to peer.

Let the Raven go.

'He can go, if he will, but he doesn’t want to. In me he found his god, and I, my loyal.

At night, his eyes often will become fiery, and he wild and impatient to leave. I open the window and he flies away to hover over the Land of the Dead. In the dull nights the cemeteries become alive. The ghosts of the dead arise empty through their graves from the under-world, to again have a part on this one; to senseless walk, and to more unrest.'

'Man of infamous companies! It was just monstrosities what you said. Your appearance well tells of your soul, wicked and immoral, attached in amity to a bird of doom. What brought you unto this world?'

'A woman, just like you.'

'Shameful liar! Some beastly creature it was instead, that roaming in the woods, felt the pains for your birth. The Moon mourned to watch and glowed faint, and rejoiced the kinds which dwell in caves and those that crawl. There's not a concave that didn't revelled. In hell, the demons in frenzy winked to each other; the Devil believed again that was possible, and arrayed all to victory, in earnest announced the host, "The tide has turned. Now I have a hope!" and he, who was nailed and died for us a bitter death, said to the Father, "Mind it no more. It was all in vain".

Phenomenal creature! let the Raven go.'

'He can go, if he will, but he doesn’t want to. He finds in me better company than among its specie.'

'Let him go to find its kind in hell.

Do you remember yesterday, or did you born now from somewhere to all this moment?'

'My yesterday didn't happen, though I remember the day before. I was in school, some one came to pick me up, and I never went to that school again. Then came the night, then I don't remember. When I woke up, I had already this nature of impossible, which makes me want what others say that it's not for me to achieve. They say that there are certain feats which the gods kept from mortals to be but of their own. That there is a limit to the glory that a man can reach; I said "no!" and all disdained and all ignored and went that way.

Often I wished to find who could point me the way next; then I heard about the church of the brother

Thomas and its prophet, and I thought that it could be you.'

'The way I point is demanding' 'As I am a man ready for a mission.'

'Go then, back, to that yesterday that you forgot; there was innocence and laughter under a pine-tree; you all together, and one who didn't know that soon would be dead. There she still is, smiling and playing with you; and you all, scattered pieces of broken a family. Then came the winter and you all died, each one in its own way. How did you forget?

Go back and remember. That's the way I point.

It grieves me, brothers, that I cannot give my life for the everlasting harmony of the world. I would go to hell as the most hated calling that deal a bargain. I did other way instead; I made of the world my peace and my happiness, that here may be extended to you.

The day is almost passed. Augustine is nodding menacingly, but we will go on. There's not one ordinary individual in this crew? (stern silence) Let us then listen another weirdo.

'Yes, me. I came from the countryside, where the women don't shave the armpits, and all through my life I knew nothing but quiet days.'

'Blessed man.'

'One day, though, I fancied to move to the city and become as those sophisticated fellows, and to meet there, the women who take care with those annoying hairs, and to see God, of who I heard said, despises the poor, and loath the men who plough the fields and furrow the land.

I settled to town in a mule, and after one week of travelling happy under good weather, I meet another one in my incoming way. He had left the city, where the women don't smell, to try to find rest in the countryside.

"Here, rest is all that you can find, pal!" I told him. And asked things of the city that I had always wished to know.

"Are there the roads all right?"

"They are."

"To where do they go?"

"Each to a different destiny; some to the same, others to nowhere."

"I fancy there the things are big."

"And more strive to grow."

"There the lights are out?"

"And doesn't care to glow."

"Then, men are blind!"

"And still go so."

"Cries there, or laugh, the moon, as the sun, with confident joy?"

"With countenance borrowed from the majesty, at night I see her looking vaguely upon the affairs of men, incapable of mourn or cheer; when Tonto and the Fool rest to another day of tireless action all across the surface of the globe. The latter burlesque the other a fool, they rise in the morning to plan devices how to shackle their freedom with a thousand chains, and gaily, to put themselves through hell. O, vile and ignominious action that not even the beast in the field is capable of; to bray at which no forage will ever come from; no nourishment to renew the strengths to the next day of toil.

Turn back, peasant! Drive this clumsy beast to where you came from, and go tell those you left, "I was a fool, but now the beast is in the stable and I am back home."

If I was you, who had met one as I on his way to give him advice, I would praise him not less than as a good friend, and by his words, I, my life would set a-right.

Through a route which would seem to none a path, I once made my ways. Let no deed for the Devil to brag that only he, and allowed to no man to have a louder voice to brag of his feats than I, neither to any to sink so deep.

To try to compare me with the commons, it would be as to figure out a way to compare God with the ants, or to reason at anything which could ever be brought into sense; why a certain constellation extends through its quadrant, or why there's out-there spread so many other suns like ours. Figuring these out, one would be ready to attempt to solve why I had in me this nature which from every prison always impelled me to escape, no mattering how high its walls.

At last, one day tired of my immoderate destiny, I sought to find my direction in the sky, but in the city the air was dirty, and the birds were dying in their fight.

It was when I decided to move to where the oaks age in peace; where in the Spring the stream awakes and jogs down the mountain, and where the sky has as many stars as it pleases one to wonder at."

"It sounds to me," I told him, "that the city is not place to be." Though, already taken by that fancy of mine, to reach where the women are fine, I took no heed of his words, and thus now, wearied, you see me here.'

'Break my heart with what breaks the heart of God! Do we have among us another errant creature?' asked Thomas to the strange assemblage.

'Here. I'm a vagabond. A nomad of the streets at night. And through my days I never knew anything but need. I have wills and wants as any man, though, waking up in the morning, I already know that through that day I'm destined to be the lowest, scorned and pointed out by my brothers who now are ashamed to recognise me in the street.

Now I'm intimate with thieves and those who crawl, and in this world, am sentenced to linger in other, in one which does not exist.

All my life was a chase after notoriety. What I lost I owe to this nature which always compelled me to go against, and to pursue wrongs as a pious chase not his virtue. Soon, I found myself with nothing to go after neither able to escape.

I faced my coming into this world as a game. Evil was my profitble business for a while, and in those days I was reverenced and feared by men. In that world there was no hope, no Almighty God nor other god of any kind. The days I counted wasting themselves by decades; the nights, by minutes, each as any man would shun to live, went clear. I tried to survive to that. Blurred all with some large droughts and wrought thus a vicious circle with me in the round.

My mind stopped to engender dreams, and in my sleep, though but darkness, often I woke up anguished and disgusted by what I saw; tried to sleep no more; thought the Devil got better than what I had, and went again to wander through the streets while all were asleep.

The bell from the tower told four o'clock. The streets are deserted, and I remember when I was a child going with my mother to the market.

"Mother," I would say, and squeeze her hand, "see, he's there! That one is my father."

"No little boy. He's dead! Your father died long ago."

Now, I'm dead too, in a world that is so alive that is dizzy and inebriated; lost composure, and for a straw all put at stake.'

'Come! God is needing of a warrior.'

'But I no longer fight. The enemy killed my wills and took from me what now no god has power to bring back.'

Disreputable man! You set all the pungency of the Almighty at a trifle, and thus think, that the plays that you play you play. There had been a few men like you before; who stepped the ground with fury as if all the world was theirs; egocentric and megalomaniacs, which conquered all but the ground under their feet, where every man comes to collapse. Men to who their share meant all; who challenged the gods, and merrily, onward bent to hell. In a moment they died, then cold and rotting, as the commons.’ A dwarf came forth hardly noticed.

'Say, boy, what do you want?' Thomas addressed the tiny creature. 'Are you lost? Since that I was your size, to anywhere that I wanted to go, to everywhere, I went alone.'

'I'm not a boy. I'm a man! All my life I felt shortened for my hand could not grasp where others reached; vexed because I could not go so high. Though, when I dreamt I forgot my size; my infinite soul was then free, and throughout the nights I wished as wildly as any man. My spirit was as of a lion's, my heart strong as of a mountain bear; and I came through all, aged, always unable to grow.

Today my frame kept as of a child, and my soul as of a man who lived through a thousand years; incapable of one more dream. With my form ungracious, it pleased Fortune to give me less than to other men, who a bounteous measure made fair and tall, and inheritors of the Dark Land. Of sound legs and stature strong, they scorn and treat with contempt one weakly framed and frail of bones.

To ask to a man in my presence not to be contemptuous, it would be as one ambitious to aspire that at request, a cow could cease to act like a cow, or to anything else not to do according to its nature, expecting the same result of one who would impend to wrought merry features upon the tedious face of the moon, or set to add to the rainbow one more coloured arch. Yea, one more cub to the Great Bear, or undertake to make more gorgeous the magnificent splendour of Heaven, with an ounce of earthly gold.'

Brothers, here I must say the day was plain.

Augustine is in a hurry to close. Close, I say, the doors, for the windows, no one can shut up! Let him be keeping in safety what the world considers, for we, here, value something different. Here we regard words of wisdom, and the sayings of the philosophers of old.

And who is that more philosophy will bring us next?'

'Unfortunately, a man not wise,' answered one stepping forth from the crowd. 'Hard learner and old repeater of mistakes.'

'With those one can learn the best. Tell us all what to avoid.'

'Days like mine. I'm a man who, as a fool, squandered how much he had.

In my youth never I allowed upon me authoritative hand, and in those days what I conceived as being free, it was to oppress the others. First the family at home, then the world, in a ruthless life I lived, where to arrive at home at night it was by itself a major feat. My idea of living my life was wasting it, and as a careless trifle to cast it all away and smile. In those days, I looked at the world waving at me and I thought that I was doing well, for they consider only the successful. Instead, I was going to further away

of my happiness at each day, until an extreme, that I thought that such word was but a utopia; a mocking tale which told of something eternally kept from men, given only to the inferior creatures. Behind a pair of jovial eyes, I hid my tormented self. My thoughts showed me the plain, and I not to listen, rather would say, "Here! Come another beer!" Though, they kept urging me louder and louder; at each day with more mandatory voice, until that I decided to stop and give them listen. When I was expecting reproach, piteously they cried, as only a mistaken man's thoughts can. The moan lasted until that with all voices happy and silenced, it became a joy every time I thought.

Now only with metaphors I can express myself, and of all I find ways to say in wedlock with something different, revealing thus my paths and keep them still secret to myself.

Of whom I was before there's nothing left, and today, I rather bury with pride than mourn over it; seeing a new road, I accept my way ahead, and follow at each day, depending on who the birds depend, and trusting in who they trust.'

'Metaphorical man, now you said it plain.

Brothers, who can make us forget the serious matters for a while telling now an exciting tale?'

'I could tell here words so wild, as you would think only today had gone out of numbness and turned living thing, disdaining all that stood behind.

Man of letters, philosophy begot me, and I came into this world by a hole in the ground, when the hour came near the twenty fourth, of a night forgotten of many years ago,' said one appearing no common man. 'And if now I go between comas and parenthesis, in chichi texts, addicted to a thesaurus book as a glutton is to nourishment, and all that causes me nothing but to moan, once I lived an exciting live.

In those days I joined the crew and sailed the seven seas.

Through tempestuous skies and forbidden routes, for years we had Luck as companion of our voyages.

Here a brief statement about the Capitan. He started in the Merchant and soon got a boat of his own, with which he made his living catching the Alaska tuna, and the cod in the Bearing Sea. Tales were told about him as he had spent the years of his youth among the Sirens, until one day, at last, could break from their charms.

He had lost some good men swept over-board and never would turn back for them, but rather would say, "Receive them, God! They are your lot," and stubbornly keep on his course. Among the crew men said that he had no heart, and that was only the snaps what was keeping him warm.

Once we decided to harbour on the shores of Haiti, where is art to make men awake from death as from a nap, and to buy there for ourselves a living dead. Once arrived, in a tavern we inquire about, until someone told us of a cousin of his who made them fine, and took us there.

The maker of soulless bodies was a jovial and lively man rather than the dull taciturn that I was expecting to find. The Capitan made announcement at what we came. The wizard left, returning presently dragging a few leached doped men. They in a sort of row, we had just pointed the one we liked and pleased us better, and the lively man, nimble and with the dexterity of a butcher, pulled of a dagger and slew the unhappy fellow in which our lot befell with a deep cut through his neck.

"Fool!" cried the captain, "it gone look bad. Plunge it on his side." But all too late. There was blood everywhere. The good man collapsed; jerked his body in agony, emitted some heinous groans, which all finished, we paid the wizard for his labour and went to bury the body.

"See you soon, pal," we told him, but there was no ‘soon’ to this fellow, and for four long days and nights we waited, as inconsolable matrons, at the feet of that man's grave. Until one night when the moon was great, he, mostly as a new-born turtle, dug himself out.

Rarely a common has such an assemblage for his death, in those parts of the world where is held as custom to burry only the rich, and our zombie seemed morbidly surprised with the committee.

Glad and hopeful, and with all predicting great things, we brought on board our living-dead, singing chants that lasted all night long.

He was a negro with a friendly countenance, and even now, after spent four days dead and rotting on the ground, one could tell that once he had been a good spirited fellow, though, now with eyes so deeply sunk on his caved semblance, that had he told to one he didn't slept for a thousand nights, one would believe him, as credit at once how many miseries more he could tell, as truth.

The cut in his throat was too severe, near separating the head from the body, what made us think that this fellow might have some debt to his keeper or was not in the list of his most regarded ones. Now, when the jerks of the ships were the most mighty, the poor fellow couldn't help but to hold it, or his head would bend backwards. Such caused a wave of good disposition with all company laughing heartily, and we tried to make him to join our moods, but he only stood there, staring vaguely, with motions on his face of one who is about to cry, or in plight to pretend that all is all right. We all wondered at what he could be thinking, this man now so changed from who he once was. If still would be pride or gallantry on him, or what other trait now? Or was he but a dead man in his struggle?

All made me feel bad for mocking him. For that I always poured double portions of whisky down his throat. He enjoyed the effect though loathed the procedure, and all with such vehemence, that two men were needed to restrain him while other poured down the drinks.

He exhaled a fetid stench which one's senses regarded with anguish, and I could see mirrored in his parched eyes that we hurt him further, when to eat we squeezed our noses if he chanced to be at the table.

He, then, as any vexed man, would turn askance his morbid stare, and while with countenance adverted thus, would stay for long space musing, methinks, at his days at home, where, though poor, he was still treated like a man.

He never ate though enjoyed the wine, after the which the crew would sing and he would dance around the deck, in a pitiful uncoordinated motion as one reads, fare those who traverse in hell. To see him was tedious as to get an old dog drunk and stay gazing at it trying to find the way back to its hole, for he had that unbalanced gait with which all of his kin go about, what made all for him harder. And for that we pitied our pal and told him often that he was one of us.

"Sit here, my good man, of comfort and life bereft. Tell us how fares with you." But he would stare at us with his pair of sad eyes miserably sunk on their sockets, and rather keeping stern silence, would never a word pronounce, and I, who was there trying to decipher the dead man's mind, horror and terror are light terms to describe what then I could apprehend.

He, though, thus pauper in his speech, would keep for hours seated at the stern listening to our inflated stories of the sea, as a devoted pupil taking careful heed of the good teachings of his master, with such eager attention, as if to him nothing else mattered in the world. That made us respect him even if he was not really alive, for he was not really dead either. And for that we praised him and got him as a brother, and all pointed as good hour, the moment when he clumsily stepped on board. We enjoyed what

new and peculiar we discovered in our pal at each day, living he in a state so different from ours; a man living dead.

I had always feared death, though, seeing it now at each morning so well told in his eyes, it couldn't torment me no more.

At this time, our comradeship was such, that any man on board would give his life for the fellow's, and count it as good hap, to die a desperate death and to lose that last battle among the savage billows.

Brother to brother, a son to his father, or to the mother who brought him unto this world, a greater regard is not demanded, than was for him at our eyes.

We try to find ways to make his time more pleasant on board, though there we had a situation, for none could remember of anything to make the dead man cheer. It was when our mate, a man more given to folly and friend of a good prank, came up with the idea of disguise himself with the traits of our zombie, and appear at night dressed like a woman, to join the crew at supper. The sailors, base men, gave their approval; the Capitan consented it; and I feared taking another draught.

At night, when we were all seated, anxious to see the outcome of that, in our zombie we poured large measures of the strongest we had. For the mate had upon him the rude traits of one who contends with the sea for many years, and his guise was capable of scare the Devil back hell.

When the moon had just risen from her bed of black satin sheets, the mate appeared at the prow, in such revolting figure that he seemed more disgusting than the dead man, who could cause nausea so plenty in all.

He came dressed in a skirt ridiculously short; a red hood and mounted on the highest heels I had ever seen, which he thought proper and good to wake our zombie's lust.

Looking at the mate's figure, so hideously cut against the full-moon light, he seemed but a creature just come out of hell.

We, seeing him there, one pointed him pretending good surprise.

"Lo! Good!"

"If I wasn't married, from now on I wouldn't follow single," said other in jest. The crew whistled and all made approving sounds to the ghastly dame.

So well our mate imitated the zombie's gait, that took him good fifteen minutes to walk from the prow until he could join us at the table.

Our zombie seeing the mate approaching so like his dreams would compose if he still could sleep, was enchanted, and after gazing marvelled as if he could again see the sun, rose and went to try his luck.

The mate was no green man, but one hardened by many years of sea, and used to sailor's pranks, who thought himself ready for what the brine could do him worst. Though, no tempestuous skies or the revolted tides, nor the Devil with all his host, could get him ready for what next befell his lot.

Our zombie, moved by no common passion, approached him; the mate cried a pair of tears. The dead man ripped off one of his ears which he extended to our mate in token of his eternal love. The mate, as a bride who at the altar in the last moment repents, made as to run away, though so high the heels that he collapsed headlong on the deck, as a construction announcing ruin from the first.

The crew laughed soundly; our zombie mourned in silence.

A few men rose to try to stand the mate, which at the end of many tries still couldn't be done, and both were seated side by side at the table; the zombie and his fiancĂŠ; now all dejected and pale as a sheep

coat.

Our zombie was a happy man.

Now he only to our mate had eyes. He no longer listened to our tales of fortune with the sea, but only to him he would turn his gaze, as a man trying to have fulfilled in an instant his infinite measure of passion.

In these sweet tokens of love, which melted the eyes of all, the night was spent.

The mate rose with the sun and hasting in a somewhat more hastily gait than our zombie could follow, as ghost or apparition, again disappeared from where he came, until whiles after came himself to join us at the table.

The zombie he found then was a different zombie, made anew by the hands of passion.

Now distant and apart, where once friend and confidant, he no longer would follow us onto the stern, but would keep station for long gazing at the sky and sea, and as I feared, when in the following night the mate couldn't be convinced into the role again, and his bride didn't appeared, then could the bounteous measures of snaps no longer cheer him, but moaning he stood at the prow, exhibiting his dull silhouette against the bright moon-shine.

At last, and when faring the sun already high in the sky, he quitted his post, vexed as a man when beaten by fatigue, is forced to leave from the watch of his late son, with many moans and slow gestures, which seen from afar, broke the heart of how many who beheld them.

This mate, who couldn't be attractive even to a swarm of flies, had appeared to break our zombie's heart and disturb our merry peace.

What had made him cheer, had turned him to more dull than before. He was in-love. He had met another lonely soul and thought, "Why not? If we are the both of us lonely." But it couldn't be done neither to him explained why.

Next day we asked him, "for God sake!" our mate, "One last time, if you are brave", until that at the end of many vehement requests and mean measures of snaps, he agreed to do the gruesome one more time.

The mate appeared at the prow that night in the same array as before, only then ten inches shorter.

Seeing her again, our zombie rose making some heinous groans, rejoicing as his betrothed approached, and the couple aimed to each other in a dead motion which some there feared would never have an end.

Passed some long and tedious whiles the couple finally embraced, to great delirium and contentment of all. The crew clapped, some hard men cried, and the great moon told of her approval discovering a silvered path until the threshold of God. When at last they joined us, in our zombie's face could be seen entire satisfaction. And if is true the creed, that says that a god created the earth, and that angels are in heaven to exult for a happy man's joy, that night they revelled, or our happiness does not move them at all.

As when in the hot season in India, the humid clime brings about the monsoons, and though summer, the sky is for so long space not seen, as the rainy clouds for months paint in a constant the horizon all with grey. And the child, who just now starts to percept the world, muses sadly that it is all made of raining in a poor man's lot, when at last sees the sun peeking through the clouds, and while standing gazing at the warm star afar, there without ask is told, and without understand understands, and there

apprehends her sense of existence and the meaning of life; such horizon found our zombie in our mate's face, after for a long winter, grey clouds had covered his sky.

The company sung a funeral tune and the couple made a sort of dance, dragging their melancholic bodies morbidly around the deck.

The maid's hand was moistening; the groom held it tight. His other her waist embraced, and gently closed their tights. The lads were wild; they tried to swallow; their mouths were dry. The eyes of all was announcing cheer, but for the grooms', which told of an endless plight.

At the moonlight, with tender embraces, the couple made promises and exchanged vows of eternal union of their souls, which could only listen the breeze of the briny sea.

And more it passed, and more was seen, as to tell would move us all to tears.

With many a slow gesture the night was spent. The sun was already high in the sky, as reproaching the maid for had stood too long. Our zombie knew that was her time to go. And the boys sung one more tune, and the couple danced one more dance, and through the prow, the zombie-girl seemed to vanish into the air. The mate reappeared, vexed and muttering curses to the god who had delivered him with such fate, and loathing to be convinced into that again.

Night after night our zombie waited inconsolable and in vain, until one evening, when none of us was expecting such impetuous and unreflected act, he slowly walk himself overboard into the inauspicious waters. A few men jumped after him. And now our mate could be heard among the waves, calling disconsolate for our friend, as a desperate wench rueing the loss of her best. Though, nothing could be done, and we lost him to great despair and consternation of all. The sad is the fellow couldn't die again, and we suffered bitterly, and moved us all to anguish, to imagine our friend seated then at the bottom of the melancholic ocean, regretting the loss of those he loved, or pacing forlorn the long shores of some desert land, trying to understand what place is his in this world.'

'You said here some blasphemous words,' said Thomas still recomposing himself from the disconcerting tale. 'Don't you fear the Devil?'

'I fear syphilis; a part of water unto wine, and fools at command! Three major evils of which a man is not free from.

Bring me peace and I will tear it all to pieces! and wise treats, if they tell of other else than not of war. Hey! Ho! Call the scribe! And I will decree a thousand ordeals and sacrifices.

To this eternity, what is already spent be added. Recede the ever gone one inch backwards, and the distant to two steps beyond. Pass the camel widely through the needle eye, and those who still talk of hope, let them be mocked as beggars at the square or marketplace. From today on be the truth less true and come the sun for less upon the earth!'

'Wicked man! To make me fear. Go announce to your mother, "Rue, bitch! Your litter died!" Listen now words capable of save your soul.

As when through a savage sea a bark is at the will of the storm, with one surge rising to wet the welkin’s cheek, in the next to lay despondent at the ocean's bottom, before again be tossed to whatever fate God pleased better. And now, with the might of the ocean, the pitch starts to fail at keeping the water out while the stressed beams creaking inauspiciously, tells to all in the galleys their deaths will be dire.

Until a wave comes upon the deck sweeping some men overboard, while the fortunate remain only to fear more for their lives. When the captain, gazing at the sky where the rest sees but cares and plight, cries to

the crew, "Hold on, lads! For it's passing." And indeed, almost as soon as he speaks these words, a beam of light first appears breaking through the horizon, until at last the whole sky does clear. Alike, in the middle of our storm, in whatever distressed bark its yours, I tell you to hold on and to resist, and to be courageous, for the harbour was made for the weak vessels, while the mighty, to bring adventurous tales from the high seas.

It's limited what a room or a warehouse can storage, or many warehouses, but for the size of what a man's soul may contain, only the boldness of his character can dictate a limit.

Now it's time to end, brothers. For last let me announce that in the next Sunday we will hold a cult down on our basement, at nine o’clock. I would like to invite all of you...those at least who can climb steep stairways, to be present. We will have an invited orator. A man forbidden from lecturing in several countries, including the US. Billy Graham called him "a bastard" in the national television. Hunted by Islamic radicals, and conservators from the Irish Orthodoxy, he is now crossing the border crammed in the trunk of some car.

We were together for the last time some years ago, when we organised a two men operation and crossed the Mekong into China, with a boat loaded with holy books. Nature tried to warn us not to; tried to find still on shore a way to tell us that our purpose was good but our plan was foul, and brought there such a storm as I have never witnessed the like. We, however, took no heed and went ahead with the planned, and in the bleak night into that rapid and inauspicious current. As we advanced the sky thundered, and with lightning’s made for short flashes all brighter than day. We never feared! At each minute, the treacherous flow tried to swallow us, and only the mighty hand of God kept us safely floating.

We crossed and arrived at the other side with my comrade without shirt, like mad, holding the ropes and shouting to the storm the name of God. Once in China's soil, the agents of the red regime surprised us unloading our holy cargo. I could escape with bullets whistling above my head, and after to contrive a sort of raft with all what I could find that could float, I, with serious doubts on my raft and with all my faith in God, launched myself again down the current trying to survive it the best I could. At last I reached the safety of the other margin, now to face my imminent death, hiding by day and running afoot by night, lost somewhere in the jungles of the Golden Triangle. Which country I was stepping I did not knew; Myanmar; Vietnam; Laos...all were deadly to myself, there, in the lands of the Red Crescent, if I couldn't avoid the drug lords of the region, or the ruthless forces of the Khmer Rouge.

My partner and friend was caught by the foul regime and went under torture to reveal my identity, and plans for further operations, which discovered, would mean my immediate death, no mattering where I hid. He never told them anything besides, "May God forgive you." Even when they, one by one, amputated the five fingers of his right hand, he said, "May God forgive you". We called ourselves The Mighty Sheep, and a mighty sheep fears no wolf.

Brothers, here we finish our service. Come next Sunday and meet this audacious doer of good.

III The Deliverance

As when after the night be spent, the dawn appears announcing the morning in its trail, and at the first hues of the new day, the zealous shepherd puts on his cloak and to the fields does haste. First nimble, he, then so wrapped in wonders, slacks and distracts his gait. Until he halts, and the animals with such ever seen, bray for pasture, the whiles that he remains there, forgotten of them and of himself. In alike amazement Thomas found himself while on his way to open doors to another day of service of the most irreverent church that Rome has ever disclaimed. Thomas knew it an omen for the day then starting and went from there counting with adversity. Ahead, a crow was picking, a pigeon appeared and scared him away. Then a sparrow came down the pigeon, ravaged wildly, though from the morsel it could not feed.

'Great portents are this!' Thomas cried rising his hands. 'Hell is about! Hell is about!'

Next thing worth of note happened as Thomas reached his threshold. On a carriage, the mounts disagreed in the direction and followed straight, vexing the conductor. "It was this what I told thee?" He cried scourging the beasts. Two moles came at the surface and gazed delighted at the sun, for whiles liking the warm; and nearby, from a litter of nine, all died and none survived.

Thomas frowned and talked with the gods who were showing him those.

Feeling feelings hard to conceive, Thomas stood facing his door.

As when in dread a warning is issued that a maniac is on the loose, and in his spree is visiting families at home, killing them all in their sleep. And now one of it just informed, alarmed and distressed rushes to his, all within in tumult, and outside in frenzy stays with callings and at the window pelting pebbles, though nought he listens and none he sees, seeming as if all he cared about by then none alive.

And desperate now he runs to the door, the poor man, not knowing what else to do good, decided to break in, in fearful apprehension for what inside he may find; thus moved, Thomas opened the door of the sacred place.

As he went in, he felt a stench which almost made him again come out. Thomas wondered at what it could be and aiming to where the smell seemed to come the strongest, he reminded the deliverance received just two days before.

'Why this offensive smell from it?' he wondered while laying the package on a table to open it.

Thomas was horrified as soon as he opened the lid. The box had the head of a lamb which eyes and ears had been atrociously removed. Obviously, that was supposed to be a message.

Augustine arrived and peeked appalled at the head inside the box.

'Another day fabled with terror will go on in the church of the brother Thomas,' he cried. 'Tell those about to born "Come not!" and to the widows who mourn, "The wretches are you." To the father who buries his son, "Do cheer," and to the tearful infant who beholds the corpse of his dead parent, "Be glad,"

for this world, the Devil owns it.'

'Not yet, Augustine. Haste! All will proceed as usual. They come craving and we will fulfil them.'

Augustine greeted those just arrived.

'Welcome to the church of the brother Thomas, you, who your brothers cannot forgive. If when you should see peace, peace is not what you see. If in this world wrong, you perceive no right, and thinks now the Devil got it all. If it has become to you dull the sunset, with the birds all returning to their nests, and when looking to nature you long to kill it, and when hunting the game, never for once, deliberately, missed the shot, I got good tidings, you came to the encounter with the surfeitness of your soul, and the happiness that comes by its own.'

Not long was passed until the audience was composed. Thomas glanced at the assemblage with such serene countenance as inspired plenty of calm in all, and presently discourse disclosed.

'Today I pick up a stone and cast it at him who affront me, and desecrated the house of God, as if but a disreputable brothel, where cheap liquor is consumed among women of low moral. I hit him in the head, and tell him that God is revenged, for the man he could never offend. It will be a different day that here begins. For this morning, the Devil took time to face and to look me in the eye. If a woman had been with me, I would tell her "laugh", though, alone, my mood told me to do nothing else than to spit on the ground and challenge he, who, if but challenged, will run. Today, brothers, challenge your enemy and win.'

'Once,' started a one of the presents, 'I greater favour found in being servile for the portion which rich men didn't want, than I could see in the bright of the sun, gilding the everyday nature's bounteous treasure. Thus, I followed little through my insipid life, striving to grow in ways which reduced me more.

In the vicious circle, of the beast and I, I had been eaten, and now me and the beast were one. For years we followed glad, the unhappy pair, of which one was dead.

In me live started early,' he said, seeming trying to recall a dream at long gone. 'Being but a child, I saw Death standing in front of me; ghastly and all arrayed for carnage. The sky darkened. Sloths in dread rushed down from trees and hasted away. Dogs were beheld conversing in the streets in human tongue; a cab arrived, and I was taken. Such was to be remembered, as The day of the great decision, and the helmsman stirred all to where was night and cold.

I was ten. They were three of a poor family, and now one more was too much. Not welcomed, soon I left, taking way upon the rough road, that makes blisters in the feet and boys turns into men. O! Don't ask me to tell the names of those who ran. It's enough if the Devil take their souls, such lot already dispirited, of hearts not more disposed than coward dogs. I would that God had known better and killed their mothers while still little wenches playing in the sun, all regardless of what passion is.

Then left youth, comeliness, and other loyals such as they. And I found myself one day, clarified at last, plainly seeing and loathing the view.

Today, no man heavier than I when I put my cloak.'

'Repent while is time.'

'What have I done wrong?'

'To ask What have I done wrong. Such didn't ask the Holy when for the sinfull He died. But we, seem to see virtue in the excuse, and when looking at the patch, we perceive the whole cloth. And thus, in our illustrious bark, we exhibit a mended sail, when we put our finest vests to our daughter's marriage, dress

ceremoniously to accompany a man to his last, and clad poorly to see the King arrive. This unnatural behaviour is the cause of our grievance, and the reason why we ceased to have expectation, and at night fear the moments and the days to come, and thus perplex, when excitement should be the mode.

Sing, Augustine. Sing a hymn. Sing that one I like; The Devil broke his leg twice.

One day I will meet the Devil, but you, Augustine, God himself will come to earth to accompain your soul up to heaven.'

Thus was going in the congregation that vexed God while it praised him.

'Can you interpret dreams?' asked one with affliction written on his nervous gaze.

'I do.'

'Tonight while I dreamt I found myself in a forest, and during the frightful whiles that I in my fancy stood, I beheld passing before my eyes seventy-three monkeys, each one seeming older than the last; and away they went all in haste. Then an iron eagle came to snatch me away and I woke up from my dream.'

'Through and across, and dynamic as a flash of thunder in the sky, this perplexing conundrum I can see. Peers not more plainly the sun across clear sky. The odd number of animals imitative of the human gait, tell of the many Springs as it befell your lot to see. The iron eagle stands for your death. Rejoice. The Lord had been bounteous.

Brothers, I, who nothing can escape me, rather am attentive and alert as a cat in the night, received a message from the under-word saying that I have no sight, neither with my ears can listen. The two major evils with which a man can be fated with. All for I refused to see what is not real, either pay attention to sounds futile and annoying. The eyes were taken, and gladly I would give mine, and the ears I don't care for them, but to the perception of the spirit, and to the prophetic arts of divine root.

Carrier of a weight which strong men would call too much, at night I lay though I don't rest like other men, but until the morrow God speaks and I listen, a speech in melody and in substance.

And today, brothers, the morning rose to show me with such haps, as the common men would turn incontinent, and women scare to their graves.

I then, my fibre strong, with thoughts must strengthen, as a role of more dire events occurred. Such as one would think fit to precede the birth of the Anti-Christ, or herald of the moment when the Beast is to rise from the sea.

For the whiles that I stood in front of my door wrap in wonder, I saw myself in a desert, vast, all made of nothing but desolation until where the eye could perceive. Through the dunes I discerned afar one coming, worried and in haste, seeming to tell things which I couldn't listen. "Go back!" he cried in frenzy when more near he came. "It's not yet your time!" Getting near I could recognise his face...is

my older me. I tried to speak, yet with all my effort emitted no sound. He endeavoured a smile which his lips never parted to show, and waved at me with the hands of an old man.

I was he; he was I, or I was his son, and he the dark passenger who the past has taken to somewhere uncertain. He is dark, you're dark and I'm dark, for life is but a fainting shadow passing under the light.

In the next instant I was out of the fit, the vision vanished as if made of smoke, and again I saw me standing at my threshold.'

'Through many years I roved in a desert as well, though of a different kind. It happened when my heart swollen so greatly, and so far in my presumption was I, and eager to prove my capacities to the world, that I bought a ship, and placed at the helm, twenty times I saw the earth going around the sun,

before I quitted my station!' said one gazing as one looking at the Spring arriving after the Winter.

'Navigating all around the poles and through those deserts of water, never I approached the main, rather was always one man at the sea, in days when the sea was so scarce. In days in which all what is given a man to sail, is a current of waters mild, as in a bounded lake, where for some small coins one can row about, first impending in a direction at will, then to follow the others who go around in circles, sailors of a small navigation in the great charts of the mighty ocean, who sailing across a smooth sea, chose to go with tempestuous bark.

I had a boatswain once, the most coward man that ever a mother delivered into this world. Such base creature as would drink not more than two, and blush at the door of bawd-houses.

A mariner as could not tell the prow from the stern, and when asked about the bowsprit, would say it was the trait he had lost when young.

Such unmanly one, as when perceiving the seller poor, would not negotiate until the price be less than half the fair, but instead, fond of tell the truth and to do good. One dispirited, as would shun to patch a coat with sackcloth, but drink milk and care for fruits and vegetables.

And this unworthy I engaged, promising me solace and relief during the storm. My hands were hard around the helm. He said he was qualified, and I pulled him on board.

One night I heard a voice calling from the swell. At last, with some looking forward I discerened one embracing a wreck, and after a short brief maintain, I decided to throw him a buoy.

In the beginning the hours were made somewhat more pleasant. Though his story was tedious, and he insisted to tell me all about it concealing nothing.

His father had gone mad and his mother was poor; one sister had joined a convent. He had a nut aunt and two friends who never returned, and such other boredoms life has brought him, as to tell would kill us both with tediousness. I mocked his fortunes and the way he climbed the top mast; nimble and in a hurry, as if hopeful of from the basket to see God, or a new world to where he could lead us both.

Through the storms one would see him prizing his life like a rat, holding it dear, and thing capable of still one day bring gladness and crying, praying to his God. My fierce temper would admonish the elements; the storm subsided showing the sea again under my power. At last he would crawl back from where he hid; merry and joyous as king David when leading back the ark, saying that his god had saved us again. The insolent! A thousand demons now fetter his mouth, who told me that a body was not be made for idleness; and that was improper to a man to nourish himself with three bottles of wine at supper, and to make society with spongers and yes men, such as would have as lief to be servile for a ten-pence piece, as to make a good one for their souls. Such effeminate lad as would cut his toe nails every other month, read books, and at dinner would disdain the cod's head and turn to peal his apples. And like silly wenches, he would sprinkle fancy aromas on himself which the nose acknowledges with pleasure, and brush his teeth before to bed.

Ten years passed, and his hairs were all white as mine, and no smooth sea or sunny day could bring again to his face a smile.

Now he told no stories. In fact, it had been years since last he spoke. One night another storm turned the sea into a hell. I saw him standing on the deck holding the ropes and gazing at the sea as if he had never seen it before.

"Won't you pray to your god?" I asked him. He made no answer as usual. He died that night. I threw

him over-board, and in the sea remained just me; watchful as Palinurus, of hands hard around the helm.'

'Dread ocean that yours. The same if the winds blow or if they slack.

Listen now a story,' Thomas said to the audience, 'that all this case reminds me of. One night the Devil was on revelry, and two of my neighbour's three children took away. It was thought that it had been some wild berries the children might had eaten, but the certain was that almost all which this man cared for had been taken from him, and he lost the mood to look after for what was left, and he rather if they had just gone all. And indeed, a few weeks after his wife eloped with a neighbour taking with her the little girl, who used to be the light in his eyes when all alive, and now no longer could make shine.

Once I decided to make him a visit. Knocked at his door with a bottle, and soon in front of me was standing a gloomy man. He saw the wine and in dismay invited me in. We seated at the fire and as he was filling the cups, these words made known.

"I sowed a field and the Devil came to harvest it. All was silent and I couldn't listened the thief plundering my treasures, and letting of my two sons but their dear dead bodies, which I found in the morning with the visages so calm and tender, that one would tell two angels were asleep. O! opprobrious night, that settest to ever again go clear! Courage and valour, all annulled; come the heavy to the surface and what should flow go sink. Be it checked the everlasting in its lenght; what was made to advance be hindered; continuity and the infinite all dismantled; and die Time and go to darkness, for a father has held in his arms his dearest sons dead bodies.

After I found them, and as mad run around the house, opening the widows and crying onto the streets, "The Devil took all while I slept", I surrendered to such grief that I forgot myself and others, and just wished to go search for my two sons in the land where now they were. Through days and nights I thought those thoughts that fill the mind with darkness, and while treading still in the world of the living, I was going as one of the dead; so unwilling I was, and vexed, with the idea of another day.

Later I started to hallucinate and saw the end of the world, and standing at the window of my room, I perceived afar, marching in array, the armies of destruction, with the One announced coming at the head of all, to wake up those marked to die. He commanded and his orders were immediately fulfilled, yet, he was not satisfied, and he can never be satisfied; and he rages more having men subdued, feasting on their souls while they sleep. Now it hurts me to listen the silence around the house once so full of life."

The doleful man paused to fill another glass. The bottle was half-empty, time for I to go in rescue of the truth.

"The perdition of a man," I told him, "lies not in what leaves him, but in him to let his self to part with it. I could tell you here a tale which would make the steps Christ trod to the Calvary seem solace and a joyous walk. Here you see one who early called the attention of the Severe Judge, who issued the laws in heaven and in hell.

I, mother never had, and father died in my dreams before I ever could see his face. Thus, I was given to adoption, and to be chosen as a dog from a litter. A thousand times I stood for proof and failed the approval! At night I could not sleep. My soul was dark and scared. Soon it would be time to stand in line again, as an old dog, faintly wagging is tail, staying there seeming trustful and trying to please. One night three of us bit the guard with stones until his brain was spattered all over the pavement, and ran away, alone, each one to his fate.

So I tell you, if now you had seen the Devil through his back, I had been face to face with it many

times, and this I can say; if here you will frown, there he will make you cry."

The bottle was empty. I left and both became friends.

Thus, the same I tell you all, if here you will bend, ahead you will crawl.

Brothers, never a man came fulfilled, who started not with a joyous heart, and never a heart was joyous that was not pure. If you agree, the direction to follow next seems clear.'

'Here is one whose fulfilled got only his share of troubles and lonely walks,' one with an air bewildred. 'Early I understood the world was no common thing and to have come here walk in it, as to have won a lottery that for long I rued to had got the ticket.

It happened during my irreverent years, when I tried to build but was given to destruction first, and to challenge death was by then common feat; as to plan entire operations before step out of the house, things tedious and boredoms here to tell. To where I went, I felt a cloud was covering out the sky. In the horizon, the fumes of the old city, where the Sun didn't ever shone, with the grey and gloomy buildings, unpleasant as the dump weather, formed a dark roof above the dwellings, inside of which the people were sad. In the grey city there were the factories; the dormitories; a hospital, and a court to rule their disputes.

Often cases arrived about the sun don't ever shine, and from among the citizens, witnesses were chosen to be at favour or against. Once came to trial the case of a little boy against the Mayor, when the child first going to school, couldn't be convinced the sun existed.

'What's that against the good thrift of my city?' The Mayor asked in court. Though, he lost the case.

They closed the little boy in a room, and at the Mayor's expense, it was brought to the child a picture of the sun.

Yet, for my cloud no portrait can avail, for no image can show me the past ahead again.'

'Nostalgia killed the rabbit, so God said is a sin.

Brothers,' said Thomas raising his hands as a man who after a long winter sees again the sun, 'from here I see fury from outrage burning fiery inside of you. A right of yours which only by giving up of it, you can stop to be the victim of whatever that came to affront you.

Who's next to share what his soul got within?'

'It's gone be loathsome,' cried a weird figure. 'The part I can add will desecrate the days behind and make all men of good to leave wearied home.

I'm a villain, who mother won't mind seeing in a coffin for a grade of good Chardonnays. Attentive as a fox, I'm a man who ever knew law or rule, and until today, rather my rebellious nature told me what next to do, than one pondered decision, or anything else than a ruthless instinct.

In my young days I saw men as opportunities, instead of seeing in them another one like me.

Chivalry and honour, to myself then things of nought; gallantry and state, dregs and concerns, to a man living each day in a hurry, it seemed, to end.

I could never taste the delicacy of the moment, but to myself, all was rather unsavoury, indigest and harsh to palate, than delectable as life should be.

Thus, opened the window of my room to a world in which I didn't befitted.

Then came the moment which demanded a change.

It was a delicate situation and things as they were could not go on. And even then, I kept with the old modes. I had always been a weak man; though in a way, though weak where it most mattered. With no basis, I survived living always on top, and when looking down I couldn't see anything but a colossal fall. I

smiled, delayed the change like a coward, and to myself thought, "I'm brave. Is not the April sunny and the December cold? I'll hold." Though, each December came the coldest, and at each day the sun went to shine to further away, until one day it couldn't go any further with me still breathing. Even then I thought, "I'm brave. To women concerns to be meek and men to be bold. I'll hold." Until that what was going was a body whose soul was crying sad at the side of the way. One night I dived until the bottom of the ocean and came at the surface as a new man.

That night, in the tedious face of the moon I could see a radiant smile. There I understood the infinite; the two points and the distance in between, and to a sad story could write a happy end.'

'I say that the hardest thing for a man to leave behind is his past, as the man who can build a future where before was confusion and chaos, is the most champion of all' 'And I say that life is a monster!' cried a sort of maniac,' which or you ride it, or it will trample on you.

I rode the beast while I could. They haven't been able to kill everything in all, and some still dared to dream.

The way to better tell of those days is by saying that it was as one to try to make a major task with a broken tool; as the Danaids to strive to take water out of a well with a sieve, or go furrow a field with no plough; twice exhausting.

Only Alcides could complain of more laborious days than mine, who a hundred blows landed on his foe, of the which he scarcely one tenth felt woe.

Holding the reins when I sent it went, when I pulled it neighed. The beast ran and ran, and I was tossed and tossed on that sorrowful back. One day the beast stopped. Neither God nor the Devil could move it to go; Jesus with all the angels. It halted at some five miles from the city, near an orchard and an old church. There lived an ancient man; the owner of everything, as he said; for there all the lands were his. He had bears of a white to make the swan blush for shame, and gazing at his gentle features, one could feel what calm abodes in heaven.

The old man lived in a single partition with no furniture or bed. Nothing besides two chairs, as if he lived seated expecting a guest.

A supernatural world came at once into my mind, and as I fancied in what place was I, that man and all around became all I could imagine. In his orchard are planted bountiful trees which put forth fruits of gold. From a spring come waters more pure than ever mountain can distil and send down the slope, and the sun that there it shines, at some scarce five miles from here, brings comfort, warmth, and never fear.

When I came again outside the beast I couldn't find, and since I make there my abode, and stay with that ancient man; not far, at some scarce five miles from the city.'

'Today you came to town.'

'Walking in a way merry.'

'Then, brother, you had accomplished in life...'

'Like a woman!' cried one to despair of all. 'A man was not made to go in giggles as a silly ten-yearold girl. To a man it suits to be ruthless, and to spit on the ground while impaling the world with his spear.

Two times alone in my life I was moved; once when born my baby son, and the day when my horse died.

When I arrive, calamities and fear, and a doubt that grows, when every civil eye I see charged with

martial look, and everywhere am condemned by worse men. Such dandies with womanish spirits as never killed a man, and can better tell of butterflies catch, rather than the bitter terms of war. Such disheartened creatures as when understood that women stay at home and men make war, rued their fortunes, wishful they were wenches, calling the fate cruel which didn't grant it to be so.

Such mollycoddles as fear to sneeze aloud, refrain from farting near women, and shun to swear during the Sunday's service, now refuse my medals, disdaining my merits ignoring the scares of the battles that I fought alone.

An injustice to make Temperance revolt and join the Left, and to a man who could still nourish some good in him, to go from there to be of evil. Phenomenal times these, when are mocked the wounds of martyrs, and heroes by weak men held in contempt. If this is not enough to stir the heavens all to anger, I'm not seeing what worse a man can do to other.

But on me the wrath of the gods seems to fall, and now in the battle-field it runs just me.'

'Always tires he, whose motive to run died first. Brothers, once I spend time in a monastery, and during my sad retirement among the monks, and of others as well tired of the world, I realised that the man who lives alone, at each day smothers more the flame which burns in him.

It was a gloomy place, and during the night I still could listen the ghosts of those pious who, wearied, the world had lost, saying their orisons to the Lord.

There I met friar Sebastian. He was a sage man; respected for his insight and word of comfort to all those who approached him needing of an inspiring thought to help them to face their seclusion. Many who knew him got him as a divine, and his words not less than inspired prophecies.

In the friar's chamber there's a mattress; a table with chairs, and on the table a bowl where he ate two meals a day.

The world he reminded it was a different one from these days now upon, for it had passed more than fifty years since he saw the world outside for the last. Yet, he was searched and praised for his ken as if he lived in it, and not inside of cloistering walls.

One night I was invited to a meeting in his chamber.

When I arrived he was saying that of a bird in its flight, when the night comes, not even the sky remains, and to a man, to strive in this world to let behind token of his passage, the same as one who would undertake to make the smoke in the air prevail, or a construction in the sand to keep forever there.

Nonsense and vanity of a spirit who apprehended wrong the notions with which a soul can spread its wings, and waiting it the same success, as one would attempt to relive the sun from its heat fanning it with a pair of Peacock feathers, or to enlarge the great Sahara desert with a handful of sand from the Libyan shores.

"Nothing lasts," friar Sebastian said to all attentive, "but in a man's will. And that, in such measure is confounded with the view as a mole is with the light. And it waves, inconstant, changing from goal to goal as a capricious flag goes with the wind; now here, now there, later yet, to somewhere different. And at last, what he will and chase, when accomplished, so often what it seemed right becomes a hindrance; what virtue, then base and degrading, thus recurrently we regret it, what prove our choices foul.

But still our cravings don't improve, and with an innate ability to live, we chose according with our capability to endure. Thus we strive in a world which no longer concerns himself with values, but credits instead a currency of metal and paper with no worth, that buy us all as bargains in a fair that goes on

outside the gates of hell. To these sad fortunes, "the holy man continued, "God breathed once onto Man's nostrils and gave them breath.

Brothers, when pondering at what values in this life, I realised that is the silence the treasure, and a brotherhood of men devoted to each other, and if a godhead there is.

Then it seemed to me of the most important to learn to advise men and to talk wisely about their souls, for there is gained the other one's attention.

What next held my carein this world of concerns, was the ordeals of aging. And if some can be overwhelming, to many others grievous still, vigour can be found not in the muscles but in the mind, who tells them when to slack and when to react.

Other thing that I found of the most pertinent, is for one apprehend as precious the diversity of human beings in this earth, and to consider them all as brothers, instead of existing alone. Acknowledging the many other different peoples, one will feel rich, and at last will see as if a mountain had vanished from one's sight. And to those," friar Sebastian said regardful, "who better pleased to have a family, let them to take good care of their own, those whose spirit dictated not, may they seek a cause to make valuable their lives, for they with more can contribute than one with others attached, and both are needed.

Then, when pondering at the animals, and at how many kinds grace the surface of the earth, I realised that they are the treasures of a bounteous law. Let us not follow without regard them as well, but make here for them a better place, instead of follow destroying all and everything.

Then, brothers, wondering at the misery that is when a man to his grave cannot see the sun, I remembered the blessed nights when I sleep soundly and cannot see the sun, and which I got as the best of a weary day. Thus one should think of those days, if not then to a better awakened.

Other particular which occupied my wit, and much helped me to organise my thoughts, was to understand as life differs in the many parts of the world, as from the time of the first thinkers, yet we change not, regardless of time or place, but held instead a constant nature.

Then I remembered those who once felt compelled to write down their thoughts. What knowledge if not a divine inspiration discoursing to their attentive hearts, telling them those transcendental notions let to us as heritage; those same values that now we disdain and price low."

My heart was rejoicing with the echo of those words when friar Sebastian continued.

"A race who now strives in a place where came to own, and from a light burden picked up a heavy load. When we forgot that to own is husbandry and to care for the possession, and not just because got easily, to follow squandering how much we have, and mindless, to call upon our dead bodies a role of curses from the generations to come, who will hold as good to curse our fathers graves, and in those future times, to scare their own, tell tales of the days now upon.

Then, brothers, I beheld treading in this world a lot that no matter to where they looked, they were sad. Those were the envious, and the ones commanded by the weak flesh rather than by the immortal spirit.

They had cherished the glad feeling of having for their nessecities, until the foul of desiring for what they didn't needed. During the night, while the good men sleep, these plan cunnings and schemes, and for a stock who are led by the eye, early they had lost their sight.

Then, pondering at why so many prisons, in a land where men came to be free, I realised that there are of many kinds, those physical, the ones built to last the less longer. Then I looked outside and pitied

the men asleep."

In the end of the reunion I left with an over-whelmed heart, reviving still for long the sage's teachings in my mind. My time to spend in retirement ceased, and I came out with a pair of different eyes that showed me the world anew. And I saw my brothers greatly worried with gathering, who for a farthing sold their peace of mind. At this role of events so unforeseen, the interceding angels at last dropped their wings, while the Devil in the world below gambols and frolics about as is had conquered again the wild years of his youth, when babies born crying to a sad word, and maids chose their husbands from a lot of fools. Then, the laws which hold the dead bounded to their graves slack and lose their strength, and come again those foul to the surface, while the living wish to go under, when we, once of souls surfeited, could, in some scarce centuries, to empty ourselves of all.

Brothers, here ends the morning service. Join us with stomachs fulfilled for the afternoon.'

Thomas ended the service, and in the church remained only he and Augustine. It was now time to resolve what to do with the profane head.

'Augustine, call the Sanitary Services to come pick up the head of the hallowed animal.'

Augustine started to do as he was told.

'Today, my saint, the laws of heaven were distorted, and those of hell again reached the threshold of the brother Thomas. I felt then a thousand fears and again had to survive. Many years had gone by since I witnessed alike heresy and affront to the God in heaven. It was in a seminar I joined, when the head of a dog was let in the middle on an ancient holy book.

The monks, reverent men and of meek spirits, were all in panic. The priests were gazing from far at the hellish sight, and none dared to approach the damned thing. Pious men on fast were called to pray, and patient to flagellation. The souls wandered within the habits. I called the Sanitary Authorities who took all to incinerate. The book turned ablaze as soon as it felt the heat, though, the tainted head, three days later still gazed from amid the flames as if still the world could see. Those there, who had never believed in the Devil or in hell, swore then they existed, and couldn't be moved from saying that now was the Beast who ruled the world. But I, Augustine, never feared. For I got to myself the soul is thing eternal and courage as the most dear.

Go, Augustine, apart a while, and think why the world is thus.'

'They said that is an emergency and gave me the red number.'

'Call, Augustine. Call the red number. Call to hell and tell the Devil of our plight, and even he will pity such undone lot.

Tell the Devil that goes a dog around my table. That my mother saw a pig and died. Tell him that my sister went to a distant land to marry a bachelor, and that my wife preferred widowhood when three times I tried and failed.

I again closed the box and with my right hand made three times the sign of God. Go, Augustine, my dear. The heart of the righteous man knows joy, while the fool's but fear.'

In a while all was arranged with the Sanitary Services and presently started to arrive the second round of betherem. As always Augustine made the honours.

'Welcome to the church of the brother Thomas, fools who held your souls in contempt. If what you go after, you so seldom find, and, smiling at the world, start now to understand the way this world smiles back. If such vine is yours, as never a fruit brings forth. Or if in the field you sow, the Devil seems to

trample. If the meals taste to you as a mouthful of sand to an ox, our minister can make of your life an exquisite delicacy.

All that we do is to tickle and stimulate the mass inside your cranium.'

'Here we disdain Rome's orthodoxy, 'Thomas told to the audience, 'and go in search of what inside of man's spirit we may find.'

'Search here!' said one of pauper apparel. 'That my outwards may be modest, though within got wealth.'

'Share it then, that we may all be rich. Shake the tree that the fruit may fall.'

'Once I didn't know what to do with all my luck and thought God or the Devil was with me. The inauspicious and the dire soon became my affairs, and in those days, I dedicated myself to all the fires of hell were created for.

Nimble and quick, if to knock a man out of his feet, never I could stand on my own, and went to run a race that I won by losing. Good spirited and lively child,' the wise man continued, 'the years which brought me wisdom freighted my cheer away, and I became the apathetic adult, dull to everything but to my bills.

It was in my family that I finally understood that the surest and easiest way one has to feel happy, is but to make others feel happy. And from one's family one can apply it to all the world; for, what else are we? And now I'm convinced that or one has that or nothing at all. I understood that the hope in our fellow man can be disappointed, but when fulfilled, is the paradise within the mind.

This I reached as a soul contemplating in the infinite mirror of itself.

Then I learned to believe and all at once was made easier, and now think, that is in this capacity that we all have that our happiness lies. So obvious and simple, that seem to mock those who stray and those who wander.

Though, it was only after my share of erring that all appeared to myself as clear logic.'

'You learned your lesson being slapped by the teacher.'

'For years I called for the fortunes which later came upon.

With all playing fairly, only I would go with tricks, and trying to have advantages in a race which becomes easier if one doesn't try to win. But I was decided to cut the finish line ahead of all. Often I took shortcuts and was disqualified, and had to start all from the beginning and to compensate the reverse with hardest race; and again I reached the peloton. There, where if I had played fairly, I might still have a chance, again I tried to cun and to be smart, and once more to the back of all. Tired now, the distance to compensate was twice as great. And again the others I reached, only to more foul manoeuvres. For after so many losses, I, instead of stopping with what was causing me every time to receded, thought now even more urgent and necessary, artifices and devices. Mindless that a victory only feels like a victory, when all start even and compete by the rules, and not to lose its sweetness, if any wrongs must be, let one be the prejudiced, and the energy spent in recovering positions, to be used in consolidating the lead, rather than to run all that for nothing. This simple, however, took me a while to see, and when I did my eyes were sad and my hands were old, as of a captain with many winters spent at the helm.

It was one day when I was overtaken by a child, running merry and holding in her hands a balloon, that I, seeing her pass, jovial and without effort, hardly panting breath, finally understood and could at last see the truth.

Instead of speeding to try to regain my position; rather, I went merry aside with her, running in a track where a joyous race is the victory. She, holding the balloon as if our little world that she was taking around the sun.

Every day a man crosses a finish line which he can pass victorious or defeated. And if well that those are but concepts, in a frightening way they are real, inside of a man's mind.

To end I will add that in the everyday race of ours, rather than the size of the stride, matters the accuracy of the step taken. Many accurate steps pace well the way and always walk in victory.'

'The tree gave plenty. You are a rich man. You remind me of a fellow I met recently when came to my knowledge that a man lived near whose work was thinking.

"Thinking what?" I asked him in a visit I made him in the next day.

"Nothing. Just thinking."

I was intrigued by what could have led that man to such a strange job, when he explained the crossed ways his fate had called him to tread.

"At first was too much going on in the world for I could hold my thoughts still, and rather I would dislike the time given to myself, than one reasonable idea, or what next to do would alight in my brain.

It was as a constant drunkenness, when the booze turns one not to sleep but to be agile, though, with the performance defected. And is through this defect in perform where extends the way that brought me here.

I hid my handicap by going until today as if the world were mine; free, and of spirit given to conquests.

Early I understood that it was at my reach to do what others couldn't. For long I misapprehended it.

And I, who all things could do, went one day to do the worse to others and to myself. In an instant, it seemed, shorter than it takes me to tell it, passed the next twenty years, and I, who all things could have done, managed in the end of all, to have great memories of a little life which couldn't be smaller. I grieved when one day I realised that a man hasn’t been made for that. Then I finally understood that I haven't been a valorous hero, who fought the world alone and won, but a wretch; a lucky villain who never knew the joy of a moment of peace.

Now I dedicate myself to the systematic analysis of those years, as pugilist who reviews on and on the fight he lost, trying to learn how to avoid the blow that knocked him down; a beautiful butterfly that came out of a worm, and now, the remain still there, finds it interesting, and is attracted to observe and analyse from where it came from.

Now that old deeds of the past cannot be undone, I spend hours in my bed, which a sailor, who, contending with the sea, at each minute tries but to survive until the next, faces not more dire.

The ocean of nostalgia seems to drag me to its bottom with silence and guilt, when I realise the past is a construction strong which cannot be changed, rather is shaped and consolidated by the stern passage of years. In this way, what was light will shine forever, and the sombre will for always make shade."

"Here you managed to make all somewhat more brigh. It's folly to regret what is done. Leave to the child to cry over the good tumbled to the ground. The years you complained of empty had gone by, here they returned to you, rich and full in your hands.

When I came, I was expecting to find a man convinced of the truth, and I found one convinced not even of himself. Though I tell you this before I leave. The whiles that the beautiful butterfly is

contemplating the wretch, it's forgotten of its colours."

I left reminding the first book I red and the character Raskolnikov, and how the mind who first plots the evil, will later, through its dark meanders, by itself undergo the punishment. A divine justice which depends not of the hand of men to be delivered, issued from law or court, but is decreed instead by the most martial voice of all, the speech in a man's conscience.

Now, brothers, let me tell you of an occasion when a man visited my church, who told me that through his life, all he had done were but divisions and subtractions, and all that to him was unprofitable.

He had the distracted stare of one who talks with a thousand cares in the back of his mind. One hand with frantic fingers holding the other, while he, most incoherently, unveiled the role of strange mishaps, which, as he told, had turn his life accustomed and his spirit old.

I had never listened alike case, and for a moment doubted if all what he said was true. He told that all had chanced as when in the sea a gust of wind first brings forth a cloud, then in a moment the whole sky is grey and all turned to torment as a storm arises, and the elements then battle so fiercely, that the vessel seems a nut-shell at the will of the mighty temper of the ocean; and now the best the helmsman can do is to rue the hour he has set to sea. So this man, he said, once his life assailed by harsh weather, soon it became more aflitive than that distressed bark, and he as that captain, just ruing the day he born.

"The best I can explain it," he said with tears finding their way down his face, "is by telling that was as when one holds an expensive jar with feeble hands, and numb, recklessly let it fall, seeing all torn to pieces at his feet. And now, mournful he gazes at the shattered remains, searching in his mind for more vile adjectives to himself. When something I would hold, this too I would let fall, as if seized by some strange torpor, and tumble all to the ground to see it broken at my feet. Until one day I feared that my hands weren't good, and to have hoofs as the Devil, well more proper and befitting to organise what I had come to accomplish.

I had once dreamt in see new skies then to get used to the one I had, in which the sun so seldom shone.

I was I inverterate solitary," he attested in dismay, "and when in the company of others, my spirit felt vexed and sought refuge within myself, and I left to be as I was comfortable. In my loneliness I was not apathetic but trying to understand the world, and the other men in it, mostly wanderers like me, caught thus in a sort of irony, devoted to what I avoided."

The sorrowful man paused, and I tried to find what to say.

"Unhappy is the man who live all his life with the wrong conception of the place and of himself. You are clarified at last.

Our mistakes do not die with us. They keep living companions of our children and sit with them at the table, thus, to become aware is to leave them a better heritage." And I left grieving on my way for all I had listened.'

'Here is one who employing the same methods achieved no better results!' cried one rising from his seat. 'Concealed from the world, eagerly I thought the affairs of men, and found myself wishing to my brothers better fortunes, than those I perceived becoming their lot. Times of trial, disaster, then no basis to whatsoever do to have hope to see again the great sunrise; the monster-creature who haunted the sea swallowed by the little fish at the change of the tide. When I saw men carrying more dear to their hearts the ephemeral pleasure rather than the everlasting joy, disdaining the happiness of the voice inside their

minds, and calling to all that loss a trifle. Instead they try to smother it with vulgar music, and to make laugh with jokes what only cheers with pure glory, and that from within cries "fool!" To think that the main part of one could be restrained or annihilated, or quieted as a witless baby that with some lullabies is lulled to sleep.

All this the gods above observe and lament in anguish, when on the land of milk and honey, men strives and hungers. Thus, I saw advancing mankind on their knees, with all their party and celebrations by whom the occasion has never occurred. A bondage to futility when less the moment was proper; when the world was changing. Now we have it. A world chastised by God with bold women, and a place which the good men cannot explain to their children without being ashamed, what brings to the paternity of the wise man a so far joy.'

'Brother, I can't agree with you or I have to stop to preach about hope. Yet, you said here of a great war being lost by a single soldier who fires his artillery against his own house, and this, indeed, it saddens me to assert is true.

Though, is with hope that we pass through my door. Hope of changing the angry man who now passes us by in the street, into a new and fulfilled creature, instead of the rude frustrated that now goes about. Or this or nothing. Or this, or in a land of brothers each plough for his lot. And he who has what other lacks and to him is superfluous, to grudge to share it, choosing to keep the both sad.

This originates the world God condemns, and where men loathe to live, better given to the beasts to wander. Instead of in this little earth to make a single world and advance all as a mighty current which cannot in its course be hindered or annoyed.'

'But the waters are stagnated,' the other again intervened, 'catching men striving in the mire. What started as a foul, soon it became the putrid for which God discarded us all, and now what it is, is a dreadful tide that reaches the dull banks of the sea of sadness, not where the waters can find liberty, and beat free against the shores. At this intemperance the child that is in me despairs; my soul mourns and loathes to be told words of consolation, and I, walking through the park at dusk, raise my hands and ask the sky if there's no God, or in him commiseration enough to listen a distressed man. A shiver runs down my spine; the stern dark frowns in the unfriendly night, and only the crickets dare to break the silence that men keeps frozen.'

'Brother...'

'I asked God, and he told me that His army was me!' cried one when none was expecting. 'To hear it was as an order and commandment to march, and soon was standing in front of the great General one single man in parade.

It was the dawn of the day of battle. From the east came the morning chasing through the west the night with haste, and amid, the open sky. Thunders clashed, and as more erect I stood, I heard the Golden Voice telling the commissions of the Lord. Three orders it charged before it silenced, "Enquire! Know!

Share!"

The sun rose at last, and I was to fight the Great Contender, and to run afoot over the plain. The day delivered its bounty, and, his arms spoiled, now I drag, as great Achilles, the enemy behind my chariot around the tribune of the Great General, who with cheerful nodding and approving sounds says it's good what I'm doing. Today is day battle as well, and a great treasure is to be taken from who is plundering and robbing us without guard, of our peace.

Today,' the odd man continued, 'is the day of seeking for the identity of ourselves, that is within ourselves, crying to be heard, and not to go frolic as a puppet, who held by some pitiful strings, fares light and jocund on his way. Today is day for a great matter to be considered, and to what has been until relinquished and neglected, for one to take in one's hands the enterprise of reviving and discover it, in a great show of what will is.

Though, the wretched soldiers too soon lost the heart to fight, and now are counted by numbers of a lot who so promptly surrendered the best they had. "57B!" "Yes! Is me." ' 'Brother,' Thomas addressed the man of strange philosophies, 'I can warrant you that here we are no numbers, but each man is according to his doings.

Let me bring you to check by telling now of another weird I met just like you. It was at long ago, though I well remember the occasion when my road took me to meet an astrologer who fabled about the suns and the constellations in the sky.

This individual told me that a man has come here to accomplish but what his stars would have him do, and in all else that a man could endeavour upon, would be as to try to soften a rock with gentle looks, or visit a cemetery eager to make dead men arise from their graves by telling them of the great day about.

Here I started to regret the time spent with such base creature. I tried to make him see that stars were mere lights, and that would they be all out, the good here would be the same, and to a man ten times better if he didn't mind them. Though, for some odd reason, men look to the sky at night and fancy that through amid the stars extend the way that reaches where the gods have abode, and that only our carnal eyes now forbid us to see it.

He drew some cards which he aligned in rows of four, and seeming to learn from those facts from all concealed, ignored me. I was to leave when he spoke.

"The deck is made of images and of death, and rather than what the deck grants a man cannot have.

I have seen men who disdained the stars and tried to have their way. They fought for dreams and chimeras. Some at sea, others throughout the wide main lost their lives, mocked by the same power which other men immortalised with great honour and renown. I tell no fortunes" said the fortune-teller, "but of calamities and woe, and a great distress to all those who can think much of the little power in themselves!"

Here I left, outraged and without a word, remembering the proud of spirit who are incapable of go alone, and either shun be led. Those,' Thomas stated to the grievance of some, 'such majesty see in themselves, the contemptible wrecks, that they seek the glory and the honours of a king, while the Great Creator, whose mighty works are displayed all in front of them, their despiteful spirits feel vexed and revolts for giving Him the slightest credit. They waits them the day of small death, and from this wide stage they part with the small leave. We rather go by the big door, through where never a vain heart shall pass.

Who has now a tale with moral to tell us?'

'In my words you may find some wit,' said one with voice quivering with emotion. 'I'm a biologist, and am just arrived from spending ten years in Africa, studding how thrives the cricket in the jungles of Congo. There I met Jacques, a savage who had no God, but trusted his safety to a dagger he wore around his waist. One night, with both seated at the fire, I told him that fool would be the man who having faced perils alone and overcome, would later give credits only to himself for the feat. "There, in the civilized

world, there are men who go like you; swelled with pride; having their beef rather rare, and such other poverties of spirit, that now the Cross has bended until its arms had touched the ground, and a multitude contemplates there silence and desolation, in a land where death came first."

Listening this, the savage felt sick and would had paled if his hue permitted. For long he gazed at the stars, until at last ventured speech. "When I was young, my father to teach me swimming took me in a canoe ashore in a tempestuous sea, until where I scarce trace of land could discern, and let me there among the inauspicious billows to swim that distance back. It was part of a custom held in our village, of every youth to have a hazard to survive before they became men. I was scared to death. At the beginning all my strengths were but to keep myself floating, until I apprehended those gracious movements and reached shore, where my father, proud, was waiting to embrace me. "I took a little boy out-there, and now, behold, a man is coming out of the brine!"

From that day on I thought that I was a god, or if in heaven they have their leisure, they were like me.

And my ego took me to the height from which I fell. In those days I had eyes only to myself," said the man who clothing held in contempt, "and a voice to praise me in everything I did. "Am I good or what?" I would cry aloud ensnaring the fish. The other savages were not savage like me. Some had taken the flock one week to pasture to become man, others had climbed a tree. I had swum the whole sea.

One night, laid in the savannah watching the stars, I imagined the world out-there, so immense, that I didn't knew, and fancied it full of happy men, all merry living their lives, smiled and felt silly. Alone with my thoughts, I felt crushed with the weight of a small existence reduced only to my size; The champion of the marathon, and three times the winner of a medal of tin, and for the first time I asked God "Are you there?" The silence kept as severe as before when the voice of beyond said not a word. I then, with my hand made reassurance of my dagger on my side; rose and stood there, as one courageous who sees nowhere where to turn his bravery. That night I came back, woke our elders and counselled our tribes all to war, provoking conquest on their dotard spirits. The elders assented at last and told me to choose a feast of men and go out through the world and see what I could do.

Of our braves I choose the five best. Rude men, to who a lion was no matching opponent, and left with spear and shield in search of glory. My father stood proud to see me leave, all arrayed for war. We marched on until the Zulu tribes, eager to carry from there some dead warriors, who at home could tell better of our exploits. At dawn I stood at the top of a hill and made a cry that woke up the Zulus bellow.

"If you have there able men, bring them to fight!" I told their leader, and from the tents started to rush out dozens of stout warriors, all of the most fit and apt for contention.

"Did you come the six?" asked their leader coming to know the conditions for battle.

"We are not men of great companies, but who rather the society of good men."

"Such brothers are we. Each praises his mother, and at night we lay, hopping that God chose us to live the next day."

And instead or war a mighty feast was arrayed.

Under the effect of powerful herbs, their wizards talked with their gods and were satisfied with what they were answered. The spirits of their ancestors visited them, joyous of their legacy, and the mother earth, who from us had never received an offence, rejoiced to see the communion of those who she will one day will cover their bones.

We drunk magic wine that made the stars of all colours stirring in the sky, and there, among their

gods I found my faith.

I marched back to our village with my warriors, dragging a train of mules loaded with gifts from the Zulus to our people. In the night we arrived, I woke up our elders and counselled our tribes all to peace, stirring their tired spirits all to cheer."

Here ended his tale, Jacques, a savage I knew while studding how thrives the cricket in the jungles of Congo.'

'Anyone else who consorts with strange gods or restless spirits?'

'I'm a medium,' said a clairvoyant. 'I conjure by Hecate and by the Night of the Dead Days and am shown with dire visions of a world which does not belong to this one. At night I call for the company of the dead, and those allowed again onto this world, arise and sit with me at the table. There is a candle; a deck of cards; a glass half-full with water, and a rose laid on the table.

One night a spirit rose with great disturbance and commotion of the light. The glass moved all around the table; suddenly I could see my breath and the water frozen in the cup. The curtains became all white with ice, in a cold that I felt not harmful. When all settled down, I addressed the troubled spirit.

"From what depths came thou?"

"I," started the chastised soul, "dwell where hell is of ice, for mischief done to those who willed me good. Now, in the frozen fixed, I loathe to be and must forever linger. Dense as a rock, within I feel the ice biting, then to as fire to feel it burn. The cries of pain become stuck on my congealed throat, and in such undesirable agony, of never can make a sound which could somehow relive my pain, in vain I make amends in my everlasting torment, and too late repent.

While in the world I got my eyes against me, and once such contrariness they showed me from the reallity, that I disdained the hand who nourished me, and one day simulated a robbery and killed my parents for the heritage. I managed to escape the authorities but not the scorn of the Divine Judge, who placed me in front of Minos to listen the damned articles of my sentence.

One year after the murder and when I got all I ever wished, I started to have pangs of conscience; wished bitterly my deed undone, my parents alive and well, and there was nothing that I could do. I had changed all my good for a hell in my mind. At night I could not sleep thinking in all with remorse, reviving the murder again and again. The murderous son, wicked and vile, smashing their skulls. I screamed remembering us in the summer making joyful rides on our boat. Myself driving, while mother and father laid in the sun. I became covetous; wished the boat all mine and they thrown overboard.

"Where is my son?" Father would ask at the meals. "Here! Your place is on my side." Poorly he knew how I would tank his love.

Later he taught me shooting, and it was when I started to think in killing him, then, loathing to remain in a house with an inconsolable widow, I decided to dispatch them both to hell. I considered venom's that leave no trace, or gas which makes no mark, then to decide for a hammer labouringly in a frenetic hand. One night I entered their room to perform my atrocious work. It was two nights before Christmas eve. It was a storm outside as if all hell had broken loose. For whiles I stood watching them displayed at the brief flashes of thunder on their peaceful sleep. Dad first I hit, who went to meet the Devil without ever know who sent him. Mother woke up, and seeing me all gore, grinning to her with the hammer on my hand cried "no," and her several times I stroke.

I made all appear a robbery with the brutal assassination of my parents. In the next day, in the police

station, my visage, as Niobe's, was all grief. Besides the heritage, I received a hefty sum from the insurance, which was as a cherry on the top of the cake. Two years after the murder, although, I couldn't stand my conscience, and a bullet making way through my soft brain sent me to hell. Thus, with my greed I disgraced three happy lives. It was with sad surprise that I found myself standing at the shores of Acheron among the hopeless spirits faring to their eternal doom, hence I had never believed in such thing as a punishment that it could befit the deed, and indeed got all as fables.

Dejected I was, among the breathless shades, regretting all passed since the day I born, when at last I was in the lot chosen to next enter the bark. I was the third to step in and went to take my seat at the prow.

All around was grievesome dark. The flickering light of the oil-lantern which Charon held head-high in front of him, impressed in all those rejected souls an even gloomier sadness.

"Haste! You lousy lot!" Charon shouted hitting some spirits with the oar, who smitten and goaded thus, quick rushed in. "When you will see the Devil tell him that he's a pig!" I shivered in my place, seated in such horrid bark as it seemed to have laid for thousands of years on the bottom of some forgotten ocean, before it started to sail the dead waters that reach the shores of hell.

Our captain, Charon, was a squalid and sordid old man, wearing a dirty coat as seen on base sailors, of who one would tell, some sort of creature nested among his dishevelled bears, which extended morbidly down his breast. Once all seated, the boat sailed us all to hell.

No wind, the tattered sails hung dull on the partly rotted masts, and if they once white had been, now ghastly and gloomy canvas, which inspired plenty of hopelessness and despair in all. With the bark advancing as if by its own will, Charon kept all the way chiding his passenger.

"In ill hour you came, dogs, from out your mothers. The light of this lantern, now sombre and dull, was once lively and gay, and it saddened with hundreds of centuries of ilumining the fruitless task. This unwholesome bark rotted with thousands of years of freighting the damned to hell across the dreadful river. Until today many I crossed. Whosoever these waters without his eyes does beheld, was by God pointed a sinner, and accused of when under the bright sun, to have shadowed a dark world, and sentenced to forever be against their pleasure.

I'm Charon! The ferry-man of the boat to hell, advancing to difficulties those who in the world wouldn't have it fairly."

We crossed at last and it befell my doom hell's frozen circle, cold and abnormal as my fierce act.

Now bellow I envied the spirits allowed to walk their punishment. "Only if you could breathe on my face," I try to tell if some chanced to pass near, though mute I forever be."

The spirit rose, glided twice around the room, and again descended to hell.'

'Brother, leave of those obscure practices and seek some art more divine!' Thomas said appalled.

'There's here a man of more pious occupation?'

'Here is one of gentle traits and refined talent,' said an artist from the audience. 'I paint the world as Michelangelo, and I can charm still the wandering sense.

I imagine utopian images in my mind, and with my pencil make them real, noticing the subtleties between light and dark, and alike with what I fancy, I see forming before my eyes, at the gentle and certain movement of my hand.

The watercolours are lively and gay, remembering one of brotherhood of men and of the kingdom of heaven, with cherubs gliding around the enthroned Jove; the Great Mother looking delighted to her

beloved son. Celestial images, and the ecclesiastical vision of hell, with the Eternal Night represented showing the sinners in agonizing positions of submission, which record the proud on their knees, in this world as in the next.

Early I discovered my vocation of from the images beheld could compose others, adorning all with traits which on earth we don't have. By inspiration divine I add the perfect subtle, and when I hide, present more to the inquiring eye than could ever in the plain be seen. During the night I lay and while I rest, my conscience shows new ends with what to begging, during fantastic hours when I'm in a state of neither sleeping or aware.'

'Your prattle was pleasant,' Thomas said in cheer. 'A man in agreement with what is around him.

Once I met your opposite, and this weird creature told me that through all his life he had always said "no". At once I realised that I was facing no common man, for I had never heard alike thing. I was imagining the gods disgusted and all in fury when he told me his sad story.

"Now I regret to had always been a coward," he said trying to imagine how he would be if he was someone else, "though, still young, I couldn't find magic in anything, and when asked to say something, in my odd disposition, I would rather say no, than put myself in a position where life could touch me.

I'm single. Never had a job. And the rising of the sun, that others regard and say, "good hap", to me is tedious, and I look at it as one would gazes at some rocks heaped at the side of the road.

I started on my life as a runaway child, in a fury that from early compelled me to live. Since I'm avoided and my presence regarded with nausea, as a friar looking to some obscenity written during the night on the walls of his monastery, and now, quickly he rushes in to fetch with what to cleanse it out. I had seen fierce lions be more approached than I am, in the circus, where the doors open to another world, and all clap and cheer with elaborated happiness for an hour and half (for then it's time to go home), the children silly, who can still see magic in a trick, and their parents, who woke up from that long ago.

Rather, they now see death in the face of a child, and an urgency to leave when they find nowhere to go. And such is the sad that time does, it shows urgency, but smothers the will to anything but to say no."

This man, he told me, felt as one who, had once started on a great journey, lost at some point the charts to return. Now, forlorn he gazes at the sky where only the clouds and the blue make pomp.

At home he would sit for hours dejected at the table, musing and lost in thought. The bell with single strike announced the middle of an hour which seemed lost in a night without end. The wavering flame sent the grim shadows this way and that, scarcely illumining the walls. In one were the icons alighted by an oil-lamp, on the opposite, a portrait named The Burial hung dull, representing good Joseph and Nicodemus, watching the crucified body being lowered from the cross.

He told me of the days when he thought of himself to have more heart than any man, and of the morbid years that followed after he had lost it all. Then he silenced, and I stood there, watching him from behind disappearing on the dusty road.

Brothers, here ends our service. Now let me share with you some dreary events occurred this morning.

A few days ago, I received a deliverance of which only today I took care. Opening it, I found a nasty head of a lamb with hellish mischief preformed upon it. I thought in fear that God had forsaken the church of the brother Thomas, and gazing at the gentle Augustine arriving, I confused with the Devil that I thought come to escort me to my next world.

"The kingdom of hell has arrived to claim its booty," said the Devil. "Order those who lay on their graves "come out and wail," and announce to the man who just found his happiness "tomorrow you will die". Let poison at reach of frantic women. Disdain those who call; let weep those who cry, and rejoice the maniacs, laughing loudly through the streets." Thus the Devil spoke, to what this answer I made, "Devil! Too bold you woke up this morning. There were the rules loosened at the bottom that dregs can come to the surface and have their way?" Then I realised that it was my good Augustine, repented and apologised for my words...'

'I got something to share as well, that I think of the most pertinent.'

'Let us hear it.'

'It will bring you to a terrible agitation on a lapse of a second, for it's the sorrowful tale of how I once contrived to myself a god.

One occasion, while I was wandering through the park at the crepuscule, I found a stinky rotten horsehead with a swarm of flies busy upon it.

It was a sad afternoon, the streets were empty, and realising so, I decided to carry home that hideous thing, and started to do it reverence as if it was my god.

I don't know still what forces were behind it, but that night I made a fancy pedestal, put on it that nightmarish deity, and made of it my Lord.

While I, my nasty God was observing, the different states of awareness mixed their bounderies and fantasyfound its way onto reallity; dreaming when coherence should be the master; and I realised how wrong this world had become; a deformate and unauspicious place, and for all of us lost in it, I lit up a candle, and in that moment, for the first time I prayed for knowledge.

I was at the end of my prayer, when I always ask for my neighbour, when I heard my front door opening and someone came in. I heard the keys on the little table at the entrance and soon after the TV went on. I wondered then at what that could be. Bowed to my God; crossed myself, and in backward steps walked out of His presence. Went downstairs to see the strange and found all the same. "Weird," and went back again to my room, make reverence to that mighty thing, and into my devoted practices. As I was paying my God those respects, I listened a meal being prepared downstairs. I went to the ground floor to see what was going on and found no sign of disturbance. "I'm getting mad." I thought and went to have a little repose in bed. Just as I laid down, "someone is in the shower. Now the noise of the cold-water nub...there it is," and I jumped from bed and went to check it to be able to stop thinking about it. The bathroom door was half-open, as I always let it. I switched the light on, went in, and all just as usual; opened the bathtub's curtains; nothing; switched off the light and left to my room. When I was going upstairs the shower went on again; now I could listen a tune being sung, and I went to sit on my bed.

"I'm getting mad." I thought to myself now in earnest in the gloom of my room. Then I heard some steps coming upstairs, and someone installed on the sofa of the little living room next to mine. The TV went on. I stood there as someone distracted; opened slight the door and could see the lights of the TV on the walls of the hall.

I went to the shrine and again into the presence of my God and prayed fervently for my peace of mind to the rotten horse head. In the end of a sleepless night, I heard him going downstairs and a meal being prepared, "eggs", it smelt me, and in a hurry I went to check the little TV-room and all was just the same. I started to cry. My bell rung. As I was getting dressed, I heard a voice telling, "You have to sign

here...thank you," and the door closed. Still in my pajamas, like mad I ran downstairs, at once many steps overcoming; opened wide the door, and there was nobody leaving.

In the house, downstairs, all was composed as well.

"Howard!"

"My father!"

"Howard!"

"He's in the room." I ran upstairs again not knowing if I should fear. "Father!"

"Howard!" and I opened wide the door and no one. It was there only me, the flies, and my God seeing all from its pedestal, staring severely at me.

I sate sobbing on my bed. I had gone mad. "Why?" I asked, and again the meal, the shower, all followed by the while of TV. I made offerings to try to appease the Horse-Head God. Things which I stole from the neighbourhood. Little statues and children's toys that I found when sneaking into the lawns at night, but it didn't help. I decided then, to go for things of different sort which I thought of more might. And I started to carry home all the dead animals that I could find. Dead dogs and run-over cats. Those appeased more at the eyes of my Lord, but soon became dull and tedious to the god-head, and He indifferent to those, when I decided to give Him something of eminence, and not desecrated by thieving, neither disturbing remains of animals, but something that a God must have in respect, and started to offer Him bones of men who had lived with sacrifice. That night I when to the cemetery and carried home two urns containing the bones of the dead, and let them opened; the sacred linen unfolded, and the offerings there, in all their terror, presented to my God. This worked out better. The Horse-Head God looked and saw that was good.

My Almighty God was pleased at last with the senseless bones giving me some days of rest. At night, the revolting smell and the buzzing of the flies were enough to drive me mad. After some days all started again, now with more disturbing haps. Hallucinations with which I had to fight to put out of the room and close the door and keep it barred. That night I went again to the cemetery and brought along more urns, and more, and more which had become disgusting and annoying to my God, and of each time of less effect. Until that in a few months the two cemeteries of nearby had a vigilant, and I had the authorities knocking at my door. With the house full of skeletons, to all their questions I said "no". They left. "They could notice the smell in the house," I thought to myself. "That I'm sure as all stepped back when I opened the door, made disgusting faces and turn them aside.' As I was thinking, the God got angry and I felt another lash. The doors upstairs started to bang frenetically. All the house seemed a hell and smelt at nothing but death. The pile of rotting dogs and cats that I never found mood to take outside and heaped in the kitchen, I found particularly disturbing.

I felt another lash, and one more.

"I'm going!" I reached my room, where, with a knife I purged more of my blood into a bowl. Other way which I found to please the stern God, and stood there naked, bleeding from my arms and legs in front of my Lord to try to allay its fury and at last be freed from my torment. In the next morning my bell rung again. I opened the door and saw the same inspector, now with some people in white uniforms. This time the inspector didn't made any questions but said only that they had come to take me away. With a strange sympathy, told me that was all over and that I again would be all right. The neighbours came to see the reason of the commotion. As the doctors opened the blankets in which I was wrapped, all were

astonished to see the dilacerations, with cuts and scares all over my body. Tears rolled down my face. The neighbours smiled disdainfully and with contempt, as they saw their things stolen from the yards being carried outside. They laugh scornfully at my God and made a fire for He to be burnt. "Sending Him to hell," they jested, and threw the Horse-Head God into the flames. Next, horror and disbelief revelled on their countenances, as they saw the scores or urns containing the remains of their relatives being brought out and displayed in front of the house. "He came from Hell! Let us kill him!" And all advanced to snatch me from the inspector's hands and to make violent justice by theirs, but the inspector shot his shot-gun twice into the air and said that the next would hurt, and all was brought under control.

The doctors looked at me. Months without a bath or shave, passing to write down their conclusions at the light of my peculiar case. Then orders were given to put me inside of a restraining jacket.

In court I was sentenced to serve in hospital (for the crime of profaning of sacred place and a role of other accusations), in a charitable mental institution called, The Delicate Mind. Someone had written over it, The Insane, and though it had been washed out, still could be noticed.

One night, agreed with the undertaker of that institution, I pretended my death, and the blessed man buried me at noon and dug me out in the evening. It rained as felled from buckets when the sexton opened the coffin. Lightings and thundering made tremble the earth. I paid him the sum which was our deal; not much and never enough, and ran away. "Make it worth, my friend! It's a hell of a night!" said the crooked old man, and I don't know if I did.'

'Brother, now I got nothing else to do than to end the session, appalled and disgusted by what you said, hoping now more than ever for a divine justice, to come to prize the insolent for their audacity with lashes upon their back. I would that you had chosen better your subject.'

The betherem, orderly, started to leave, and passed some brief minutes it remained only Thomas and Augustine in the church which God so seldom visited.

'Augustine, what said the Sanitary?'

'What I had just said. They told they will pass by and "solve everything".

'Fools! Not even God could mend it now. All is faring ill and disorientated as a scattered swarm of ants after the flood, which go not knowing the way they go.

It saddens me, and in a way, I would be pleased if today was the world's end.'

'No, Thomas,' Augustine said, 'where would we go tomorrow if the world was dead? It's not sin so great to go hungry as it's to be fulfilled. You said once that the despondency of some can mar the tenacity of others, and to keep oneself firm in a deck where others stumble, was what showed to the world that a man was a man. Let us keep firm and steady, don't matter through what tempestuous waters fares our bark, and let the world see where the men are.' Thomas nodded proud of his pupil, and again courage took its place. The authorities came a short while after, solved everything, and both went home to rest for the next demanding day.

IV The invited orator

It's common in our days to see great commotions announcing much, then to come forth small and little.

Mighty mountains erupting in major convulsions, then to put out but a frightened mouse; stormy skies of furry which clean without a drop. These are phenomenal days; the times of modern slavery, when the enslaved are allowed to loud-voice their masters. They drive Audis and BMWs and wear small crucifixes dangling from gold chains around their necks.

However, when the occasion is fulfilled, such men come to be, as that English poet who born unto this world, to great enlargement and solace of our souls, at the twenty-third of the month of April, when was going the year of 1564. When you died the world died with you. And if a man can still see the world after he die, from here I homage thee, whom the angels homage endlessly.

This morning is one of those moments, when unadvertised, mighty things come to be, and greater day than this there's not.

It's new-moon night. The chiming of the bell in the silence of the dark told three-thirty onto the empty streets. In the church is only Thomas, standing anxious behind the door. A van appears at the end of the street seeming with none but the driver. Its side door slides back. Thomas unlocks the door and leaves it ajar. The van in continuous motion delivers a man onto the street. In some scarce steps he enters the church and the door its again locked in secrecy.

It had been another synchronous operation as so many performed by the two friends in the past. They, long passed since together for the last, embraced and saluted each other, congratulating mutually for the success of the night.

The preacher, Gideon, was a hunted man, condemned to live on the run for the big prize on his head.

The two revived distant memories with eyes brim-full with tears and hearts whelmed in joy. A candle burned and at the guiding of its uncertain light, the two friends went down to the basement, where all was arranged to in a few hours hold the ceremony.

Downstairs the light was enough and soon revealed the price Gideon had paid for their last gored operation; the whole fingers of his right hand.

'O! Villainy. What this light does shows me, and I loathe to see. With those you paid for who wouldn't worth a nail.'

'A trifle! I say, was what it cost me. And if greater the price, thus greater the privilege of with more had contributed to our cause.

That night, still before we embark on our mission, when the wind and the rain contended to prove who's the mightiest, and as the gods above understood that no matter what, we would go on, I felt such a tremendous spirit coming over me, giving me strengths that abled me to do anything, and to go through

any ordeal without ever express a frown, as comfort to endure the five months of my captivity.

When we were busted on that shore, my only fear was to imagine what perils you might been facing.

Soon as you escaped, men were summoned with tracking dogs and charged to give you death at sight, and I prayed in my spirit that God might bring you out of that place safe and sound, from where, without Him, no man can escape.

Then, thrusting in your courage and in the valour which I knew in you, my spirit remembering yours found peace; inspired by your character I was determined to show them mine, and your mettle there, made both of us strong.

I was taken by the ruthless regime to be savagely tortured. They said they wanted to know.

"You want to know? I tell you. God is our saviour. None can find peace if not by Him." At this I lost my first finger, though, with such boldness and effervescence of spirit that I felt not a thing. "May God forgive you," I told the guard operating the wicked tool, "and not bring tribulation upon your house."

"It's yours or mine."

When of the second, God told me that none I would keep, though, I to remain assured, He would make them pay for all.

This came with a knife.

"You have a daughter at home who you tenderly call My rain cloud; her, the Lord will charge for the wage of this job." The frightened man paled, and from then on vehemently refused the deed. He was taken to the yard and shot dead, and the bullet accounted as expense to present to his family. And away it went the third with celerity, chopped by one who feared to have the same fate.

Two of the five I still kept and was decided not to sell them but for a good price, so I began.

"Glory that all is from God and pain it is as well. So certain as a mountain to its summit rises, or the running waters in flow from up descend, upon one comes but the wage merited, as from the soil the fruit kin with the seed one choose to cast to the ground. Cannot a man who a potato buries in March, reasonably to expect that a carrot will harvest in June, or when taking a cow to an ox, that nature at the end of the due gestation, will engender a goat to come out of it. Hence, as a son to his father hastes, so come upon the results of one's deeds.

Now you say this land is forbidden to my steps, and all dogs more welcomed than this I bring.

Though I warn you. Whatever you bring upon others expects you ahead manifold increased; the good or the evil; and all that today you do and don't do, that makes your tomorrow. So, decide; open the door and let me go, of chop these all away and go to hell."

They deliberated a while, and after, there was still one offspring on this now barren palm.

"The other..."

"It's here!"

"The other conspirator! Those who went in his pursuit came back to tell that he was no common man; bullets couldn't hit him, neither dogs get on his track. Later a spot they found from where he cast himself down the river. No man could ever have survived that flow, though, the commons said to have listened sing in the middle of the current, and seen one pass seated on a raft as one goes on a ride on a rowboat through a little lake in a pleasant afternoon, merry and joyous, and with music in the heart. The dull moon was seen cheering watching him pass, while above the raft a little light came to shine, as if a little star had fallen from the sky and were being carried down by the swell. Ahead," their chief continued, "he came to

where the flow was more traitorous and wicked, but still, the folks said, he did not fear. Three times they saw death trying to drag him down to the bottom, and a trice he rose his hands above. The tempest seemed to allay at his command, and down it fared the raft as a leaf going downstream, with him singing and signalling to the sky, seeming, they told, to point the one he trusted.

What sort of man was he?"

"He came to this world to all things can do, but only to venture upon what is laborious and hard. He is a man whose Nature didn't delegate to Chance but went herself to choose what the traits to compose him, as only she could forge an alloy of silk and steel. Of all Nature gave him in the right proportion, which makes Perfection perfect, and less what is not so.

All your efforts and endeavours to catch him, were as useful, and expecting the same success, as if you would audaciously, with a wand part to scourge the morning breeze, or with a fan undertook to chase the clouds from above your head, bring it all again to a sunny day.

When he escaped down-stream, two angels went with him. In such pleasant company he journeyed until he reached the shore out of your dominions. Some folks, seeing one come out of the river so like a thing divine, thought him, no doubt, a man impended upon some reverent task, of which only he and God knew.

"Come home with us," they told the man born by the river. "We are poor folks, but there you can warm yourself at the fire, and with a meal regain strengths for the rest of your journey. Then you can tell us what crosses had brought you here."

They took him home where the peasant had a daughter who prepared the dinner. He fell eagerly upon the simple meal, and presently, at the fire began his story.

"My hoarse manners and rude speech forbid me a tale more gracious, though, the life I lived, let men wish it and not have it, except for those who can fancy wildly in their sleep.

I tread the ruthless path, and since my tender age I found the Devil against me, and God standing on my side.

From the night I was born until now, the days I knew, I can better describe them as a tempest, broke by strange moments of calamari. Thus, the intense story of my life, is a tale of no feats else, and of fortunes no different, than those which befell upon who lived risking all, regardless if win or lose.

I was always attracted by the tempest, and its uncertain winds, I spread once the sails of my unseemly bark. And by the flames that here in this fire burn, born not yet the man whom fortune treated with similar contempt. Hence, through the years that took to my youth to pass, I sailed the stormy seas, and from shore to shore, was tossed evermore fiercely, than he, from Scylla to Charybdis; one a mighty wave, the other where the peril is."

He paused in his stern discourse. The maid's blood rushed inside her girlish veins, and for the first time she knew how it burns a passion within a woman's heart, when this much he added.

"From my twelfth year until the moment of now, is poor the conception of the mind to envision what more here I could relate. Thus, I will say only that never in those days I found food tasting better than a woman's lips, a flower that could smell better than she, neither out-there light so curious, as when her eyes do shine."

He told them that one night he had come outside to see the moon, but the moon was no longer in the sky.

She doubted that it could be so the world, or in it to be such a man. Long ago she remembered her mother telling of some who had done such deeds, but those were the heroes of fables and fairy tales told by the populace. Such fantastic stories as had been primed for decades, with princesses, warriors, and men who never died. None came from woman was allowed to live such lives.

"Who are you?" she asked him.

"A man who can stand the pressure, that stone would grind into dust.

Near me, there are no braves. God is like me, and if in hell one reigns as well, not tough as I." Charmed by his words, she loathed her woman's nature. Wished that he could be hers, or that she could leave all behind, follow him through the world and be his. Their destinies, however, wouldn't allow it one way or the other, and he left in the middle of the night, and her to heal a broken heart."

"This tale shall not please!" shouted the guards out of their patience. "What shall our leader do?"

"To stain his hair with ashes and go about in sackcloth, for this world that wastes itself with vanity, and to mourn and to lament, for he has cast a man of worth from off his shores."

These words their fury revived, and this hand became the sight that is today.

Five times passed that the moon her crescent could fill anew," Gideon kept expounding to his tearful listener, "until that I could convince a guard who agreed to provide an occasion for my evasion and means to take me out of the country, still with many hazards and adventurous escapes from the grasp of death.'

The night was passed so, between stories and tears, with the two friends remembering gone days. The time flew as only it can, and swiftly came the moment to open the doors to the underground service. The basement was replete with many seated and standing spectators, with Augustine ordering them all.

Thomas went to the pulpit and opened the session.

'Today my heart rejoices, and I call the light good that came to alight a morning such as this. It was a long way until here and this ceremony be possible, though, one day I imagined it, and since, never I allowed in me doubt, inactivity, or delegated to the next day what I still could do; thus great things are made. And thus I'm here, for the glory of the Creator, not about to fall, but at an instant from raising my arms in victory, and my hands in gratitude and in glory to the sky. Nothing can break me, and in awe I got but the Lord. On the laws of men, I trample without fatigue.

And here I see another one like me. Him I call now to join me.'

Gideon rose to great expectation of all. After a few words and embraces between the two friends, Thomas regained his seat.

Gideon, after telling a few words between him and God alone, thus addressed the audience.

"The mouth of the fool stands for himself, while from each footstep of a righteous man, a thousand witnesses arise to attest his ways."

Gideon was a mysterious figure. Having listened all those tales about him and seeing him now on stage with his dilacerated hand, the seal which certificated the mettle of his character as rare, he was a sight to fill any man's eyes.

'As those in hell, I was once like them,' he continued, 'until one day, as well, scales fell down from my eyes. And as Saul became Paul, I became myself, as many other men until today turned into whole new creatures, when one day they could see what in the previous they could not.

I'm not a man of great eloquence, you would be surprised to know how much of what you see, is but a soul whom one day undertook to know himself. And my lecture this morning is to share with you what

fulfils it, and what cause it to languish. I like to feel my soul pleased and happy, and of all I will tell you, the main is for you to come and serve with me, yours, and to find your peace as I found mine. So, my prayer this morning, was that God may love all His children, and that my words might find acceptance and a place in your spirit.

And what fulfils our souls the present men call it god; the previous civilisations, Orus, and Rรก; the light and what it illumines; the sun as thing divine and giver of life. And the spirit of God is here today to guide those who by themselves can do no better than going lost.

No religion, brothers. Religion tedious me as a wench's prattle. I seek for God and he searches for me. I look if He's out there and let Him find me, in a relation of father and son. When our energies unite, is felt what Buddhists call enlightenment, as the many other ideologies use many several different terms.

Some might call it The transcendental communication of the spirit with its maker, I don't know, I never heard it, but to myself is what it is.

About, one sees times that might lead to conclude that the right is wrong and the wrong is right.

Though I tell you that it isn't. I tell you the wrong is wrong, and for you to keep strong and believing, and by doing so, you will make life far more valuable and so more sweet, than to go empty and only by oneself; where can one go like that?

There were times when I doubted as well, and in those days, I was riding only for the Devil, and to everything heavy that then wanted to mount my back. A mule that I was, and dragging my load, and men bowed to me as to a god, and in those days, or they did my will, or I gave them hell. It were times when the motion of my limbs seemed to be wasted performing some else's will than not my own, and it was recurrent back then for I to spend the nights awake pondering sorely at where I was going.

Blind and lost, I was idolatrised by men. My name became a legend, and there were many who knowing me, didn't imagined that I was the figure behind the tales they told, while others, never seen before and on occasion just met, they not knowing who, told stories of great intimacy with myself, and that even in my house had feasted. Thus was my confusing world, of which the god was I. In a show of great majesty, all was little and insignificant, and the montage of something about to ruin. One day all crumbled and died the monster; the creature slave of the wage and of the brief mortality.

And in these times of materialism, when one is ready to do all for a profit, I felt touched in my spirit to tell you today about the joys that are to be purchased by a wicked wage. And never in the history of mankind, one may find a more base man, who earned more despiteful and evil money, than Judas Iscariot, and his abominable thirty silver coins. Revenue accorded by the audacious creature as plenty and enough to sell the Christ to the Calvary; thus reverently he regarded our Saviour.

Paul tells us that he went to buy a lot as any businessman, the monster, while the Messiah still convulsed nailed to his ordeal. The Son of God had scarcely arrived in hell, traded by one he willed good, and the one who sold him still paced the earth, with how much he costed, rattling on his pocket. Never such insolent had encumbered the earth.

Seven days it took him to get rid of that sinister sum, royalty one could tell, the Devil himself had coinage.

It was Friday, the day which in later times it would be remembered and celebrated as Good Friday; the crucifixion day. Judas started on his odyssey, and looking to where in that day any good man would shun to turn his eyes, stood for whiles gazing at Calcutรก, where it was exposed to shame and mockery the

three crucified men; the one in the middle the light of the world that soon would be out. Nevertheless, regardless of anything, and with such disdain as if a thousand demons were in him, Judas went in that bitter morning, when all around were mourning and lamenting the day, in a quest sentenced not to joy; to buy a piece of land, as the Lord Almighty had put in his heart the traitorous wage should be spent.

As soon as he, who for retribution of his love was put athwart the cross, expired, it darkened the colour of the sky, and the welkin's cheek became of a pitch so severe that not a star could be seen above.

Like an animal who thunders put in frenzy, Judas ran trying to find shelter to hide from that fantastic darkness, which he guessed to be hell come at the surface to swallow him down. As one preoccupied with death, he wandered through the woods, shivering and trembling as a dog in night of cold or one taken by a fit of palsy, for cover of that sudden night that made all as dark as inside of a man's coffin. When Judas was wondering if would be still alive in company of the living, or dead among those afflicted in hell, the day brightened, and annoyed and vexed still to be, he cursed his mother for had brought him forth, and God for let him still living. Though, now with the lord Jesus faring through the land of the dead, God wouldn't allow Judas to brag to be again under the same canopy with His son, and sentenced the damned with seven days more to live, made of no life at all, which he spent in search of a place to die.

Judas went on, slapping himself as a malcontent, imprecating from the heart beating in his chest, to the sole of his feet, which so troubled measured the ground, plucking his locks and goring his cheeks with his nails, as one possessed by the Devil. Looking at Judas, he would seem as one who had started a fight in a tavern, complimenting his foe with many depreciative and shameful terms to his mother, and lost it.

So sorely he bit himself in rage for his deed.

After walking some miles as one who have death as better fortune, and within exults with the moment of being no more, Judas found a terrain put for sale. Neat mead with access to bull-chart, the owner warranted in a sign. Judas couldn't care the less for that and went from there to know the conditions for the deal, deploring vehemently the soul awakened inside of him.

As soon as he entered the property the animals started in great commotion and alarm, as when a serpent or a wolf is among them. The waters in the wells defiled; calves born dead from inside their mothers; bitches in frenzy ate their litters, while horses, possessed by an uncommon fear, ran to cliffs from where they jumped to death. All throughout Judea, slaves revolted against their owners, and slew them savagely on the fields where they trod oppressed, as, at home, lunatics and men with dementia slaughtered those who cared for them. Through the streets, blind men saw and the deaf heard things which scared them to death, and the one in heaven, who once created heaven and the earth, deplored and lamented his work.

The nature of God was offended, and this was His fury against him who betrayed His son.

Omens many more were seen in those prodigal times all across the land. Unaware of all this Judas and the landowner stood agreeing the terms for the deal, and when attracted to look at the horizon, from that distant part of the sky, they discerned two eagles in dreary flight. First hardly seen, then that more fiercely came into view, stained with the blood of the lamb, and eager to avenge it on Judas with their claws. And on him they landed, and after much mischief done on his back and cheeks, again they flew back to heaven.

"It's okay," Judas tried to explain the dire hap. "I'm Judas. The one who desecrated what was holy, and made foul business with the offspring of God. As a pig to a butcher, or an ox to the blow of the axe,

the seed of heaven and hope for us all, I gaily sold to the cross. Now, lo! what tremendous vengeance I called upon me."

The folks loathed to be told of that as a good son of the death of his father, despising the creature capable of such despicable act. They grabbed stones which they threw at Judas with such fury, that he had to make a riot within to find strengths to escape their rage, and hardly could escape to fulfil his fated week of torments.

Again he was on his way, so vehemently despising the life inside of him, that never more unwilling trod convict to his trouble, than Judas strode each step.

Just try to envision, how it should be a torment inside of this man's mind, agreed in such shameful deed as to sell the Christ, issued by God to this world as the saviour of His children, deed the Devil himself would shun to perform. And his soul was going through an ordeal so great, that by itself God thought it punishment enough to atone for the part of himself, that so ingloriously in the world has died, that Judas was allowed with seven days more to live, as compensation for the Lantern of the World, that he so unworriedly had cracked in pieces.

None ever felt similar remorse or pangs of conscience, which are capable the commons of eating a man alive, as this Judas, surnamed, Iscariot, feeling himself the most degraded and wicked man alive, as any man who betrays his friend. Thus he went from there, comparing his life to excrements, in such trial as only know those who with their troubles whelmed traverse in hell, in the most tragic circumstances which a man ever knew.

At far the cross exhibited to all how much this base and ignominious creature had plundered from the world; the Chosen Vessel sent to carry us all to the paradise, which Judas had sacked and sunk to the bottom, conquering thus in the history of our world, a place which would cause that any bum dog to be better regarded than he, and of its deeds better spoke.

Thus fared Judas in his damned route, career made fouler than the pigs', when he spotted another mead put for sale. The text chosen to advertise it annoyed him immensely. May men be happy in the land the Lord has blessed, he read sorely, repudiating and disgusting each breath.

In the mood of one who follows cursing his parents' graves for had made him living thing, he headed to where first some folks he had seen employed upon some task, which seemed to Judas worthless and vain.

God was revolted. His son was now cold and stiff on the cross, in his mouth a sponge soaked in vinegar, while his gracious head, now bent to the ground, was made a feast for ravens that eagerly devoured on his ears. That same Jesus, who a star had been sent herald of his birth, and now, got marked in the visage the hopelessness of one who came to this world in vain. And the great God was being vexed and distracted in His grief by this ignominious and insignificant wretch, and in His mourn, still had to give attention to what this opprobrious creature, who seemed that all the outrages could dare, was doing.

"If I could just kill him twice and let him still alive more to suffer and to more endure!" cried the Almighty, while thunders and quakes shaking the earth attested His moods.

Judas was damned at the eyes of the Lord. God had forbidden him any sort of satiety during this last days, thus, through this week, never sleep came to close his eyes, neither nourishment he could swallow.

In this anguish Judas approached the peasants tilling the mead. The folks muttered to each other seeing the results of Judas many beatings to himself marked on his face.

"You seem ill," told him the landlord among them. "Did you come for a meal?"

"No. I cannot break my fast," Judas answered sketching faint gestures as he spoke.

"God be praised, and all men like you." Judas frown annoyed.

"Ill ground I trod," he started his lamentation, "In a world wrong, which those in it are there to suffer.

The spirit of the Lord, who with lust visited a woman, now vexed and annoyed remembers Judas, making him suffer more than dogs deserve, telling him that he was shameless, and he was wrong."

The folks stared at Judas bewildered by his report. One started, then again to inertia resolving, in dismay dropped his arms, while a second gapped as to speak, but moving his lips, not a sound could make. The rest were all mute.

"When all was divided I got no share, and here you see a man who didn't mind that it was so. Loathes me the pomp, and the vanity that it's got with things."

The folks all admired and stupefied listening to Judas's outbursts, gazing at far at their own sheep, that now, by the wrath of God, all had turned ablaze and raced glad across the fields. The fishes in the stream loathed the water and leaped on land; oxen scared how many who found them saying things in the language of those who fed them, while all around, the wells filled with dirt and had to be dug again.

"It's strange, indeed, to see the heavens in such indignation and outraged, when from above one is supposed to take all mildly and without a frown. Thirst; hunger; to go about with tired steps, and such other ordeals else, as make life seem worse than death. Rejoice you, who from here see those sheep alighted, for I tell you, all the rest of the world is in darkness.

Once less apart and not so lonely felt Leander, lost in the middle of the sea, crying helpless, "What with thee? In ill hour thou blowest!" when before drowning, he perceived on land his guiding light go out, than Judas going among a crowd, they all waving at me."

Listening to these terms, the old and the women all stepped back, while the young and the stout advanced menacingly at Judas, in their minds planning him much mischief. He, perceiving them so ill intended, with infinite misery retired to where the sheep ablaze now calmly grazed. It took Judas a while to outrun their stones so eagerly cast, that each hitting him, caused Judas to bite his tongue in enormous trouble. Bleeding abundantly from head and mouth, he reached at last where he was at safe of the stones of those rude peasants, that so many bumps and bruises had caused him.

The night was setting at last, at the end of what seemed Judas a long day. As any common beast, Judas went to find a den where to spend those dark hours. As he went in, the savage inhabitant came out, as if shunning such vile companion as he who had just crawled in. In the dark Judas administrated more slaps to himself, and new furrows made on his cheeks, while wished his mother sunk in hell and a thousand demons tearing her limbs.

After to roll on the ground in sacrifice, as one whom a legion possessed, and but with the scarce sandals, Judas kicked a rock and his bloody nail came out. And again his mother and God were evoked with many disgraceful terms.

Through the hours that took the night to clear Judas stood awake thinking out his deed; the foul move he made; shameful to himself and to all of us, race that once disdained its salvation, deemed forever worthless because of him.

With the first hues of the dawn, Judas was on his way, more anguished than when he had crawled in.

From there he went as he could, as one who goes not willing, and vexed treads his path.

Such was his motion as of one who follows after a funeral, or goes down the road carrying some enormous grief, telling the fortune of dogs better than his. Until here purchased his wage.

Judas felt weak on his knees and about to collapse, and from his brow rivers of sweat downstreamed. It didn't take him long to find another lot for sale. Presently he found a company gathered among who was the landowner.

"Yes. It's over there. Go, inspect it well and then tell me how much you offer."

Judas scarcely looked in the direction pointed.

"Thirty silver coins!" he proposed for a mead which wouldn't worth one.

At these infamous words, graves vomited forth their dead. Saint George dismounted and for while walked aside with his tired nag, and the great Leviathan, a monster which until never had an emotion, felt great contempt and loathed the race of men, forever disdaining the shores.

The amount alarmed the honest man.

"You came too late," he said walking out of the deal. "It's already sold. Had you had come early, and who knows."

"Only yesterday my fortune reminded me with favour and granted me this boon," replied the abnormal creature. "You might have heard of him who accorded price to sell the son the Almighty. It was I, who giggling and wicking to the Devil, the Christ sold, grieved only for God to have just one son. Thus, the part which the Lord severed and gave of himself to among us, His children, be made man and purchase our sins with his blood, I considered as good as litter, and low-priced for thirty pieces of base silver, whom all the riches in this world couldn't pay a hair.

Now I've doomed the world, and of all of us, there's not one who will not fare down to hell. Yea, shameful was my deed more than I can tell."

The folks were dumbfounded with Judas account and couldn't stir or make a sound, when Judas added to what had already been by far too much.

"Yesterday I made death victorious and reigning over us like a king, giving it all your sons to eat, and this sea, across which it sails our bark, I forever set at dark. Lo! See afar the crucified body. Mark from here (for to good uses God gave us sight) how many the birds feeding on his corpse, then turn and tell me that I am not vile, then turn your face to me and say that you love me, tell me that I am your brother!

I'm Judas, the disciple. The one who for a wage betrayed his friend. Now, mother, I can make shame, and father as well.

Can I have a sip of water? Since I said "Enough with the prattle! Give me thirty silvers and is well paid!" that no water I can drink, nor food goes down my throat."

The peasants listened uncredulous hardly believing that could be such evil in a man. The landlord had been told of more than his frail spirit could take, and staring at Judas, all he had in the stomach forcibly came out. Then all dropped whatever they were holding in their hands and ran away in great consternation. Judas cleansed himself as he could then left. He kept on, in company of God's eternal scorn and of his pain.

"If only I could rest," he muttered to himself, "as do those who are dead." And more he trodden, each step a more cheerless distance, annoyed as one who in discontentment atones in hell. And one can tell with certainty that from all that walk in the rough terrain, blisters had infected on his feet, becoming painful sores, that made him regret and to lament bitterly his way. Though still compelled to go he was,

doing upon him more violence for had made himself man more vile than villainy.

At length he saw an ox being taken to the field. He approached the peasant driving the beast to pry if the man chanced to know about "any good deal". Soon as Judas neared them, the stout animal dropped dead and rotten as if it had been there for a month, in that time of year when the heat is more fierce.

"Yea, my friend," he started at the direful hap, "God is angry with Judas."

The peasant stared with repulse at the loathsome figure, now telling him the reasons for a honest man so seldom thrive and find his place in the world.

"I am the unnatural one, who was disposed to betray the one who trusted him. Now scarcely more than a ghost is who I am, and the whole more joyous fares one to hard labour, with gyves around his ankles, or come a father from deliver his son to the grave, than I envision one more hour. Today less content than discontentment is the disposition with which I go about and feel the warmth of the sun. So, from this little you can well see what means a great deal. And I..." The peasant thought to had heard enough of such impish prattle, and in his mood so crossed, rose his shaft and landed it twice athwart Judas’ back.

"That's for my bull! The rest you'll pay in hell."

Judas ran away shunning to wait for another blow, and for long trod incapable of draw breath, feeling himself the most miserable man who ever lived.

Hardly escaping, Judas went in search of his next ordeal, crying and in rage biting his arms.

The night was already setting when Judas spotted a stony field where only thorns were tenacious enough to thrive, and his damned steps took him next to knock at the door of an idolater. It was dark when the impious man came to answer Judas's knock, and for whiles both stood facing each other at the dubious light of a candle.

"The Devil!" he cried seeing the horror in Judas face. "Come in my friend. Tell me who you are and at what you come for. Were you here to anounce that now would be my time to die, and you wouldn't need to put a more ghastly countenance.�

"I'm Judas. The one who affronts God with each breathing. Now in this pain, I must sport myself, until to a greater one arrived. And I came to know of a lot to disposal."

"God is a fool! And parcel I got none for sale."

At these words, all this man had sowed rotten in the fields.

They sat at the fire and the idolater began.

"Yea, Judas. I heard about you. You are the man of the moment. The name all speak about. The most discomposed and saucy fellow that ever came to be. The one whom even the dogs dislike when he passes."

"Do you not fear the Lord?"

"I put my faith on things, and in how many goats I have!"

"The day when I sold His son..." "...It would have been made unhappy if I'd spilled my wine!"

At such impudence, all throughout the skies thunders gave token of the dispositions in heaven, violently trembling the earth; insolence as the Devil himself wouldn't dare. In prisons all across Judea, wicked men revolted and slew their guards, parting then to tumult and riot. Lucindas approached their new-borns with murderous hands and choked them to death, while doctors and nurses moved to pity, gave

poisoned portions for their patients to drink. In the streets dull men had visions and dumb spoke in tongues they knew not what, and in nature such other disorders were seen, as one would think proper to befit then end of times.

A gust of wind came down and blew the door open with a loud bang. The contemptuous man rose and leaned a chair against it, as if such precaution was enough to prevent them from the fury of the Lord, who can blow a mountain out of a plain, with less trouble than one has to put a candle out, showing for how much he had God's anger in disdain.

"Yea, my friend," he sitting again resumed his speech. "You made a good money. Enough to let a man well for a while. Your nourishment's not rearing a fool. No. I like your mettle. You saw an opportunity and seized it. Blessed all men like you. Heavens should be yours. Were I in your place and I wouldn't look back either, but it would be myself now counting that money there just waiting to be made. I tell you; weak men make me sick! Resolution is what one needs, and to be strong. Let one to think the things of heaven but to when one is in hell, for there, I say, it will be plenty of occasion."

God above was revolted being insulted and offended by these two wretches. He shouted to His angels He would kill the Devil, would it not be severe enough against these two conspirators of evil. In anger, He ordered His armies to assemble, then not knowing what orders to command them, in great wrath again dismissed them.

"What! Tarry you still? Away! Or I will pluck your wings all out!" Jove cried outraged.

All that was fair was disgusted. Even Judas, obnoxious and of evil, started at this blasphemous creature's tremendous disrespect.

"See, I have a daughter," he said looking passionately in Judas eyes. "It's gold you have?"

"Silver."

"Still good. I don't disdain it. Be mindless today, tomorrow be in need. -How much?"

"Thirty pieces with Herod's face."

"That's an amount for you to set your life a-right," said the adorer of worthless gods laying his arm on Judas shoulder who was staring at him as one looking at a snake crossing his way. "Take heed, my good man, you could by a family from me. This daughter of mine, nature didn't gift her much in the visage, though she does all as well as the fair."

The animals in the adjacent stables started frenetically kicking the walls as if the Devil had got in them, that the shack seemed about to ruin. And now such a dire wind blew that blasted the door out of the hinges. Tediously the insolent rose to repair it, then again took his seat resuming his speech and his unshakeable contempt.

"An opportunity like this comes to a man once in a lifetime," he said putting one more log into the fire. "The wise men take it. For silver, I say, you won't find a better business."

"I must buy a lot."

"A lot, you fool! Let me see those!" Judas emptied his pockets to a table. The greedy creature stared marvelled at the silver coins.

"Do we have a deal?"

"A piece of ground is what I seek."

"Let me have those!"

"No!"

"Give them to me or I will strike you," he said taking one brand out of the fire and hitting Judas in the head, knocking him out of his senses. The imp collected the coins into a purse and hasted out of the house, dying still on his threshold. Judas regained conscience, cursed again the world and all men in it and went outside, where he found the impudent expiring his last convulsions, and still holding what to him was the most precious. Judas took the purse, emptied it to the pockets of his tunic, and left, rattling as the Warder of the Dungeons of Hell, rueing and deploring his self.

As a wandering animal Judas wasted those dark hours until the dawn. In the morning he felt his body ache and realised that was full of sores all over, caused by the punishments he in his mad state had inflicted to himself, of which he didn't remember a thing. And if some were bruises, the most were deep cuts into the skin, that looking at Judas would cause to one's insides to start to cry. So pitifully he looked, that one who had just seen Judas kill his two daughters, in whom he had all his hopes and wished them to thrive, stabbing them now one, now another, would come to pat him on the head saying, "Leave it. It's all right."

Judas again wished all to end; the world to him and he die. Though, God had sentenced him to suffer more than the One nailed, and this he still must do. Death to this fellow was just a dream. Imagine how it must have been a burden to crush any man, to know oneself the one God despises most than all; and of this Judas could be certain, no man else had sold His son. And if the death of a man appears to him hideous, as one's end is the most repugnant thing one can conceive, to Judas, his seemed merry and sweet, and all the way too far.

When of his base deed, Jove descended to where eternity is a monster and there commanded the Devil.

"For all this darkness! See that you'll welcome him dearly. Transfixed be for always with stakes driven into the ground, that the light he darkened from the world, in hell, whelmed in cares manifold, he may enjoy it."

But now a new day was rising for him to endure. Greatly annoyed, as the Devil is in hell, Judas passed by a cemetery with the graves all batting in the sun, and this view felicited the spirits in him with thoughts of rest and of not go walking. As he passed, the dead felt such contempt, that happened as is often witnessed, that men buried stiff dead, are found in post-mortem exhumations with many turns twisted on their coffins. Not for a moment he ceased from cursing and lamenting his steps, until that, or the Devil was in him, or no one knows what happened, this hateful man, of all base the lowest, resolved to make an offense next that not God, not the Devil, thought him capable of affront so great.

It passed that this perfidious and knavish fellow, decided in that Sunday morning, as any pious man, to step his feet into a church, and listen to the sermon on every synagogues; the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, who Judas jaunty and lightly sold to the cross. Since hell's heat is mild, and what burning there but candid flames.

A herd of swines it would be more pleasant for the Lord see enter His house than this imp. O, contemptuous wreck! Proud as he when in.

As the priest saw Judas standing at the door he halted in his speech.

"The Devil is here! The beast and a thousand demons. Now, Lord, deal mercifully with our souls!"

But Jove was outraged that a single man could move him so far and said he won't have it like that.

"I will kill the world and him after!" He cried to the angels. "It was for this day I set the fires burning.

Now feel you, the dire of my heat."

Judas crossed himself and went to take his seat. The vile is you, he heard all through his being.

"The Lord just spoke!"

"And what did He said?"

"The vile is you! Through thy hallowed visage can I see."

The folks ran all out in great panic and alarm, and some started on eager flagellation. In the church remained only the traitor and the priest.

"Why did you come, impious creature, here, to the house of God?" "It's not for a man to skip church on Sunday," answered the hypocrite. The oak doors, which needed two men to open, banged like shutters with the fury of the insulted deity. Judas still went further in his outraging argumentations.

"I want to confess my sins before I die, and not recklessly to lose my salvation."

The priest sweated imagining himself being told of such narrative as the Devil would shun to listen.

"Worry you now with that?"

"I erred and did what I shouldn't, and to such a man God promised salvation and eternal bliss just if he confesses it."

"You made God enter the gates of hell as any common thief."

"Yes! Life is unfair. We learn it since the day we born. But let me not make further mischief as to damn the part of me that is eternal."

God was astonished and indignant with all that filth, and decided the priest in hell with his family, and all he cared about damned until the third generation than to let him grant absolution to Judas, and have to see His arch-enemy enter delighted the gates of heaven. Not after such offense as haste to sell His son to the priests, gaily as one rushes with a pig to the market.

The priest put on the duly vestment conform with the occasion and presently in the confessional started the rite.

"Forgive me, father, for I had sinned."

"And what was your sin, my son?" asked the priest in stammering voice, for the last he wanted to be told in his life.

"I proposed thirty silver coins, to sell to death and humiliation, the one issued to save us all, promising for our souls' delight and eternal being. As a scoundrel to the gibbet, or a murderer to the gallows, I handed the Christ, and of one strike, put out the Light of the World, and God in hell. And now am repented of my act. Tell me father, a penitence to expiate my fault."

"Nothing can atone for that!" cried the priest, fanning himself with the pages of the old testament.

"Your sin is such that no mercy can forgive."

Judas proceeded to explain the traitorous deal.

"Tell us how much," the priests said in a murmur.

"My price is thirty silver coins."

"Agreed. Though we can go until fifty."

"I would do it for twenty," and augmented the nausea and disgust of all who listened. The priests with great scorn threw the wage at my feet.

"How shall we know him?"

"The one sold I shall kiss."

The priest, candid man, and of a heart devoted to the Lord, rued for long to have listened such infamous words. As Judas was to resume his profane speech, one rushes in with the latest news to tell the priest.

"Come! Haven't you heard?" he said in wonder and in cheer. "The saviour, alive, walked out of death!"

Unsatisfaction grew in Judas at each word.

"That's impossible!" he cried. "You talk as if you had been among the dead and seen."

"It's true. Death was made his carriage, and the gates of hell, vassals to his will, got wide open, while the Sisters gapped seeing him pass."

"That's a lie!" Judas shouted incredulous with the tidings. "But say, saucy, who saw these haps?"

"Maria Magdalene, herself, who visiting the sepulchre, found the yond whole empty and mocked in its power."

"Lo, God!" Judas cried raising his arms, "To where are you leading this world! That plebeians and whores is what we have now to tell us the truth is not true!"

Judas left evoking many other blasphemies, treading first resolved, then dragging his feet, as one worried and with care in erase the track which he had made to verify if his booty was still hidden where first he stored it, and, being certified that is so, dragging his feet now he comes, to disguise the trace that leads to it.

"The dead is not dead!" he mused deeply. "That's no boon. Miserable the man who cannot die. Boon I call these silvers of mine, here rattling while I tread."

He was silent for a while lost in cogitation, until that, crossed in his mood, again.

"The dead is not dead! Then, or the man was not a man, of the Devil is not a beast. Strange world this one where we come to suffer."

Judas felt more unhappy, and during the hours of the night, he aimed to the site of the sepulchre, going as one who holds the things of God in great contempt. After walking for a while, low-spirited, as one whom, innocent, faces a firing squad, while gazing at his little boy in tears among the crowd, gathered there to see him die, incoherent speech he once more began.

"We born, and yet, are not really alive, and now one is told that those who die death does not take them," said Judas to the stars gesticulating displeased, as one who in court listens to the many years of his sentence, deplores it, and finds it unfair. "There's in the world a bigger mystery than this?

Plainly now I see that not all is loss in life, though a major part is a lesson to make us learn. And from the understanding that I make of all I say, that here has a meaning; death is a door, and those who doubt, to be certain, that to a man it concerns not just this life. This tells you one who never grew in wisdom but at a moment ago. Until the teacher was showing and I eager in not to see it; and that was the lesson written in the board," said the delirious Judas thoughtful to himself. "And if it's hard to a man to find a moment when he can truly say, "Now I'm happy," today I can raise my hands, and with visage sometimes moisten, say "Thank you, God, now I'm truly happy." " God was outraged. The angels, discomfited, dropped their wings. Judas kept with his blasphemies.

"Thus I see demons and I don't fear them, for my eyes are up to heaven, and I see rules and courts and I don't care for those, for the laws I follow issue from God!" he cried as if to be false and traitorous

was all designs from the Lord. The heavens were all in tumult and God about to decide for the terminus of all. With Zion checked in its foundations, all through the celestial premises was felt the fury of the Divine, while on earth, sons envious of their parents sneaked into their rooms, and with clubs and draggers killed them selvatically for their fortunes. Madmen for whiles talked reasonably and reproached the doctors who called them insane; the rich woke from their sleep and sat in their beds, feared for their wealth, while the poor in peace, felt more happy and more content."

Unaware of all this, Judas voice was again echoing through the night.

"Thus, Brutus slew Caesar, and with his blood in the Capitol made a mess; little David, Goliath tumbled down, and Judas sold the Christ, regarding him less than a dog. History shall not forget such men. With such motion the world advances, leaving behind its hindering parts.

I'm a man who goes with evils and traps watching my ways, deploring he who begot me, and the one who gave me birth wishing in hell. I'm Judas, the villain! Who scoundrels and rogues, such as would merrily slay their mothers, held in contempt."

The day rose and showed Judas afar the sepulchre of Christ. In a short he found himself gazing at the tomb in dismay, contemplating the large stone sealing the entrance moved aside. After staring depressed at the happy sight, at last he rose his hands and spoke.

"Today did the vexed knew affront, and those who still have face, took a tremendous blow!"

At these offensive words, the earth shook so fiercely that nearly knocked Judas out of his feet.

"Never again the world will be able to content or satisfy me, or I to see in it else than a heinous round. From now on, never I shall find merry in the bright of the sun, the stars to myself tedious, and the moon better if not there. At this moment all the out-there made null and insignificant; a son calling for his father, not different than a cub yelping for a beast, and frogs and cockroaches more handsome and delightful to gaze upon, than this ugly world that now I see."

With this negative speech Judas left from the glorious site, treading oppressed and discontent, as one after see his house ablaze; his family inside calling his name, while he, with arms dropped down, resignedly watch them die, to find a parcel of ground where to spend the damned money, so that his steps may end. Greatly distressed, as the Devil gazing at a handshake between two men, Judas looked at an old board, which, one could tell, for long advertised something that it couldn't be sold, for the letters, the most the sun has eaten them. It was a lot with a small hut where it had lived a happy family of five, until one night, for no apparent reason, they clad their kids, brought them outside and hung them all, the three children, in a three, and themselves after. On the next day they were found, the five, balancing at the morning's breeze. Since, the owner struggled to sell it without success. It was with joy and a smile than he perceived Judas approaching and ask him about the deal.

As when in a gold mine, or of precious stones, down in the maw of the earth two men dig. And one, busy digging out but worthless dirt notices his companion tarries not still, but urged by the bounty found, now joyous and content aims to the surface, with his fists raised into the air in victory, whiles he gazes with apprehension at the cave under the dim light, rueing in the depths of his soul the poor spot he chose.

And now thinks it better fortune to run after his wealthy comrade, than for how many luckless hits more he would chastise the earth with his shovel; thus eagerly, the landlord cast away his plough, and walked insinuatively aside with Judas.

"My friend, it's a fine ground, and luckily, it has a house in it where you can live in. You will listen

say that the Devil lives there but that's a myth. And I'm asking less than I would pay to bury my mother."

Judas shivered.

"Maybe it wasn't a good idea after all. I seek where I can be in peace, not a house full of ghosts."

"Why? The ghosts are dead people. The living you should fear, and those who call you friend, for in them the cunning is. What harm can cause you one who is dead?"

Judas gazed confused at the crooked man and presently this answer made.

"Now you listen one who came onto this world not to face ghosts' silly pranks, but the mighty fury of the Divine Lord; You must be tough to stand to such a thing. For this came Judas, to follow in the track of none, but to cast the nets and catch the world his.

Until today many I knew, who having but refrained a sneeze, appear bragging of having done great deeds, and say they must go home to rest on their beds, for others equally great are ahead.

Today set that house on fire where spirits and ghosts make society and let the Devil have them all.

Haven't you heard about Judas?"

"Yea. The one that is damned."

"Monster! I would that your mother had eaten you at your birth!

Why say you that God is against me. What disgrace you see in me that tells you that he doesn't love me still?"

"They say that the one who perished, you killed him, and for whiles you stood gazing watching him die."

"Trifle that, and minor stuff to interfere with our love."

"Such a one would vex the wicked who deserved hell."

Judas looked down on him and disdained to answer, then with great scorn, walked away without a word, rueing bitterly the steps to that errand. After a mile treading with a gait of one who goes to identify his dear ones’ slaughtered in a massacre, he neared some who were assembled in great mourning and consternation. A little boy had been found dead, swollen as a pig in day of slaughter. His father was one of those grievous men. They in such mood and Judas approached them on one manifold more bitter, and so impolitely he adressed them.

"Say! I would there's was a war to busy you upon, idle men, for such lousy lot as you can only be employed killing or being killed!"

The good men were enraged, and some were needed to calm down the rest.

"But say! What is the reason for you staying loafing gazing about in the hours of labour? Has Herod gone soft?"

The company outraged followed explaining their ordeal. They told him they were not commons but Roman citizens; that their work was to whip insolent and dirty slaves such as he, and that only their grief allowed Judas to get out from there alive.

He feared not.

"Puff! I would eat a dog to avoid to myself such fortunes."

Some draw their swords and Judas left.

"Everywhere I see better men do worst, and the strong being not so hard."

Scowling as one who in a penal colony is lashed and sees his twenty-year hard labour sentence doubled, Judas watched the setting of the sun, looking at it as one would gaze at far at the end of the

world. He laid against a tree and decided to wait until the morrow. The passage time, and those hours of the night, consumed him with regrets, and without any sort of cheer he stood awake, reminding his merry days of youth. Some robbers passed by and approached to see what they could profit from him.

"Who are you, dirty rag? A pilgrim."

"I'm Judas, the one whose kiss means death."

"What do you have with you?"

"Thirty silver pieces. Never in the world a sum more vile. Do you want them?" Judas asked holding two handfuls of coins and showing them to the wicked men who took instant death. Judas buried them, and with sticks made two crosses with which he signalled the graves, for the world to know that it was he who killed them as well, custom held until today.

Soon as the sun brought again the world to view Judas went on his way, feeling before he started as one about to die for long march. It was a glorious morning. The clouds blushed crimson as they saw the sun appear at the horizon. All annoyed Judas immensely. At each minute time sowed new terrors in his mind. Morosely and dull, as one whom all his fortune lost, he knocked at the door of a landowner with a lot for sale. For whiles, Judas stood at the door not knowing what else to expect but to himself more blows, when he heard commotion within, and soon was standing in front of him a man of stern appearance.

The landlord gazed at Judas with wonder; he looked at him in dismay, and folding his both arms against his chest, this he spoke.

"If a man always finds within a cause to rejoice, woe to me that I have none!" He said with his hands marking in the air his anguish. "Brother with the disgrace, and thus afflicted in this hour of trouble, Judas knocks at your door, feels sad and smiles, in a cheer that seems him pain. Soon I discovered the world couldn't annoy me more; the animals walking the land; the birds, and the fishes in the sea. Hence the snake crawls, the snail tarries, and Judas follows without his will, envying at each step the awareness that is in the stones.

Now I sink in a sea of sailors, and where others cruise, right there I die."

"Why did you come?"

"I asked the Lord and He got angry."

"Do you don't know?"

"To chat; to buy a lot, and what not."

"The parcel is sold. To company I'm old, and the rest, may the Devil take it!" and he slammed the door on Judas face, who stood for whiles feeling indignant with such behaviour and the rude manners of this man, and angry knocked again. The man once more appeared, now with fiercer semblance than before.

"Ill and indisposed, as the Devil in the morning! Does not the pain of a good man make you suffer, as an ordeal in a dog makes you cheer? The Devil is out-there waiting men to take them, eager that there's no goodwill in heaven, for on earth it's found no more. But everywhere beasts, annoying insects, and men who through little ways go about. All this brings me cause to rejoice as it would to stare at my father's guts, or gaze for whiles at my mother's single breast."

The stern man, crossed in his mood so far, wrinkled his brow, and as one who has been watching a play for the last hour or so, and anxious to see the outcome of it, is then displeased with the finale and

vexed revolts, grabbed Judas by the vests, and while giving him vigorous shakings, called his steward ordering him to whip Judas fifty times for his insolence, then to balm his wounds with salt, and put him out of the property. The debilitated Judas felt great fear, for the steward was man stout, and gazing at his large stature, he perceived to himself great ordeal. Though, from there Judas couldn't guess, that a man so fit for wiping could be so poor in counting, and after well more than a hundred blows receive from the sturdy man, who was strong to lash but weak in math, and zealous, for several times resumed all from the start, was put out of the property, his wounds bated with salt. All this made Judas, who so bravely had faced the whip, to feel now that a child advancing to him with a straw could beat him to death. He mused grievously at how wrong he had been before when he thought that no matter what would come, he could not feel worst, that this savage lashing had come to show him plainl and clear how lightly he had concluded then.

Not certain if afflicted on earth or revelling in hell, Judas passed by a sign on the side of the road where it said only Lot to sell. This brief, however, took him long to read, so disturbed and annoyed he was by his distress, and expecting nothing but more troubles, he went as one whose will had left him long ago.

He thought while on his way to talk with God, though nothing occurred Judas to tell Him, and he went from there talking with the Devil instead.

"Lonely feels a man without a friend, and his distressed bark sails a sea with no harbour. In the world he's null, and with no ambitions for the next day. Though, he is the brother of a clown; for his brother laughs when both are sad."

Once again the sun was falling from the sky into the sea, and the night, with giant steps approaching, soon covered all the earth all with darkness. Judas laid and wished to die. He remembered other men who had died before and his parents' graves; a dog that he once buried in the yard and thought the world a better place if no man alive. Feeling more than sad, Judas perceived the morning coming to greet him.

When Judas again saw the sun, he frowned and again went on his way, walking more against than convict towards the scaffold, who at each step rues bitterly the fortunes come upon. A few hours passed, and Judas saw another lot advertised for sale and a throng standing near. Judas strengths were all against that short distance, and he faced that walk as one who is to start on an odyssey of crossing many countries afoot. At last he neared them. The folks gazed bewildered at Judas's disconcerting figure; he with the apearance of one who contended a-foot against a pair of lions, and remembering the priest telling of one going through a great ordeal, guessed Judas to be the one. Looking at him only the Devil and other miseries would come to one's mind. They were astonished and stupefied when Judas spoke.

"Never the moon descended to place so dark as the hole where Judas is. For this, you see, I come alone and there's none with me."

Judas stared at the audience as waiting reply to what not the Devil could find what to say.

"At this you came? Vain steps thou stridest."

"Subject I got other. I'm Judas. The man of many scares and tired feet. A lot I seek, mead or piece of ground."

"To do what?"

"There to cultivate and to be happy."

"I had one, but it's already taken. Good folks, and of more pleasing visage for the eye to muse upon.

They sow and are happy just by harvesting. Troll while they toil, and when, drunk, they listen me sing,

man! that night they cheer."

The saying pleased all who sounded a sonorous laughter, though not Judas, who frowned and emitted a groan, as a man who still counting with liquor, gazes at the bottle, and better turning it to the light, realises that it's empty, and with a deep moan fills the air.

With nothing that he wanted to see, Judas was condemned to see everywhere things which he didn't liked, and such annoyed him as to the Devil to be told of God, or the Trojans when gazing at the contriving too big, while scandalous Sinois cried, "Break them wider, Priam! I tell thee! You got nothing but friends!" Thus, Judas staring at those men, was outraged.

"I didn't come for that!" he cried in fury. "Go talk those with women and nurses at the door of mental hospitals, while the insane spit at you from the windows, and talk nasty about your mothers! Go! I say, eat dogs in famine and poultry that died for hunger. Go! Or I will scourge you all so severely that all of you will loathe to had ever come to know the world."

Those who there listened him talk, and judging by his worn self, thought Judas to be possessed by strong brain fever, and pointing at him all laughed heartily, until that flows of tears burst from their eyes.

Some had to get a hold on others to be able to stand, so over-whelmed they were by cheer.

"Decorum!" Judas cried in rage. "Decorum and observance, for I am a man of God! Or I can make men grow from the ground and stay idle gazing at them imposing you correction for your fault. Or see if I won't step my foot and make this ground gap so that you will fall straight to hell. I'm Judas! God I defy, and armies entrenched with men to battle disposed. If I had two sons, the both here I would slay to prove my mettle; chop them all in pieces and give them to the dogs to eat, then look at you and say, "Now feed them thine, if you are like me!"

Once I knew one who invited me to be a fisher of men. Though, recklessly, I disdained the nets and the sea; to cast and to pull, and to watch the tides that in September are at full. I took instead in observance more minor things; the currency and the latest rate, and thirty pieces with Herod's face."

This prattle made the folks distempered and unfriendly, and one of them, well known for being more enterprising than the rest, landed his fist on Judas face.

"You can make men grow from the ground?" he taunted him. "Now make grow anew these teeth that behind thou leavest!"

Judas acknowledged another defeat and left, despising more the ways of the world; felt uncomfortable and about to cry. Wherever Judas went he found a world hostile. In the tavern, if he chanced to have a coin, soon he would make a friend and both get drunk, if not, Judas would sit for hours dejected at the table, with eyes upon the infinite, whichever infinite there was that could befit inside of his atrophiated mind. And that same fellow, who just yesterday drunk at Judas health, today passes by, looks at him and contemptuously spits on the floor. Such behaviour revolted him, and if when young Judas wished to find another one more like himself, now he didn't. He was resigned, if not really to die, at least to not to live.

With such hatred in his heart, as one who shunned all Christianity and joined the moors, Judas felt the cumbersome ground. The way of some men made Judas despise them all, and deep in his being, he loathed the next encounter. At the end of many troubled steps, faring as one who goes all the way against his will, Judas found another terrain put for sale. Fertile land with well and barn. Here he felt a cheerless joy; a misery, though still better than the mood that for days he had cherished.

"There it seems all right," he mused imagining himself already dead and of him left but the bones and walking like an old man who goes with gout, he went to wonder about that mead. The walk was short, though it seemed to Judas long and tedious. At last, he reached the fertile land, not caring if it was fertile or not, exhausted and carrying a hell in his mind. The fierce watchdog came running menacingly at Judas, and at his feet dropped dead. The simple people witnessed bewildered the hellish scene and all stepped back.

"Wait!" Judas tried to reassure them. "I'm Judas, the unhappy one. Didn't you hear of him who trod the steps to the Calvary? It was I who put his feet in motion, and in a way, it can be said that those nails which pierced his hands were mine. I'm sorry if I killed your dog. I came for the lot. Leave it if it's fertile or not."

The folks, poor, though of good, all stared scared at Judas.

"Go away!" they cried holding tools and anything which could be used to make Judas run for his life.

He left, as an animal chased from the company of humans; such was how much status his damned money bought him. Judas dragged himself until sunset when he saw some men enjoying at the sun the rest of the day.

"You are all cowards!" he shouted as he passed them by.

"What was," they said, "thou criest?" In his rage Judas didn't deign himself to answer, but looking contemptuously at the throng went on his way, discoursing and gesticulating, wriggling his hands in the air, as one who comes down the street after caught his wife making merry with his neighbour, the one he never liked and despised most of all. It was near night when Judas knocked at another door, making himself ready to more mischief. Though the folks were friendly and pitied Judas.

"The landlord won’t come until tomorrow. You can spend the night in the barn if you will."

Judas took the offer. Anguished refused a meal or a cup of water and was led to the barn by an old man, lamping the way with an old lantern. Soon as Judas entered, the animals in great commotion ran all out, as if the beasts loathing to be under one roof with him, and madly disappeared into the night.

"Never saw such hap!" cried the good man amazed. "The Devil is here. Let them go! More room to yourself." Judas didn't know what to say and made no reply. He was contemplating that man's aged face and wondering how it should be to grow old and still be able to express a happy smile, capacity which Judas at long had lost. He felt as to open his heart to that old man and talk to him as to a friend. Tell him that it had been hard his ways and that its meanders had made him sad, and listen that man telling him a word of comfort.

"No!" he thought to himself. "I had always been a fool!" and went resignedly to make his bed with the straw. All night Judas cried bitterly, biting his hands in such distress, as one possessed by the worst madness that a man could take and live. In flashes, he remembered the old man and envisioned himself when just a boy, running across the fields of Judea, chasing the frightened sheep and the ruthless goat, that often made him mischief and tumbled him down with their horns. He remembered the folks beating him and he running away from their blows, as a repellent dog. Judas raged and wished to die, thinking of himself, the fool, the most uncomprehended man in the world.

Each minute of that night passed as a knife goes through the flesh. He imagined out-there other men in company. One busy upon something and other telling him that it was good what he was doing. Another tapping a fellow in the shoulder who was going sad, though, now looks at him and smiles. Each thought

caused Judas an enormous grief. He felt the lowest of all, and in vain wished for the company of the beasts, that disgusted, from him had fled.

All annoyed Judas in this world, especially those who he ever knew and now approached him to tell him the same words Ballam told to his ass when the beast jerking down its head the way refused. But say!

What ill got in thee? Why shunnest thou thy way? "What do they know?" he muttered to himself. "Life to myself was a moment and a bird who in its flight went free. In a blast I came to this world, blasted I go out of it!" Judas said in anger. And more corrections he imposed to himself to atone for the unforgivable.

The night, chilly in the arid terrain, caused to Judas to shudder uncontrollably through those long hours, and in tremendous discomfort to ask God, "why did I came?" He visualised other men out-there giving meaning to their lives and hated them all.

Whelmed in such misery as only know those in hell, Judas thought that it was tremendous to be a man, and here, he was not mistaken.

He, at turns, his tresses torn, and the nails sunk on his cheeks, while slapping himself so sorely, that had he burned alive women and children, who, crying, begged for their lives, or assassinated by sword a nation of men, God would have moved to pity and to forgiveness, but not His son.

At the end of many painful minutes, with Judas feeling as one who gazes at all he had, destroyed, he too old to rebuild, at last Aurora went to wake up the sun, and the star appeared rising majestically at the horizon. Judas looked at it back in no better mood that one would gaze at Death's caved semblance, or at the gates of hell before he goes in. For long he kept there, disgusted, watching the vermilion ball of fire ascending morosely in the sky, musing at matters that any man would shun to reason about.

When Judas was thinking that eternity has had the leisure to waste twice its span, he listened voices outside. His comfort was so far, as one on a wreck, raging with thirst, drinks a drop of water, from the sea.

He rose from his place in the straw, in such an appalling figure, caused by a week of many miles trodden with no nourishment, so miserably bitten, suffering from body and soul, that it was disturbing to a good man to gaze at his uncommon appearance. Thus composed he came outside and neared the folks, among who was the landlord. Seeing him approach in a guise befitting the exhumed body of one who died atrociously, the folks all gapped feeling tremendous repulse, and nauseated, took their hands to their mouths all stepping back. Judas was sad.

"Do not fear!" he said. "For I am no scoundrel or knave, but a man tormented for being me."

They all marvelled gazing at that man by many woes worn-out, no longer able to keep their visages dry, but tears streamed down their faces.

"Of what is said, not all is true and not all is lie. Who Judas seems is not who Judas is. Ugly and in dirty vests, within I am as a sheep if its wool is white.

The unexplainable universe, ask me, and I will tell you how it happened, or our sun, ask me, and I will tell you how it came to be, and the stars, and about a thousand mysteries more I will tell, and of one so overwhelmed in trials, that you will think that to among all, God had issued a man inferior and that he in front of you is standing."

The folks, first trustful and all of the hap expecting good, now as one who for long had been thinking in error, then, of a sudden, a riddling subject clarifies, and then rues and regrets and beats his thighs, and deplores and repines the whiles spent musing at the folly thought before, all revolted and felt angry for having listened to such a discomposed creature, who, now they were certain, had just arrived from the

world of the dead to this of the living ones, and willing to teach him a lesson, all advanced to Judas, grinning, and in their minds planning him much mischief. Perceiving them so ill-intended, he, scared, first in backward gait receded, then turned and ran away.

He kept on, crying and sobbing so sorely, that how many who saw him, thought him a man who had arrived at home to find his goods ravished, the insolent still seated at the table, guffawing, and wiping his mouth at the towel. Ardently in his heart, Judas wished he could offend God so greatly that He couldn't help but sent him straight to the grave, with no more share of wandering steps.

Next, two more haps told Judas that he was damned at the eyes of the Lord. Walking down, from inside a pit he heard several men in counsel and stood at listening of what they advised, and further ahead two candid sheep he met, mighty and clashing their forces. Judas felt more discomfort and with his mind's eye he saw hell. All bent his head more to the ground.

Tired as no man so worn he saw afar some men in reunion. They perceiving him too, for long stood gazing, watching Judas walk as one whom lively flames attend at the end of his way. When he, at last, beat that short distance, looking as one's nightmares couldn't reproduce; twice he made as to speak without ever words passed through his lips.

In this last day, he was in his worst mood ever since he let his house telling that he was a man who didn't fear the world. During these last days so many insults he had laid on the moon, as one would address to a judge in court, listening him set free the murderer he caught choking his wife, himself hardly escaping. At last, when he could speak, he asked the bewildered peasants for a lot at a fair price. Judas no longer wanted a place to cultivate and to be happy, but just where he could lay down and die. The folks told him of a place not far over the hill. They warned him the owner was a polytheist, fond of dark rituals and human sacrifices.

"Be aware of yourself," they told him in good faith.

"I fear not, nor any man with me! Go scare the weak with the scourge, women with a frown, and the strong by showing them that you are wise!"

The folks stared in mute astonishment at Judas and it was with joy they saw him leave. The first steps he trod affirmatively and secure, then as a drunkard who walks with confidence, but to at each step to realise the apprehension he makes of the terrain is foul.

Climbing the hill, Judas saw extended the mead which he had been told of. It was a desolated place that had for long been used as latrines by the slaves, who near cut boulders in building blocks. He gazed at it and it seemed to him wondrous. Way down now to find that man who cut men open and offered their steaming entrails to his gods, soon he found him and told him grieved about the lot.

"Who sent you?" asked the polytheist.

"Those who told me that you are foul!"

"Be aware insolent!"

"Will you sell me that lot for this silver I got! Then I call you dog and tell you that when you born the Devil and witches gave thee soul."

"Ill speech thou holdest. Sanity you disdain and held in contempt."

"Not so," said Judas staring at the man as one gazes at a spider eating its food, "but the Devil visited me this morning to tell me that two in a row is too much for a man to lose, and when one was loss, that the next it must be gain. But once the beast winked me and I call him friend.

One cold night, two rocks I hit against each other to make a fire which caused no spark, "In illmanner I stroke you! Why comes not light from thee?" Hence, I went troubled in the way fair, and now, through the corner of my eye, so often rolls down a tear. Thus you see, that it's foul to others and far annoys me to be myself."

The ruthless man was dumbfounded gazing at Judas’s maddened figure, realising at last who was standing in front of him; the one the world despised most of all. The Arch-Thief who plundered the heavens and for a bargain sold to slaughter the Lamb of God; the Christ; the Saviour of the world, since then condemned to loss and to damnation.

Judas looked at him in dismay, then again he spoke.

"Now it rains, and the sun seldom visits the sky under the which Judas treads asking himself who is he, lost between the anguish of not to know, and the vexation of being told the truth. The Devil got better boon and a more envious lot than what befell on Judas’ lap."

He stopped and gazed at the adorer of feeble deities as one would stare at the running waters of a brook going downstream. The man of many gods looked at him back and pointed the parcel of the latrines, to which Judas proposed the damned thirty coins. Agreed, he emptied his pockets to the ground, and in large paces first, then as one who speeds to evacuate, fearing at each stride to have delayed a while too long, reached the desecrated place where he fell headlong and rolling on the filthy ground, burst as a corn at the heat. His body remained there, showing to all who ran to see it, the wage and reward decreed

by God, to him who betrayed His son, and the joys to be purchased by wicked money.'

Gideon paused and cleansed his brow. It had been a long and emotional speech, and presently he again resumed it.

'And today, brothers, I see men looking at Judas’ fate and seem to envy it. Men who of their hunger think to be surfeitness. Those who lost the good government of themselves, and for a lot who so much covets riches, have no idea of what wealth is. God keep us from being one of those.'

'Amen!' said the congregation in unison. Gideon ended his oration, looked at Thomas and both were pleased. Thomas aimed to the pulpit. There was a murmur and a shine to be seen glittering in the eyes of all. He congratulated Gideon for his inspired words, and from there led the ceremony.

'How this man can talk. Now I will make like a fool.'

There was some laughter quickly checked by a cause to mourn, for Gideon was seen leaving upstairs to the pressure of a life on the run.

"Now in the world I'm more poor and more alone, as a man who gazing at a flower, life forces him to keep on his way.”

‘The morning was profitable. God was among us, and the fury of the men outside was for whiles forgotten, as the kindness of those who expect to merit something in return, and all the other things which we don't care about. For this we gather here in the church of the brother Thomas, and say "Great is our God, whom Sodom tumbled down, and Gomorrah loathed Him to see standing, and those who wait for His deliverance, warrants them they won't wait in vain." A while we cheered as if alone in the world, where some are angry, and others expect to merit with their kindness.

‘Brothers, once I met a man who told me that just without a little something, life could be made a lot less, as the life, most rich and complete, be reduced to the size of the most wretched and insignificant, just by adding something like the feeling of superiority.

‘At each morning the sun goads men to their trouble, while beasts it presents with solace and sunny days. When do we stop to look at the things under the right perspective? If not so often, too often we lose.

‘Today, brothers, such joys as the Devil would try and say, "It's a cross," we pursue and wish them ours, and when trying of those a bit, we get addicted as a fool does to honey.

‘Brothers, the commandment says for one to look for renewal in what it never ages, and thus keep his spirit forever young. The commandment says for the wise man to kiss his own at night, and don't let himself to sleep angry with anybody in this world. The commandment says, brothers, on each morning that a man opens his eyes, to rejoice and to go to be in communion, for his Maker didn't made him to be either sad or alone. Brothers, the commandment says for you to fight your enemy; even when he doesn't look for you, for you to search him and always to fight him without rest. Thus, you will keep your spirit in victory and in blest. I point you a way out of yours where you found no path. The way out of the mud through where you drag your feet. Come, brothers, out of there. I point you the weapon and shield; the enemy and your victory. Pick up those and let the light of the world start in you. The son most beloved by his father is the one who's lost, and he is, whom greater joy can cause Him when at last he'll change his ways. And now for you is the calling, and is yours the great power of bringing today your God to smile.

Call the life that I bring, yours, and call the Father yours and give Him the glory of calling you his.

‘What helmsman, seeing on one side of the sea the sun shining and on the other a raging storm, would set his course to drive into the tempest?

‘I can feed a multitude never to feel hungry again. Days are about of an urgency of turn wine into harmless water, instead; ignorance, to turn into understanding and loneliness into something better. Turn the cup form upside down, and I will fill it to the top with olive oil. Give, and never anything in your house will run out. I'm not a priest, but a minister of the holy truth working on the hearts of man. The angels are waiting to make a celebration in heaven; to sing there your name and halleluiahs to our Father.

Are a purpose and a meaning to your life that our Father has in His hand to deliver you with. Reborn, brothers, here, to yourselves, and you will hold forever this moment, in all its ways fantastic, and you will be given a permit to enter The Land of Millions of Years. There's a trumpet to be blown which frights our enemy back to hell. A father's happiness is to rejoice in his son's achievements or none at all. Make today our Father mighty and powerful, glorified and supreme in you, His son, just by accepting here what he has to give. He's the one who delivers mercy, love and peace in overwhelming measure. Take from this full measure in my hand which can fulfil all your needs, and accept the honour of walking aside with the most perfect of the deities of heaven. Hold my hand, brothers, here held out to you and reach the stars.

They are far? For that reason a man was not made small. Take from this my measure in my hand, brothers, and you will understand without knowing, and when revealed, you will turn your head not to see it, and when feeling His presence, you will fall face down on the ground; magnificent then, at the eyes of the Lord. Walk aside, brothers, with the God which journeys through eternity, and be here through eternity imparted with all. And instead of being but a cosmic particle lost in the universe, to become a soul with size to contain a thousand universes within, as it can do with a thousand hells. Tell the Enemy, "No more!" brothers, "My soul no longer yours; my life no longer lost". I came to set a cross ablaze! On a desert, brothers, and at night, that's where you are; blind; see! See its burning; feel its calling from a distance; follow its glow and you will reach its warmth. No more cold brothers, in the desert, at night; see! The power is in your hands, not in mine. I was sent to tell you that now is the time for you to use it,

and for you to be powerful, and to win your battle against our enemy. Fight, brothers, that apathy which destroys and keeps you from living, and reach life. Reach it today, brothers. Hold my held hand. Use your power. Now is the moment. Say here to our enemy, "My life is my own!" and he will go home, back to the depths of hell. Do not be contemptuous with what you don't know. The message of the Great is on my mouth, and a strength is in my hand to subdue at once all the forces of Evil, only if all would listen and use power theirs. If all the powerful would be powerful, the weak would be feeble and have no strength, and thus would not exist, and would never be able to hold secure the soul of a man to the littleness of spirit, and hence to death. ‘If all the powerful would be powerful, no power would subsist else than love and equality, and togetherness, with all going abreast to somewhere, instead of this foul emulation which leads the soul often to rather death.

Kneel down, brothers, here to this power and be great; and stride paces towards to rejoice in love and in satisfaction of spirit. Drink from the mighty flow, and no more be thirsty. See with my sight and no more be blind. Make me your song, brothers, and live no more in anger and in frustration. Tell your doubts, "I'm sure!", and to the mirror, "I'm alive!" This is the message which our Father charged me to deliver you with, 'Let me in, and I will fill you to the top, letting in you space for nothing else.' Listen to my words, brothers, and be the sheep obedient to the calling of the shepherd, which follows him to find a place in peace and so be sheltered and protected for the night. The Wolf is outside, brothers! Don't wander. Don't loiter; the clock is thinking, of an appetite voracious greatly than the wolf, and of a much fouler diet. Say my name! Say my name, brothers! Awake! and discover the light of this cross ablaze, beckoning into the desert at night. I say that Hell was established with many entrances, though, it has a way out as well. Today the Devil can be let with his hoofs laid hopelessly on his lap. When I'll say, Glory brothers, cry, Amen, and the Spirit will at once settle in this place, and being among us, will make of all, one, and thus turn us all into one with Him; with He who has created the human race to live as one. Think beyond, and you will reach that the lost caravan is not advancing, brothers, going but casually under the sun, but that instead, the sun travels all the way it inside of the wagon, meant to be there by who has set all going, to alight its insides on this journey towards somewhere destiny. Do not waste the ride and the light of the star. It might that one day, which will no longer be, ending up leading to a heaven or to a paradise, and to know at last what one was about. Don't miss your place at the table where all revelations are meant to be made. Man turned God into religion. That is not Him. Undress but that foul clock from Him, and there He is, in all His magnificence, in all the supreme nature of himself. Then you will discover Him when seeing him appear with all the exquisiteness of His attire and the brightness of His vests, and such will dazzle you and you will realise as in fact, this moment has been always happening, and never; always magic there for you to touch; always happening, and never, if you will follow stubborn to reason; always and never happening. I will only silent when it will be the time for you to decide today as your moment of change. Let us advance then, with the time, until the grimmest hour of the dark, if we must, for I will not quit until the Devil will be in hell, and I had sent you towards the place where you will find what you came in search for. Until you had found your soul, and I will see you carry it from here like a champion. Then I will leave you, as a winner; victorious; a brave made triumphant, when all around was defeat. Let me hear you, brothers; What time is it? Let the crow be fed with barren corn, and the soil held no crop to our enemy. Close your mouth, for by there our enemy reaches you, and utter no words rather

than those of hope, and which contribute with something to all; instead of those that makes you destructive and bring destruction upon, and which cause you to be destructible where you were meant to be strong, and which darken your colours where they were supposed to shine. Hold, brothers, this my extended hand, and no one but I will be your master, and no one but I will come for you, and no hand but mine will knock at your door, and I will feed you all with content and skill. What time is it? Is time for you to come from under the yoke. For you to find out that you are alive and at last to accomplish the demanded victory. Is time for you to be freed from all which it doesn't belong you and to, at last, be free.

Is time for you to accept that I know your name, and for you to ask me, "So?" and I will write it down among the others which were already written, in an order issued to somewhere; to somewhere beyond.

What time is it, brothers? Is time to put obstructions on the way of the Devil, instead, and but his foul stride hinder from progressing, while we both, fulfilling the Law, advance, jovial and bright into the future.

‘Here I must say, Glory. Say now but, Amen, brothers, and let the Spirit of Concordance, that's hovering above this place, to come down and to establish His sweet presence among us. Fail, men, now this to see, and never a thought or action of any man, has been as harmful to you like this your own indecision at a vital moment. Say Amen, brothers! Agree! For in agreement or enemy cannot stand; he has to leave. And leave from our houses and from our tables taking noisy discord with him. Then is the tear down of walls and barricades, for defences no longer needed; for no attack can be made against those strengthened to battle in peace. Fail, world, now this to see, and take your children all and cast them into fires and return reassured to have delivered them to a better fate, than when unto a world which does not agree.

‘Hold my hand, brothers, and let us love each other as our Father taught us, for the time is it. With sincerity and with meaning, and then to live in a pride of one who knows how to love, not announcing the vanity of who is a fool. With sincerity and with meaning; seeing the resemblances and the differences, and take them all to the heart as treasures; as part all of the magnificence of our Lord.

‘Brothers, the secret of life is to recognise great when one sees great and to bow to it, as its goal is to live amazed. Only the beasts reason otherwise. See great! Would you rather be a ghost and to live dressed in colours abhorrent to the light? Do not, brothers. Let the Light prevail, and its glow will bring forth a spring and will cause to blossom, and will ripe the fruit for you to feed upon. When you are ready for the harvest, then announce, "The time is it!" and I will say, Glory! as you will bring the world to cheer.

‘What time then is it? It’s time for the plough to cut smoothly into the ground; for the crop to offer no resistance, and for the sun to reach us gently, coming from the eastern part of the sky. Here I have to say, Glory. Say but, Amen, brothers, and you will make this night happy, you will make me happy, and will make our father happy, by bringing your hearth again as a child to smile. Tomorrow can be different or can be the same. Bring to suffer, brothers, that which joins our enemy, and when dismembered, dance and trample on it, and be a winner; victorious; triumphant as a child running out a slide. Is time to announce the Devil his defeat, and to tell him, 'I win. No matter what, I always win.' Sound that trumpet, brothers.

Announce today you the victorious and bring here the Devil to blush as a wench, when seeing the indecency for the first time. Then I will write down your name among the others which were already written, and you will be famous in Heaven among the angels as the God's son, as throughout the dungeons all, among the defeated demons. Sound that trumpet, brothers, and feel the walls of Hell to

shake under the gentle power of your breaths. You said that you want to win. I point for you the race.

Run! Run, brothers; advance. Progress, and I with you, our Father with all, and behind us all a train of stars. Come, brothers, hold my hand. What time is it? It's time to make Heaven rejoice, and such a celebration there will be made, as you will feel it in your souls. Listen, then. Lift your two hands to the sky and deal no more against your gladness and fulfilment of spirit. Cry now, Present! brothers. The Almighty is calling you to be one of His. Raise your hand. Shame not the creator of us all. My voice is His voice; my walk is His paces, and my hand, His love that here has reached you. Be a winner; victorious; triumphant as a child reaching his father's embrace. ‘Do not think to know, brothers. Does not the sun, and he watches all sit in the middle of the sky. You must be told. Taught by the Spirit who engendered all, and in all things engaged with elegance and perfection. Live up to your design and the world will come to his. The knowledge of the world is disgrace; it's felled from grace until somewhere deep, somewhere monstrous where the demons act; the bottom of this dimension. What is here useless falls to there and never reaches it, and keeps falling throughout in silence, eternally, forever in darkness, thrown to nowhere. It comes a storm, brothers!

Believe me. It's approaching and soon will be here. It's time now to seek shelter for later to be safely within when the Devil's hour will be announced from the tower. For it will strike, brothers. And if sometimes it seems to be already here, others, the Devil passes and can do no harm, to him who is strengthened with a heart which can feel no evil. What time then is it, brothers? Is time for you to choke the Dog. To put stones down his throat and keep him from barking his heinous song. Then will the birds finally sing, melodiously, into the tuned ear, and the Almighty will clap and dance and say to the angels, 'See my son!'

Here I must say, Glory. Choke the Dog, brothers, send now an Amen down his throat and he will burst. No more barking, brothers. With a shout of you and a groan of his. With a shout of you, brothers, and to him the hell and all which he comes to deliver. Cry, brothers! Shout "Present!" to the calling of life, and destroy until where you have lived destroyed. Be no more in silence, brothers, the time has come for you to win and for you to be champions in the game. Today, what is blasted, rebuilt, and you will wear a wreath around your brows which announces you winners in the great contests of our Lord. Be winners, brothers; victorious; triumphant as a flag waving at a day of a conquest achieved in peace. ‘See, it’s night out there; not now, but always. All our presence was removed from the earth without one seeing it; just our shadow remained. The part of our anatomy which links us to ghosts and with spirits of distorted wills, which, with wills distorted, have distorted what it is from what it could be. This something which it is with no value, in a place where no one has values, where no one has other; where no one has a thing, and all go about smiling a worthless smile on a patched expression, to disguise a pathetic marching of steps of who has nothing, wandering wasting live. Hold my hand, brothers, and wander no more. Find yourselves. Choke the Dog, send a thunder down his throat and regain the control of the storm which is turning your sea in tempestuous tides. Then, is time to bring a clear shy to above your head and to shiver no more through the relentless weather. Better passes a man without food, brothers, than a soul deprived of the answers to the wonders which it muses at. Be deaf no more. See what happens to the wilful and stubborn of heart, burning in the pyres of vanity, where preconception becomes a flame consuming flesh; they die. And their deaths it is what fuels the fire more, and tells the fire, Burn, to more burn and to more enrage, and to more devour and to more want of us, while we, want but more of

it. Quench those flames. Be not burned! Be not consumed! Kill that fire, brothers! ‘From here, let your spirit depart to go in consultation with its Maker and you will master a sound opinion. Then, when asked for the direction, you will know where it is to point it, instead of following both of you erring through the way, sucking fingers, and trying to guess it by the wind. I tell you the moment is urgent to choke the Dog, or you will one day feed him your little sons and little daughters, when your worthless lives will be old, and your actions no longer nutritious for the beast to feed upon, sending thus, your whole lineage helpless down his throat into his maw, which kills what is death. Oppose not the sun from reaching your house with your hand. Let it shine. And others in your street will see it and will want of it, and when all see it, the world in darkness will be alighted. Let your children know their father their saviour. For now is night; not now, but always. These are the words which if you'll consider them, will enable you to live, and the others around you, at last, with the others around you. Be no more alone. Draw that near, brothers, be no more apart. Yours is the hand which can bring together. Join, and will be as one; send away, and all will leave. Say it, brothers, and would have been uttered, Amen, for to all this I must say, Glory! Welcome the Spirit with your agreement. Welcome Him. Achieve perfection in your lives, and walk aside with the One perfect, being a perfect, perfected in Him, and be as He, who could send in motion what had since always been still. Then, be a god, rather than a Devil, little and always cowered behind things, sneaking for the opportunity which our lives will give him during a trouble. Don't give him yours. Use this opportunity in your own benefit and let all profit from it. Then is rich, he, who has such a treasure to share. Make a holy ground of this one under your feet's, brothers, and let us erect on it a shrine to honour the return home of an exiled son. Choke the Dog, brothers! Give listen to my words. Hold my hand and let union and understanding between men go down his throat. Is not mine this message, and who is given it will not relent until you stop fighting against it in your heart. As I will not tire of delivering these words to satiate a thirsty soul...a proud and thirsty soul, who has demanded and cannot have; for weakness! I say the time for talking is indeed finishing. Take action. ‘The worst fate that can befall upon a man is not to marry with a woman who cannot go, but is to decide, brothers, on a subject, in ways which one is meant to regret it. For all later becomes in another bitter for one to disguise with a smile already overloaded with fragility and emptiness. And such void is heavy to carry about and tiresome. ‘Nothing is better than nothing, brothers, to crush and subdue the spirit of a man until a pet, to then strengthen him back again until he is unbreakable. An unbreakable man made of nothing. Don't harden yourself, brothers. Don't be unbreakable. Don't be made of nothing, but of this mould of beautiful pottery used to make the first man. Go, brothers, back unto the hands of Him who made all and let Him prime you. Let His perfume to scent your hairs, and you will dazzle and inebriate the senses on earth. Then, brothers, when in the presence of the Father, you will be given a package; when you will be told to open it, in it a scroll you will see; written in it, yet, two names you shall find; yours and mine. Chose here never to die, and never to stoop, but instead, to feel the vigour of youth through all your body when feebleness was supposed to take over, and to possess the determination of a lion, just when Dismay thinks that he comes to install. Then he will leave to where he's welcomed, to sit on the Devil's lap. Let our father have you and others, for here, brothers, I tell you that three things compose live; the wheel, the rut, and the snakes in between. Join who's operating the mechanism. Hold my hand, brothers. The rut is foul, and the snakes go home. Is not the time. Don't leave with them.

‘Here you will find to paint the sky, and a step to reach above and to see beyond the image simple of the day. Neither hold your life smaller, brothers, or make it big with things which have no size, in an absurdity that it is and make us all be with it, fantasies lost in absurdity and in a fancy smile. Choke the Dog, brothers! Send a laughter down his throat and your cheer will make him sad. And in sadness one does die. And in sadness thus he dies, the Dog, choked with our mirth, crossed on his throat. I found it all, scattered on the way on my coming here. And is plenty still left for all to take from it. Just walk that path.

The world is full of prisons, brothers. What time is it? Is time for you to tear down yours and to never want of that again. Go into the presence of Him, whose is everywhere, and at last, when beautiful things can come into your mind, fell then a beautiful mind coming to you, with peace and with reason, and with all at once; and so discover freedom, brothers, and be free then to feel life. Choke the Dog! brothers, send the pages of a book down his throat and he will die. Of a book which you hold holy and dear to your heart, and which the tale tells you, 'Be free!

‘Brothers, I know. The father is telling me. Go to the cross, stay there for three days and step down possessed by the enchantment of a million charms. A new you, gestated in a message of hope. Fight, brother, who is fighting you without resistance. Hold my hand and feel your being caught on fire, settled burning by the ethereal flame. For that now, the time is it. Choke the Dog, brothers! Send the clock down his throat and the heinous bell will reverberate no sound when your ears can listen nothing but music.

When you will answer "Present!" to the calling of your soul, and will cry at last, "The time is it!".

‘Brothers, the Father has fated today as the moment of your awakening. Our Father does not wrong.

Our Father does not mistaken. Do not mistake Him more with your delay, but gently insinuate your spirit unto His spirit, and let He inundate you with all that you ever craved for. Here I must say, Glory. Say now but, Amen! brothers, and the angels will flap their wings and fly graciously around our Father's throne.

Say now, Amen, brothers, and be yours at once all that has since always escaped you. Not be yours more the dark, and the just waiting for another day. Agree, brothers. Be no more against. The contrariety of spirit is the work of our Enemy. Agree, and you will find the key to open doors and set you free. Go from here in liberty. Live not oppressed under a cloud. No more dismay, brothers, under the sad grey of winter.

Let the window be friendly to you as the image, and what is presented to be welcomed instead than frowned at; and thus, never let grow in you that something which makes you dislike all. Be champions, brothers! Live like champions. Win like champions. Rejoice like champions. Then, be applauded as champions, and make proud who is just waiting for the opportunity to be proud, and to celebrate endlessly your victory; our victory, brothers! Announce to the Dog his den and to your life a beam of light. The mission of the Sun has been confused, and its heat no longer warms our cold. There's nothing that the star can do. But we can. We can go again in search of its comfort and reach a perpetual spring made all of everlasting. Then to feel blessed and to be blessed as one living under the eternal season.

‘My name is the name of any man who ever called, found silence and called again. Call today, brothers, as the gentle son for a kiss of his father and feel His lips to poise in your forehead and give you the strength of a mighty warrior, then to say, 'I win. No matter what, I always win,' determined then, to battle without weapons and to win in peace, and thus to be a champion on the great contests of the Lord.

‘Thus far the light show, and thus far was misapprehended; and now, we misapprehend our days and propose to them an end, so often, rather than a future; and when looking through the window, we see the sun setting, so often, instead of seeing it shine. Let die the grave, brothers! and with it will die in you the

fear of death, and when looking at it, you will see the stone erected to mark the mighty passage of who is still, somewhere. Just buy here your ticket and be there. Use your spirit. Talk with the Now and Always; listen what He tells you, and you will be here, in this moment as in all! Feel now in your spirit my hand within and let me shape you, with authority and command! Then you will own mind, and have authority and command over yourself, over Hell and over a million wills. Say now that you don't fear such authority, brothers, say that you want it, and the mighty sceptre of inner sovereignty will be at once laid in your hand, then to start the sound rebellion, and none, anywhere, will be indifferent. Be the ground, brothers, kind and fertile; bring a crop upon and evil things send away, and barrenness and desert.

Populate within with other brothers of this mighty family, which when brought together united by the bond of love, is impossible to be contained. Get rid of weights, brothers! Division is a harness! And at last live free under the sun. Be yourself, for at midnight there's a monster out there, which takes our identity and make all be the same, just a little different in the shade of grey. Be original. Invent, brothers, and at last comprehend our Father, and your eyes will be opened, and you will know His immensity and see the brightness of his vests, here, these ones I dress.

‘Feel as yours this moment, brothers, and come to yourselves and happen before all is gone. Is time for you to be the actor with the major role in your life, and to perform in a festival to your senses; then you will bring all around you to a party where Cheer itself is the host, instead of going alone, loitering at dusk through the park. Don't let night fall while you are there, for at midnight there's a monster which arises, some say, son of the Dark, to swallow him, who thinks he is, and he is not.

‘Come, brothers, the Spirit is calling. What time is it? Is time to answer, "Present!" to the voice of the President who presides above, King on the Realm of Stars. Is time for you to hold my hand and to leave from Earth and to return and to seem as if both had never left. For otherwise else, here is death.

‘Brothers, once I did it in dance, in grace and in suspense, living a spell which a witch had cast. Then, two decades passed, chance happened and demanded a change. And again, I did it in dance, in grace and in suspense, walking strings which a spider crossed. When tomorrow will come, brothers, let us live it in dance, in grace and in suspense, with our soul with the angels rejoicing, and our spirit with our Father in conference. Thus, brothers, hold my hand and let us dance, in grace and in suspense; be here and be there, twirling around the salon, alone or with a pair, dancing as lunatics maddened with love and drunk with passion; for the while is short to be otherwise. Here, brothers, hold my hand and then let it go; but in dance, with grace and in suspense for what life can cause us next.

‘Now, brothers, what time is it? Is time for you to use the mighty sceptre of your authority and choke the Dog. Is time for you to put it down his throat and to jolt it and twist it, and for you to pull his entrails out from his mouth. Is time for you to blow that trumpet, brothers! and for you to announce to Heaven and Hell, that today a man has been freed. Is time for you to be winners, brothers; victorious; triumphant as a man who wakes up from his sleep.

‘You have known the fierce storm? Come now and meet who can tame it; whom the Enemy fears, and who's is glad to watch for you. The one who can set you free from prisons and restraints; who has set going what had been since always contained; whom could create what had never existed and imagine what had never been real. Take here your wings, brothers, and today let fly what was meant to be free.

‘Brothers, the child is fool, who holds the balloon and keeps it from flying. More is the man, a fool, who holds and keeps it from flying. Let it fly. Let it go. Release, brothers, and it will on you such a

portion, as all powers opposite in the world cannot take it. Just draw that near. Be a man, brothers, where others fail; in the understanding the meaning of the word. Then, at last, be a winner; victorious; triumphant as a bird which with his singing brings to attention, the place where just before reigned noise.

‘I tell no sermons, brothers. I have no religion and my doctrine is but inner knowledge. I was sent to you with the mission of reveal, and still, let all veiled and secret. With the mission of win your soul, and only then, to let it totally yours. I came to tell you to come and serve aside with me, and then to become a master of yourself, and a learned in the things of Heaven. For you to be subject but of the Truth, brothers, and to hold nothing else dear than life. For the result is peace, and freedom.

‘Hold in your hands, brothers, no other chains than those which link men together, and ropes, only those used to fast the boat to the pier. I came here to tell you that the time is it, for you to choke the Dog, and to follow a winner; victorious; triumphant as a sprout blooming up to the sun, and make us all, brothers, then winners with you. I came to show you our Father, and to tell you that without Him you are alone. That without you, both of us feel lonely; miserably lonely; and I'm here to ask you, now on my knees, to beg you to join our company.

‘Let me wash your feet and take you purified unto the presence of the Spirit. Humble your heart.

Bow here before Right and Reason, and you will hold both, firmly, in your hands. What time is it, brothers? Is, then, time for you to choke the Dog. For you to paint now a bright tomorrow and to send the board down his throat, and your hope will kill him.

‘Be a son, brothers. Acknowledge the Father and tell the Bastard, "Shame!" and to our father sing, Hallelujahs. Here I must say, Glory. Say now but, Amen, brothers, and in a word of you, a song of honour.

With a word of you and will be in frenzy the angel at the belfry of Heaven; the elders there will feel again like in youth, and I will say Glory, I've won my brothers. Hold here the everlasting tranquillity of spirit, brothers. Just do as I say. Let your spirit go in consultation with its Maker, and no more keep miracles from being yours, life from being atractive, you from being great and our Father in all supreme; but all in an instant make happen. And all with all will grow as in a chain, and advance, with all with all, and with all with One. ‘What time is it, brothers? It’s time for you to rise that trumpet and to sound it, and thus to make burst the head of the Devil, and to announce to his ranks, Dismiss! Then, brothers, the time will be in Heaven for the angels to clatter their shields against the heaven's gates to celebrate the day, and to make there peaceful commotion to commemorate your victory over the Enemy; our victory brothers!

‘Yea, brothers, strong is our enemy, but powerful and mighty, general, and in all things great and supreme is the Creator of us all, and in all perfection and strength; and hold and care through the troublesome hour. Acknowledge what is poisoning and reducing our existence, often in length, though, always in height. Then brothers, do as the birds do. Let your true colours appear and shine under the sun.

At last celebrate its light, for no more hindering all from singing the same song. Just call out, and His hand will keep you standing, supported by His love and by understanding the meaning of life. Give meaning, brothers, to everything; welcome all moments.

‘Listen to the calling of the matters of the soul. Mark an audience with the angels, brothers; present today your spirit to go in consultation with his Maker, and you will talk with Him, who says without speech and hold attentive the attention of the spectators, attentively without a blink. And what you don't know how to say, He has a way of himself to listen, and what you think that it cannot be, He has upon His

hand many times fold increased to give you. And all will be given to as soon as you will pronounce, nay, as soon as you will but say, Amen. All to be given to you with a cry of joy, a crown of victory and with a groan of our enemy. Then, the angels will raise everywhere in the air their lances, and will cry, Hurrah! and will perform outside the palace mocking battles, where the Good subdues the Evil forever, never to rise again.

‘When you will say but, Amen, brothers, the Almighty will run up to His chamber to dress His finest vest and will come down ordering a banquet in honour of His sons. And for you on Earth, a toast in heaven will be made, and all there will clatter their cups a trice and again will cry, Up! Up! Hurrah! Here I must say, Glory. Be no longer stubborn. Say now but, Amen! brothers, and I will jump and we dance about, and in our folly, pure and immaculate, we will truly rejoice and honour the Creator with our honour, and we will sing together, Amen. Hallelujah. Glory, Lord, a thousand times.

Say now but, Amen, brothers, and all will tremble; above and below. See, brothers, our Father laughs.

See Him smile. And today, He's not smiling at me. Today He does it for you. How big honour is that? Do not believe in your insignificance so far as to disbelieve the greatest King of all. Brothers let us from here like children walk, innocent and pure. What time is it? It’s time for you to save yourself and to save your house, and when you leave from it, to let it guarded and protected by the angels, and to follow from now on, rejoicing in that greater living. Then is time, brothers, for you to live great, as a winner; victorious; triumphant as the sun coming out of the night.

‘Brothers now is the end. Only now to announce that tomorrow there will be no service, but it will be held the watch of our late brother whom God pleased to call to His eternal care. There will be a supper, then a time of reflection before the burial.”

V The Watch

Another day rose for the mortals to perform their wearisome task. Phenomenally, the birds woke up this morning and departed from the trees in silence. Seagulls stationed spookily on land gazing gloomily at the open sky, while other birds, of the migration kind, made great digresses to avoid the air above the church of the brother Thomas. The astrology sections of magazines and newspapers announced today as an inauspicious day for actions and decisions alike, advising all those who believe in them to refrain from

both. Three lunatics predicted for today the end of the world, and another the second coming of our Lord.

Greatly distressed, children at home choked their pets. Foster parents flogged their bastard sons, blaming them for their trials, while the bell didn't strike between five and seven o'clock, as if time had skipped the morbid hour when Thomas rose to his ungracious day.

As the sun ahead annoys the sight, or the rough terrain is acknowledged with vexation by the sole of the feet, thus live comes upon the weak frame of men. The discomfort is called Life, the repose men call Death. The transit from a brief passage through this world to the next, is seen with disgust by those who have to undergo the journey, loathing to change thus the ills they have, for others worse that may ensue.

For one of these travellers, today we mourn in the church of the brother Thomas.

A coffin lays opened in a corner of the room. Seated next to it, the doleful widow chases away the flies from her late husband's face and looks tenderly at the deceased. Her grief fills the room with sadness.

Often a sigh emerges from the depths of her soul before she again bursts into tears. Thomas let Augustine making the final arrangements for the supper and went to tell some words of comfort to the disconsolate window.

'Ease, simple woman. You weep as if you wanted him to live forever. The man is now entering the land the Lord promised to those who trust him, and you make him sad in that place of bliss with your mourn, and the eye of God to look at you with contempt, when in your heart you contend with His designs. Cry for a dog or a cat, for they are perishable things, but for a man who died, exult, dance and applaud, for he's looking in the eyes of his maker.'

'He had so many dreams. He wanted to build a bridge over the river and a new road to town. Repair the school's roof before the winter...'

'The man most stern and self-possessed can make of himself a fool in the presence of a woman; say things he didn't want to and regret it all later. With hope in what could he had contrived such wills? What has the river on the other side that on this one there's not? A road to the noisy town... and what has the school to teach? Once I was informed of similar situation. A man to who such vivacity came before his death that he planned another son, visited a room in tthe attic and engaged the lists to town's Mayor. Sent a servant to visit his parents’ graves; wrote letters with salutations to relatives at north, enlarged his driveway and the allowance to his wife, all in the day before he died.'

The gloomy guests started to arrive for the watch. Augustine went to receive them.

The company gazed with disgust at the dead man. Thomas assumed his place of eminence. Some finger food was served.

'Brothers, today we stay with our brother until he reaches the other world,' Thomas addressed some words to those eager upon the sundries, 'and tomorrow we will deposit his body in the great vault of the mother earth, who saves plenty of room for all of us.'

'I joined a watch once; poorly miserable; where the supper was but a chicken soup!' said one in revolted mien. 'All that man had survived and more, until one day his Book of Depths was closed, and he called to the attention of the Creditor. That man had a daughter who died just a child, a wife who let him widow, and a mortgage upon his house that made him live anguished the many years of his life. ‘He was fond of Pascal, Cicero, and Homer; had a library of Shakespeare and Russian literature.

Wrote once an essay on the Renewal of the Wills; and when he spoke in public, the audiences would stand and applaud enthusiastically for whole five minutes, with him bowing in acknowledgement.

‘Great things could be said about him. He beat once three men at dice and took their fortunes; spent all in cotton-candy, being happy for a day. Sailed to sea in a boat his daughter drew, returning one day to die in the land that gave him birth.’ The soup was served, lukewarm, to great vexation of all. After the soup someone rose to tell a few words about how the deceased was good. There was some sardonic laughter. Three coughed; other cleansed his throat, and the unhappy speaker returned to his seat.

'Those words were improper, brother. There will be veal, sturgeon, and asparagus soup, if you are concerned rather with what is on the menu, than with the message the Lord bade me to deliver.'

The widow sobbed pitifully while chasing away the vexing insects. She had listened to the insolent words of that creature, though, to remain assured in the truth she knew about the deceased.

She married in-love with her husband. He had had a few businesses which didn't thrive. They used to keep awake until late, and after each tribulation, rather than stressed, felt their bond strengthened until an adamant which nothing could break but death. Her feminine nature was attracted by her husband's capability to try and not to quit. Through all those years he had been tireless working himself to death, though always with some evil star watching over him and dooming his enterprises.

"It's the will of the gods!" he would attest vexed by another failure. "I can't do nothing against it, can I?" And harder he would work, until when with all his life worn out, he died. To see now motionless those same lips which used to smile at her, and speak tender words before she slept, pierced her heart with an agony worse than the aflictions of death.

Having married still a young girl, she had learnt from her husband the most she knew about life, then to reason all with ideas of her own. In her family they disliked the enlace and warned her against it, being the groom a man of no name or estate, or any other possession else than a worn coat which he wore in the summer as well as in the winter. Such down luck he fell into as made his acquaintances to close the windows when seeing him appear at the end of the street and stay watching him pass behind curtains.

They gather at evening to drink Porto and to tell jokes about their unhappy friend. They mocked his worried gait, and the way as he often looked ahead seeming no to see at all, so lost he was musing at his misfortunes. In the cosiness of their drawing-rooms they invented stories of more embarrassing situations, and humiliations they said to have seen him through. He, with trustful soul, waved at them in the street.

They, smiling, waved back. "Were does he go?" they muttered between their teeth. "To the bank again to negotiate." And all waved at him and exhibited great smiles and went to the house of one to open another bottle of Porto.

The widow had the romantic idea of love of Don Quixote, nourished by ordeals and sacrifices which she was glad to make and to go through. If at the butcher she would be reminded of being late to pay her bill, or if at the grocery shop, the moustachioed man with little sympathy refused to go on crediting, she wouldn't be caught discomposed by what other would make blush with shame, but would tell the creditor that some major project of her husband was at an instant from a satisfactory conclusion, and that the debt would be paid in so scarce days as all the transactions would aloud. She would not tell a word about it to her husband, but instead would find jobs scrubbing floors and polishing silvers in the house of some Madame, what made her fingers ache from the rheumatic, and the joints swollen, until she couldn't use her hands any more. But glad, then, she would go straight to pay at the butcher or at the grocery shop.

Bought a new shirt for her husband and prepared the dinner with the food he liked the most. If she had

still any money left, she would buy for herself a head-kerchief, or an apron to replace the one she had worn out with so many uses.

In her house reigned the decency and cleanliness. Early in the morning, as soon as her husband would leave to whatever doomed enterprise that by then he might be upon, she would open the windows and go to feed the poultry. Took the two goats to pasture. Called the old dog, that as usual wouldn't come out of the kennel. After she went to tend her vegetable garden; watered the tomatoes and the lettuces, then the watermelons which used to be huge and delicious. She collected the manure; put fresh straw on the goats and rabbits. Talked with an old woman at the gate and gathered the eggs to make a cake to serve to her husband still warm when he would arrive from work. When she had done the washing and cleaned the house immaculately, she would finally sit mending socks, or making some embroidering, checking now and then the pans in the fire, and the cake in the oven no to burn. Upon this lesser work, she would muse at her happiness, and the cause of it would again arrive home at the end of another wearied day, wistful to find in her arms comfort and security; a shelter from the ways of the world.

He would tell her then about his businesses. How he had lost some receipts, and now, due to this lapse, couldn't claim the payment. Of some money he lent to others, though, at the moment distracted by other matter, forgot to note down their names, and now, long time since, could not make who they were.

He told her of a man who approached him, taciturn and dull, asking him for help to save his wife and stillto-born son, that without a doctor both would die, and the fellow, he said, just couldn't afford it. Now, after over one year paying considerable sums to that man, he discovered that all the story was a hoax.

There's no doctor. No wife with still-to-born son in jeopardy. Only large amounts going out every month, and the fellow, a saucy insolent living in great style, extorting from "trustful peoples". She would then smile tenderly and kiss his delicate hand, telling him how the butcher and at the grocery shop regarded him well, often sending vivid salutations. She would tell him how at the market she would be attended ahead of other custmers who were there first, for they knew him and for that considered her with esteem.

She would not tell that the opposite instead was true. That she was despised everywhere and everywhere treated with contempt because of him. She would omit the humiliation of having to wait until all else were attended to finally make her request. That everywhere she felt their eyes piercing her from the back.

She would tell him rather that the tailor forgot his measures, standing in awe watching her pass. That the driver of a coach almost ran over a better person just not to hit her, and that from a fancy chariot, hark and lo! a hand had extended to her and a gentleman's voice replied, "Compliments to your husband".

He seemed lost. "Who could that be?" He would tell, musing for whiles at who could that be indeed.

He was the image of despondency. A man who haven't succeeded in anything in his life but in his marriage, and that, as well, was a sort by accident.

One winter a man was caught by a blizzard on his way to the Chamber of Commerce, then to register a funerary agency. "Peoples are always dying", he thought to himself, and decided to invest thus the little capital let to him as heritage by a distant relative.

The snow fell for days, what made him, on horseback, to go ask for shelter in the house of the woman who scarce months after would become his wife. When the snow stopped it was impossible to leave, then again, for days one scarcely could see the outside. In that refuge the deceased seemed to have found his paradise, and her, in his tender ways, all she had ever hoped to find in a man. She never had ambitions to find who could provide for her, only someone she could trust, and who would love her as

simple as she was. Her lips would never impend upon some witty remark, nor there was any quotation she could tell, though, her soul felt life as a poet does, and when she mused at it, instead of being given the gift to tell of feelings, she would close her eyes and imagine beautiful pictures in her mind, as a painter, before to decide which to represent next. Then her heart would discourse with her soul without she could understand what they were saying, but that made her feel delighted, and she was pleased to listen, and often did with tears down her eyes. As time passed, she felt her heart in-love with the man who was her guest. In February she felt sick, and when in March the roads opened, he couldn't leave from her side. She was happy for the first time in her life. She caught fever, got delirious, and called his name, who promptly held her hand. When she recovered, he couldn't part from her, and both married scarce weeks after in the local church; she wearing a white dress as had always been her dream.

There weren't any guests at the ceremony. No one to contend for the bouquet which she would cast through the air, or who to address a happy smile. None but the marrying couple, the priest, and the dull icons in a cold church. She was all what her husband ever wished for and no longer entertained hopes to find and thought resigned that marriage was "for other peoples".

He occupied his spare time with literature, and rather than their spirits collide, they completed each other, as the sun complements the rain. He wouldn't be pedantic with her, but instead appreciated the purity of her soul not yet corrupted with knowledge, even if she scarcely could write her name. Though, he always shared with her some thought, that her quick mind would promptly grasp its meaning. The news did not interest her and he would not mention them. But ask instead if the rabbits had been kept at safe from the disease, and if the poultry had thriven. She would tell him that the old dog was as moody as ever, and as she had to tie the hinder leg of the goat to its front's, for it had begun to run away from her, which it never did before the old age. He would tell her then that there's no vegetables in the whole world as those that grew in her garden, and the watermelons were worth to be eaten in heaven by the deities. On weekends he would water her vegetable garden for her; plucked the weeds. Carted the manure and brought in fresh forage. Called the old dog that would turn in the kennel without come out and sweated to milk the goats.

She would then curl the milk in soft cheeses and make his favourite pie. Talked for a while with the old woman at the gate. Killed the fattest chicken to roast and serve at dinner. Made heavy cream to spread over the strawberries which grew about the size of plums. On Sundays they would go to church where she would ask God for her husband and thank Him for all she had; a life of peace and love which she hoped no longer to enjoy. She thanked God for the rabbits had been kept sound, and for the turkey that grew until phenomenal proportions. For the chickens that all year brooded so well. Asked for the old goat to be still a reliable source of milk for many years to come, and for a better mood for the dog.

Then lightened in her heart, she would come home holding her husband's arm. When they passed by someone they knew, she nodded at them, proud, as if her husband was one next to the king. The gentleman would nod in acknowledgement taking the hand to his hat, and when passing them by, the wanton lady with him would burst into laughter, happy for had found subject for the late evening.

"I would that all the world was happy and laughing," she would say if she would caught listen of them, holding her husband's arm with both hands. He would feel vexed by the other's scorn, though rapidly recovered by the tenderness of his wife's heart. "If all the world was happy, I would make every day an apple pie and let it on the windowsill, and all the world would pass by and take a slice, and trying

once of my apple pie, they would return every day to fill our life with friends, and we would never fell dull."

"I don't feel dull when I'm with you."

She smiled, gladdened in her heart by his words; the greatest compliment one can hear; and would feel times better than if she had heard the voice of God telling her He would receive her in Paradise.

He never forced a compliment, what made them all genuine and sweet.

At night they spread blankets outside and lay awake watching the sky, wondering at the mysteries of the cosmos, and at how had the stars come to glitter in it. Such riddles made her feel confused, and she would turn on her side looking at her husband's face instead. He would then tell fables he knew about the constellations and the distant planets, "Which some," he told her, "rather than one dull, had many moons to grace their sky". She would turn at once her eyes again to the sparkling canopy if he told her of a shooting star, or of something that, joking, he would tell her to had seen moving out-there, though, to never catch a glimpse of anything. They would lay for hours listening the cicadas and the nocturnal sounds of nature, appreciating their peaceful life and pitying those who didn't have it.

Looking outside there were only chariots rushing through the streets. Servants hastening to serve their masters. Vain ladies holding their parasols. Lies, deception, and all what one wouldn't find in a beast's den. Everywhere someone was taking his neighbour to court. Others with greedy interest on their fellows’ goods. Sons were plotting against their parents. Mothers brewing deadly poisons to give their daughters-in-law to drink. Sects were flourishing everywhere. All around women were asking for emancipation, talking of some equallity which only they could see. Ambassadors were being sent to negotiate with Asia. Jews were settling in Europe. Communism was fomenting instability everywhere.

From the Middle East came threats to the civilised world. People were kept in fear that a war might start at any moment; and they started to hate those, whoever would make war against them, good and working people, striving in this world as well as they. No! That was not a world to live in. Poor the animals wandering there. The railway was extending and have ambitions of reaching at least the major cities before the end of the century; soon, a man could commit a crime anywhere, and in few hours be at many miles away. There was news as in some progressive country the manager of a bank had crossed the border by train with many millions, and nothing could be done about it. Electricity had arrived to make the rich more contemptuous with those who couldn't afford it, while the erecting of churches had decreased greatly in the last hundred years. Hunger had been discovered in Africa. Dengue in Brazil. A snake meneater was haunting, and spreading fear in some marshes of Venezuela, and all that constrained their soul to remind of. In the way they saw it, there's only evil in the world, and having asked God to care of all, they felt conscience free, and enjoyed their bliss.

Monday would come with her husband going to work. She opening the widows, and all would start all over again.

In the months of freeze, the fire was kept burning. The dog stood indoors, laying so near the flames that she wondered when it would be caught ablaze. The old woman wouldn't appear at the gate until the Spring. Her husband wouldn't leave her but stay at home, and her happiness was manifold increased. The rabbits' population would decrease, as well as the poultry's, but keep still respectable numbers. The old goat couldn't be dragged outside and had to be milked in the cot. Only the vegetable garden was by then a desolated place.

At night they sat at the fire. She admiring her husband's boots shinning with the wavering light, and his hair, that, now turning grey, gave him a charming look, which, she imagined, caused the ladies in town to blush, and their hearts to sigh when he greeted them. She snuggled in him feeling immensely happy. He would then hold her tight and press her gently onto him. In her consisted his entire world, as a leaf to a drop of dew. All besides her was agony, and hurry to come home, wishing could never leave her again.

"My love," he would wispier, "my dear, my happiness is with you." She would tell him then how deeply he was coinage in her heart, that the word love seemed so faintly tell, often bringing to his eyes warm tears of joy. Until sunrise they would lay watching the fire burning, comforting each other, and the two souls being one, trying to hold a night that seemed eager to escape their grasp.

The years passed swiftly in that merry, until one day the world crumbled in her head. Her husband left in the morning as usual. Told her he loved more than anything in the world, and when in his office, having just sat at the desk, had a stroke, losing the most of his physical capacities as well as intellectual.

The doctors couldn't tell the cause. "No one knows how the machine is within". She burst into tears. Two weeks later he died, delirious in their bed, calling the Devil, crying heresies and diminishing the name of God. She arranged all with Thomas for the watch and burial. Talked back the creditors and decided to go on with her life for the sake of her husband's memory.

Now she was seated aside the coffin, vexed by the flies, and that fellow's impudent words, when another remembered to share matters strange to approach anywhere, especially in a church. He talked and talked until all were annoyed. They lost their appetite. Thought the hour had stood still. That the wills had aggravated in Heaven, and the world doomed to end up in tediousness. Thomas was disconsolate; all the crew was dejected looking enviously to the deceased.

The melancholic man was now talking of tapestry trading with Morocco. First, he had approached questions so diverse, as the use of synthetic fibres by Tibetan women. The decadence of the Roman Empire; the hue of chinese folks, and the art of pottery in Bangladesh. Then he discussed the fission of the atom pointing some of the atomic benefits it would bring to the human race. To all dull, he enumerated a few of what he considered "the scandalous beliefs of the Buddhist faith". Spoke in undertone of the deterioration of the mummy of Lenin. Tried to tell Summer of Pope but messed it all up.

Predicted the population of the moon and the cosmic era. Suddenly, when he was discussing the benefits of under-pants in the winter season, someone rose from his seat.

'Because of you God will hate us all!' he cried. The dull speaker looked astonished at who had interrupted him in his oratory. He quoted Voltaire. Pointed in the Good Book the psalm twenty-one and gave two or three practical examples of impatience. When he was reciting the one-hundred-and-fifth Sura of the Koran, Thomas at last intervened.

'I have known trials, brother! Listened of boredoms one experiences marrying a frigid woman, but this surpasses all! When my father died. The Sunday-school; all! Similar despondency and abjectness to life, I knew but when someone called me old man for the first time. It was December twenty-forth, and I had rushed late into a shop to buy dinner (two beers and a pack of chips), before go home to spend the night alone. I owed to anyone a visit or Christmas message, and just annoys me that season when, as compulsively, in the shops the employee wishes me Merry Christmas. I feel awkward and always leave the shops tumbling several items down.

I took the two beers and went for the chips. The endless halls full of shoppers, appeared to me as

parallel universes where the same reality was endless repeated. Where dull characters with beaming smiles were busy taking and putting back in the shelves, as if such was the whole meaning of life. There there's no other truth. The very nature of the infinite seemed to be settled upon those never-ending corridors of purchasers acquiring their goods, and beyond, to be only darkness, fear, and void of reason.

There, there's no radiance or change of seasons. Birds wouldn't sing there announcing the new day beginning. Gallantry and arts had never been seen there, and grooms would refrain from performing vows to their betrotheds. There, children wouldn't run free, but instead, were kept under strict surveillance, while men in suits behind cameras surveyed them all. There, there was no rain or even clouds, but dull sprinklers hanging over one's head; and the wind, conditioned, blew monotonous and without a breeze, as if for the reason that there's no flowers to caress nor fields of hay to wave. There, there were no beggars, for there was no charity, but an immaculate cleanliness was to be found everywhere.

At last I reached the lane of the snacks. As I was walking along the shelves, I felt the old structure of time collapsing behind me. All that it was, and that I had once considered, I felt it crumble as I moved forward, as a bridge destroyed that leaves no way to return to a land that once was precious. I picked up the chips and went to pay. As I was standing waiting for my turn, the lady in front of me said to the cashier.

"Attend this old man first!"

I stepped aside to let pass the old man.

"But there's no one else here." I replied surprised. "I'm the last one!"

"I meant you, old man! Go ahead. You have but little."

I advanced my stuff, downcast and morose. The world had lost a bit more of its splendour. All I could think of was in the words “this old man�. Try to be happy after that! As more and more the moment extended, I thought to discern the road to hell. My way ahead appeared in front of me as an abyss through where I could see only dark. Forms and figures of life seemed to lose their contours as more the sight was eager, then to disappear in a continuous infinite of darkness. Twitchings came upon my left eye. I felt as if I had visited the Land of the Dead. I tried to commit an act of youth. To be bold and irresponsible, though some power held me and I could not stir. As the second beer was scanned, I felt the anxieties of the mad. I wanted to laugh. My eyes started tearing. Within me such tumult formed as is likely to arise at the hour of death. From my brow rivers of sweat copiously flowed. As one distracted, I gazed at them. Their faces were pleasant, as the countenance of those who not yet know the truth, but rather, they seemed both still to believe in what I had at long discarded, and be happy so, without making questions. The cashier held the chips and smiled. I perceived with apprehension what would happen next, and more dire struggles came to take over my senses. My breast was moving heavily and I finding hard to breathe. The moment seemed to be never-ending and I cast in a perpetual ordeal. All my body jerked with repulse acknowledging the inevitable moment. The cashier told me the sum. I paid, and as I was picking up my items came the words which I had been trying in vain to prepare myself to listen. "Merry Christmas." I felt as an insulted deity. Muttered something inaudible. A stiffness came upon my limbs as that of a cadaver. My legs wouldn't obey my will. I lost my balance and fell on the Christmas-tree, dragging chocolate Santa-Claus, candies, and all to the floor. "I'm sorry!" I protested as I rose. The cashier told me something kind and I left the shop in great consternation. And never since I felt such dismay, as now listening you.'

The widow again consumed herself with sobs and tears at the corner of the room, vexed by the watchers who didn't reverenced the dead man. None had cared to ask the deceased's name, or who he had been when a person. They had come for the meal, and for the sake of their tedious routine. She would not reveal the truth, then, but some fabricated facts as she used to tell the old woman at the gate. That he was quick and perspicacious, and of defiant spirit. Often invited by the Mayor to eat at his lodgings, and acquainted with several people of Science, who wouldn't stride a step without his consultation. That he had refused several places of eminence, which were given then to others less than he, preferring the teaching of philosophy and the bettering of himself. She would tell them that her husband was so fortunate, that he could read Don Quixote in Spanish, and Shakespeare in his own language, being none of the poets from his home-country. That she was dumb and dull, though her husband had seen the world; mountains and the sea; then to return to tell that none of the places was as good as at her side. Then, with a voice dragged from the depths of herself, she would tell of her husband's death. In this she as well would omit the truth, that he died mad, shivering in his bed, cursing her and the day they met. Instead she would build some elaborated tale as some magnanimous exploit had come at last to put an end in a bold and daring existence; the rescue of a child from the flames, or a perilous woman from an agonizing death, swallowed by the murky waters of a nearby river, exchanging gladly his wasted life for theirs. Then she would look at them and take pleasure from their reverent stare towards the dead man.

Now, at each hushing of a fly from that face she used to caress and kiss, she thought that God has forsaken her and let her alone in the world. She, who always would comfort her husband when another business didn't succeed, now couldn't find words with which to comfort her heart. She couldn't lie to herself that he had lived his life and died, neither that he was devout, nor would enlarge God's family in heaven. She tried to remember him happy, but he was always dull as an autumn morning, inspiring pity rather than any other thought.

Sometimes she would try to cheer him by telling some gossip. How the belly of some unmarried girl have grown to compromising proportions, though she tried to disguise it with her clothing, or how she caught the priest "throwing some sheep eyes" to a lady of the parish, who, at the end of the sermon, lingered on instead of hasting home. He would then mutter something in return. Asked what there's for dinner, and their peaceful routine was again restored.

She thought the watchers lack of interest would work to their own prejudice, keeping them from becoming aware of all that she could come up with. Instead, they kept being company only to each other.

Fabled stories of successes with woman, and laughed, crossing their legs, exhibiting their polished shoes in front of them, as if it were their most favourable part.

They talked with contempt of the Dry Law, manslaughter, and agriculture. Censured the abolition of slavery, and all those who said that electricity had come to revolutionize the world. They made compliments to each other for facts that didn't occurred. Felicitated mutually for victories which never took place, and drunk to the health of the healthy ones. They congratulated a bachelor for his lovely wife and daughter, who, they guessed, was about to turn sixteen. A timid for his voyage to the Middle East, and one who had dressed his shirt with the inside out, for his recommendable manners in society. The time was passing dull, when one of those present told to the assemblage he used to climb a tree at night, in order to peer into a lady's bedroom. Excitement glow in the eyes of the company. They forgot the widow and the dead. The one with the shirt on the outside clapped his hands and leaped about as a goat in the

presence of the flames. They all trampled upon the memory of the deceased, until Thomas again intervened.

'Damn, Brothers! The man is dead, and you seem eager to kill him further!'

The widow sobbed more violently than ever.

'I was here listening you and thinking how greatly you will suffer after death, going down that road you go, of scorn and contempt to all that is good.

Seldom I had been in the presence of such insolent lot. Last time happened when I parted to preach the Gospels in a land of wicked men.

They embraced me at first and asked me "What news?" I told them some of what I got in my mind.

They thrusted me away, as one may shovel the Devil from his side. Cried, "The Beast has no horns!" In their countenance distrust and fear, as a father gazing at his daughter leaving from the altar a married woman.

I said that I was "...a preacher..." "A charlatan!" "...a sort of Messiah," arrived to deliver the world, as the gentle sun of spring after a long cold winter. I told them that what comes by stealth, by stealth departs; what by cunning, by cunning goes, as what by plotting and by craft, ebbing away as a tide leaves the shore, leaving behind but inferior recollections to be reminded in the long nights, when a man knows not who he is.

Then, to my beloved brothers, I pointed three mistakes often repeated. To think the insignificant things ones does in life are insignificant. Not to invite a girl in because is the first time out; and to think that without engaging in what might lead to happiness, that one may one day find solace and contentment to one's soul, and to live a proud life.

"Men stand in front of a door which leads to out of a way from where they think to be no way out," I replied to their inquisitive glances. "Oftenly we listen of the angry sea be a killer; The North Face, a shatter of hopes; but so seldomly that men mar their ways with their wills, making less of examples around them, and of a confined voice which within criticizes them. Thus, they derail the train of their felicity and place a thorn within their shoe. Men still can go, as the sight can perceive once accustomed with the dark.

With these strategies we undermine the foundations of our structure; gaze dull at it, without ever impend a movement at its favour, to recover it or stop the waste."

They said they knew none like that.

"Traveller! Demons seizing you, and the Devil listening to the things you say. You can make the dark darker still and add a dram of trouble to our disgrace. Fellows like you, if hell didn't exist, would engender one and throw us all in it. What about the good of not to know, and of the sweat ignorance?

Both form a sort of unshakable happiness; a little world where sometimes it's pleasing to dwell in."

"Were this place a graveyard where we stand, and I could swear by the god of the dead, that I had seen spirits holding their bodies against their wills.

If you could listen beyond my words, or perfection be attained where I failed, that you could hear it told even by the voice of the wind, take it to your hearts, and wake up from your stupor, you race of men."

They became unfriendly and I followed on my way.'

Decorum seemed to have again installed in the church of the brother Thomas. All were thoughtfully silent when he again begun.

'Brothers, the enemy can take over our fancies, and when it happens, case as the following succeed.

Once I met a man who had the strange habit of in nights of full moon, to lose himself into the forest, seeking for what there he could find awake. One night, while treading those impious ways, an old man appeared to him from the dark. At that moment clouds covered the sky. The beasts howled in their dens feeling the presence of one not human. The birds of doom started from the trees, that one could tell the Devil was near. "...I'm Joseph...as the son of Jacob," the old man was saying. "At this hour of the night, mother Earth held the dead to their graves, sleep, the wearied to their beds, and those who tread are up to no good. At what are you about stranger?"

"But pacing dull the ways of a lonely man."

"Those made bad choices; lost the world and the capability of a smile. Say things in silence. Brood when others cheer. Their sun is the moon, and a dream, a bird which felled from its nest."

"Only if life had been what I thought it was, old man. Then it wouldn't be a victory which I haven't done. But the Devil was watching and of all made defeats."

"Ah! The Devil. The Devil. When will he learn, the poor chap? Had you the time to spare, stranger, and I would tell you a tale to shame that fellow. It passed all long ago, and in those times, folks lived happy in small communities, rather than dull, in great agglomerates of people. There were anglers furnishing their baits in jutting rocks. Little children walking along the lanes culling scented flowers to decorate their humble lodgings. A shepherd played his pipe leaning idly on his shaft, inhaling the fresh morning air, while the birds, everywhere, were the happiness of the sky and primed all with their songs.

In those days, the people lived happy and the Devil was feeling sad.

Everywhere men lived in brotherhood and gazed at the sky with wonder. They distinguished the planets and the constellations from among the starry host. Divided the infinite in years, months, weeks and days. Ordered the revolution of the clock. Numbered the changing seasons; and gazing at the sea, found there the five oceans. They became erudite and gifted of speech. Talked of philosophy and metaphysics, and all lived their lives in peace and harmony.

One day the Devil assumed a human shape and appeared down the road carrying a bag with gold coins. None had ever seen such thing or heard before of the value of the Monetary System, and they lived well without it.

The old man stopped at a house and asked for a chicken. The folks gave him the fowl as was their costume, and he gave them a gold coin.

"For what do we want that?"

"It's payment," he explained. "One day you can get something to yourselves for your labour."

"Labour?" and the Devil was again on his way.

In other cottage he asked for a bread, and the same dealing. "... Labour?" And again, he marched on.

Thus, some gold coins were distributed. The owners polished them well and called the neighbours to gaze enviously at the damned things. Soon, those who didn't had gold coins, wouldn't lend anything to anybody if not for one of those, and those who didn't have a thing, had to dig them out even from the bowels of the earth. Beasts were harnessed for the first time and knew the whip. Birds, until then trustful, were now suspicious of men, even of their children, and intoned their melodies far from the porches and windows with which they once were intimate. Sheep and goats were counted at evening and at sunrise,

and the shepherd who once lived merry, was now worried, and aged counting and recounting his flock.

The folks were feeling miserable and remembered the old man who brought the first coins among them and promised dire revenge if ever they chanced to see him again. And the long and the short is," the old man continued, "that sometimes even the Devil can be out of luck, and indeed, a few months later, curious if his plan had thrived, again he appeared at the end of the street. As he went along, he saw the place where he had acquired the chicken with the fowls all outside and in a board written Poultry for sale.

Where he had asked the bread had now announcing Bakery, calling its customers from far away. The Devil went in.

"Why are you dull?" he asked at the employee.

"I want to go home, but I close at six." The Devil heard this and was merry. The folks perceiving him approaching agreed their plan.

"Let us make him work for his food!" The folks seized the old man, harnessed him to a cart aside with a beast, and made him drag dirt from inside a gold mine from dawn till sunset, for one year, before they set him free." Thus, the old man ended his narrative.

"And still you say the Devil didn't learn with that one," he said to the man in the forest, now scared imagining who could know such a tale. While standing there he had had strange visions of some other time; not past, not future, of a time running differently than this that now we know. As in a house of clocks, hollow and with no mechanism within. The slightest apprehension of this notions brought upon the soul anxieties and motives to despair as no mind can conceive. The past concocted with the future, and both with the present were one. It could be now, or a thousand years since; a thousand centuries, or a thought ago. Mortality was wished to do its due. The senses were seized with revolt. No eye could perceive in the Land of Oblivion. As the story followed, ahead went the mind into darkness and into nowhere. The night seemed as if flesh was being stripped from the bones. All the moment was unbearable. Time advanced but he didn't went, or he wanted to stir and time didn't move. The universe was now endless and small, as body and soul seemed forever to separate. The insignificance of the moments behind, fell on him as hell upon the guilty one. Enraged him that there's no defence he could plea. His time had been no time; his life did not existed! All he had once thought to know about life was about to end up in regrets. When little he wished to grow; when grown-up he preferred not to be. Once there was a time of happiness. It was when his mother died. Then life was disfigured and too ugly to contemplate. Such was the way that led him to those nights through the forest at night, at the full-moon light, listening to the Devil's prattle.

He was just a child then, being carried by a neighbour in tears to end his sleep in a strange bed. He had heard his father crying in their room something which he could no longer remember. He, a child at once knew all with a child's instinct. He knew his mother was death. Still too young to know what death was, he knew only that it has come to take his mother away from him, and now life would have to be done without her, if ever that'd be possible. What his life had been since, until that day we met him, in the forest, with the old man, it couldn't be here by a laureate told coherently enough to anything be made out of the account, but at some point in his life he became obsessed with death and mysticism; with philosophy and the dark. His personality became secretive. He no longer sought the crowd, but seclusion and away from the world, and the connection with the invisible forces which hold the Universe visible to sight. At night, his spirit and body severed. He was free, and with the mind reached new places and new

doubts, and within him opened the eyes with which he would see God. He studied different creeds and rituals; observed in asylums and hospices how mad men died. Opened doors through which he passed, until he reached a final frontier where Heaven stood on the other side. He looked but it was veiled, unassailable to sight but faith. The faith he didn't had, concealed from him the prize he aimed at. He returned, then, by a thousand ways wrong, stumbling in every stone. The tools he used afterwards to dig the great abyss between he and other men, he brought them from that night when his mother died. The insecurity, the fear, and the habit of keeping to himself his feelings as if they were awkward or improper, cleaved the gap between he and the other men, which he now could not transpose. Thus, he preferred the company of the beasts in those nights in the forest, than the communion with others with whom he could not be in company.

The old man took a pinch from his snuffbox.

"From where did you came old man?" asked the fellow gazing at the crooked figure.

"From three days away. The winding road tired my legs. Of all my errands this rendered me the less pleasure. I was to curse the night when I saw you."

The strange man gave him an greazy purse, worn as if thousands of years old, and again disappeared into the forest. The fellow shoved the purse in the pocket and both parted, each in opposite direction. A while ahead he got the curiosity to see what may contain, for it seemed empty at first. As he was searching for it a strange frenzy came over him. His blood rushed inside his veins. His heart came to beat on his throat. He felt sweat tickling down his ribs as he tried to find the right pocket, though now too agitated to know what he was doing. He searched first several times all the pockets of his jacket before he remembered the trousers. There at last he found it, though with his trembling fingers, he could not untie the knot at once. He recalled the old man and the moment behind. His disdainful grinning and the words he said; even the very course his eyes did took when he spoke them. He remembered his name; ...I'm Joseph‌as the son of Jacob! Shivers came near to balance him out of his equilibrium. Had he paid better attention, he would perceive that the figure with who he spoke, had no shape from the knees bellow. Or had he tried to pat his companion in the shoulder, he would be surprised to feel his hand pass by the human contours of the old man as if he weren’t there. At last he solved the first knot. As his nervous fingers were employed upon the remaining of the task, the dark of beyond appeared to his view, and he was shown with the Land of the Sinners, with the Great Giver of all Labours, attributing dire tasks to the time beyond. At last he made good with the knot. Opened the purse about to fall in a fit and found in it a gold coin.'

Thomas ended his speech. The assembly was now quiet and dull. For long silence was maintained.

Some believed the tale, others did not. Thomas eased their moods ordering the supper to be served. The widow ate near the coffin. Augustine in attainment didn't ate at all. After the meal, the host rose to tell some duly words about the deceased.

'I didn't know the man so well, though, the widow informed me better of who he was. And who he was, brothers, it's hard to be conceived, yet, from time to time we heard, and within we have the notion that such a ones born unto this world; without them the place would be dull. Men who could make life mean more than the purport to which was given, and those who are influenced by them, is told to learn from men near God. The widow said the deceased was one of those. That he could have been the One here to establish the world, only had he born in some other time, of better minds, and better discernment.

She compared him to a golden eagle, or to Mary's Blessed Fruit; to a waveless sea, when he was dull. She said that when God thought it was good to create all other men equal, the deceased, it pleased Him to make him different, and endow his spirit with a fortitude given to few. Thus, he was a man always in motion in a world that seemed to have stood still; a dreamer in a land where men lived dull.

She told me that he wanted to build a bridge to the other side, know different peoples and learn their languages. He was to start for seven weeks preaching the Gospels in the Middle-East, and make a whole of the Gaza Strip. He had many dreams of a strange sort. He wished once to be a doctor and save lives.

Later a priest, and serve the Lord, then, for her, to forsake both, the Order and his faith. He planned a translation of the Arabian Nights to start before the end of the year, and in March, with the mighty spring, the defrost would again bring the visitors solicitors of his counselling. A judge in a fancy chariot would come for dinner, asking his opinion if a certain convict should be sent to the gallows or be spared. The cardinal in pious tone searching for advice, if a certain one should be excommunicated and other canonized. It seemed that the wheel of our days couldn't revolve without him keeping it in motion.

The Majesty of Thailand addressed him a many paged letter sealed with the imperial stamp of that court, sharing familiar affairs which one wouldn't confide to who he regarded less than a trustful friend, asking him dearly to send his considerations "on this embarrassing matter". A speaker of the English Royal House recognised after his death that the British Empire would have accomplished less without him. While in other countries, where his name as well was dear, flags were lowered half-mast in observance to the deceased's soul.

His name was given to avenues and to a moon of a distant planet. A poor woman in Ethiopia prayed for his soul, while taking water out of a well which his Irrigation Plan has dug, bringing to her pauper community a major development, and welfare to her oppressed family. In India, peasants harvesting the rice sung a traditional song in honour of him, whose programe Swamps for Rice, had turned many desolated marshes in fertile lands for the growth of the same. Thus great was the loss with his death. The Imminence of Thailand called it irreparable. The Mayor of his town decreed two weeks of mourn; the priest three days of fast in observance for his departed soul. His name was ordered to be printed and taught in schoolbooks, and given as example of adamantine leagues, or when it needs to say of what by common words cannot be told. Scholars found in Nostradamus's prophecies subtle hints of his birth into this world in a later age; a different lot red in the stars great facts which told plainly of his arriving.

Nature was convicted that year more than ever. In the barns the forage reached the roofs, and provision of corn supplanted all the ever seen. Stakes had to be placed under the branches of trees loaded with fruit. Calves born by twins. In the sea the fishnets came bursting with stock. The widow told me as well that several miracles are related with his death, as the success of a rescue operation of some miners in the north of Chili. "Que dios bendiga su alma," was all the emotional families could say. Now there, his name is synonymous of reliance and of hope...'

'God damn him, instead!" cried one at long agitated. "What man was that? How is one to make up to such a one, for God sake? My mother's son is humble. My back breaks as any man's. Sure, there were times when people knew me, but this is too much.

I, in who my parents had so many hopes, at birth the stars decreed in counsel, "This one we will hinder". Thus, the passage of the hours brought me anxieties and restlessness, instead of the solace which all around enjoyed, with myself knowing ills and reverses that would challenge the endurance of every

spirit.

When something was to start, the faster I resolved to quit it. I saw others whose tribulations didn't caused the same but seemed instead to be the breath to kindle the fire of life. When upon something, they did it with heart and soul, and I with the disposition of one who knows that whatever he's impending is condemned to fail. In psychoanalysis books I learned of cases like mine. A pathology, as they call it in medical jargon, which inevitably will lead the individual to ostracism and to seclusion. The experts observed in conclusion that in those particulars there’s no hope, with many of the cases not living to their natural death. In those books I learned a role of terms to express feelings of mine of which I could never tell but would think them by metaphors and analogies that sometimes could make me smile on my bed.

I was once a young man who dreamt, loved, and desired as any other. Though, I wore life as a careless shirt that is to be undressed in the end of the day, thrown in the dirty basket to never be seen again. I rushed when I didn't know where to go. Worn myself out going through ways from where other came without their lives, until one day I understood that what I was in possession of was far more valuable than at first I could realise. As I started to comprehend life, I bitterly regretted how much of it so recklessly I had wasted and cast away. I knew it all too late. My attention had left me, as the accuracy of the vision from the left sight and my feet, once decided and of nimble tread, are now clumsy, shunning to impend in the next direction. In all, the thread of days was coming knotted and irregular, as the river of life flowed troubled in its fair bed.

One day came the moment for I to accept how all had been. In that way and no different. I tried to tell myself that life had been as a wild horse, that I rode it while I could, and that “all was okay�. But I was different from the others okay, and that difference seemed to be noticed from miles and miles at distance, as if each blow had made a wound, and each wound a scar. In the streets I was observed with curiosity, as a painting in a gallery exposed to the critic eye. All trying to see inside of my okay; others okay as I. I could perceive into theirs, but they couldn't look into mine. "How are you?" The thought was okay, but today the mood is far more dull, and I could not answer. More often than not a thought has come to still my speech and let me gazing at the empty air, mindless of the image at all. Of late trivial words gained heavier meaning capable of seize and crush the self, keeping echoing for long, as after-consequences of a stroke. The discontented mind creates then a moment of her own, and for an instant lingers there.

When I tried to talk to myself, I could not convince. The argument was lost and the defence impossible. The notion of the time wasted weakened the conviction from my voice. I tried to remain composed and with dignity, at least until as far as one who chose before knowing what life was. I said to myself that the world was round and the Devil made it, to try to calm me down and to understand, and that, here, such is the all the luck we can hope for. Though, I reminded things differently, and got different notions on my mind, of how I assembled with my own hands my heavy load to carry, making a burden from what could had been a treasure.'

'Or we wouldn't be teaching responsibility to our children.

Brothers, in this man you find examples plain as one doesn't want to be. Listening to these unhappy words I could only think the worst one can think about someone else. May God be merciful, for here we are implacable.'

The widow kept in observance to the deceased's memory, and the annoying flies. Thomas facing the assemblage, in solemn tone proffered the next words.

'Brothers, we came to this world under the designation of mortals, ephemeral things that come and go. The apprehension of again turn null after had once existed, works upon the soul with heinous tools, coming in later in years scarcely letting mood to any other thought. The dismantling of the soul with one last sigh; the vision that quivers ere it dies. Beyond the God of the Dead rules with endless power, in the place of fear, where there's no fear; in the Lamentable Valley, where there is no moan.

The last time I had an affair of this sort I took a little girl to burry. The parents were disconsolate looking piteously at the cadaverous face of their little daughter, who died so before her time. She was dressed in a white dress, with stockings to her knees, and black polished shoes, holding motionless in her pale hand a coloured bouquet which her mother had wreathed, being about to turn eight when the tragedy happened. In the second class the teachers told the parents they could see a bright future ahead of their little girl. She could write her name and count until the thousands. In her untalented drawings, as only can the hand of a child, she depicted herself with her parents, and traits of her life at home. Their figures were placed on each side of hers, and she the small character holding hands with the two. Mother with a skirt, and dad with a top hat as it was his guise. Often she drew landscapes with mountains and the sun, and birds flying the air.

A few weeks before she died the teachers were scared by what they found portrayed in the white sheets of paper. The peaceful landscapes were now fancies of all dark. The traits of her life at home gave place to evils, and monsters seizing and disputing her between them. Once she drew the Devil; called the teacher and said "friend..." The parents were called to a meeting and informed of the changes in their little girl's character. They were devastated listening of the succeeding. All the image of happiness which with so great an effort they had composed, there vanished before their tearful eyes as if but made of smoke.

They took their child to exorcise, though after some tormenting sessions no improvement was attained, and a gossip was spread as the Devil was now in town, living inside of the little girl.

An assemblage came one night carrying a big cross, to ask the parents to give them the little girl in order for them, by fire, to purge the evil spirit out of her. The couple was horrified. The mob kept with torches burning stationed at their door all night long. At dawn they threw stones at the windows and left.

The wretched couple had thus seen ruin all their dreams of happiness for the future, and to darken the sunny prospects to that child, now afflicted by visions from some other world.

At last she took her bed, in fever, talking delirious of different angels and died. With her, life, which is as a beautiful flower, had withered before it came to blossom, and that bud, to who they once wished a world of good, was now shrivelling in her coffin.

They wished to have gone in her place and blamed themselves for her death. That somehow, they had inspired that sadness in their child causing her soul to disdain to live.

When I met her, in her little coffin, she looked as I would portray an angel. The afflictions of her mind let no scar in her serene visage, but rather seemed as if contemplating a red field of poppies waving at the summer's breeze. I spoke to the small assemblage words which pierced the heart of God and moved all to tears. At last we parted in mournful procession to deliver that child to her grave.

In the cemetery God favoured us with a prophecy. It was when the doleful mother fainted over the little coffin. God begun to speak by my deacon. Some knelt, others fell prostrated for had listened those words from the Lord.'

The mystic could be felt hovering above the sacred place. Now one in tears reveals faults of him to

the assemblage, saying that he robbed his country with tax evasion. Other, that for years he stole from the short pension of his mother to buy booze. A third, yet, taken by the other two, confesses to all, and to his wife besides him, his many cases of infidelity and one-night adventures, sobbing, and with tears down his face. The Lord was pleased. Though, now the wife was threatening with divorce. All had in an instant turned to tumult. They fell on themselves. The fellow who robbed his country, said then that it never happened. The one who robbed from his dotard mother, said it happened but differently from how it sounded. Soon all gave excuses to leave. The dispositions had changed in an instant. Now, not the Divine Spirit but tension was in the air. The wretched mother sat despondent with her hands in her lap. The father, with elbows on his knees, holding his head and staring into the ground. I asked for guidance where I could perceive only dark, and these words came to my heart.

"Was this angel a dear daughter of mine, and I would be now smiling, remembering the moments when she laughed. To him who die young, life was as a pleasant dream from which they never had to wake up. To her all lasted forever. She came to this world only to be happy and to believe, and to laugh at the way we grown up's do.

At last the little girl was buried and the parents, released from their solicitude, could go home with their consummated grief.

Today, not a child but a man we'll take to his eternal residence. One of who suits to say, had lived many lives in one. May the earth serve him now with good rest, not as the shore of anxieties which to him once was, from where he gazed at so many hopes and dreams wreck in the horizon before had come to him. In his life, there was always the imminence of ruin or of something great; the moment that could lead to heaven or to hell, as if Hardy's hand had traced the ways he was sent to tread upon. From a malignancy of the destiny to the next, his ways brought him to a despondency that only knew those who once looked back but to realise that they were alone. Death came at last to exonerate him from a task which he was wearied to perform, and as a clerk at the desk, just craved for the closing of the bureau.'

The window sobbed violently in her seat.

'After being a child until late in his life, he became the adult who didn't regarded infancy, or things of minor bulk than those which led his worried heart to have a fit.'

One of those present yawned. The dawn was now bringing the room into an even more sad and gloomy atmosphere than during the night. The dead man kept motionless in his coffin in accordance with the expectations of all, observed from time to time with repugnance by one of the crew. While Thomas spoke, the one with a timid spirit was dull. The bachelor was observing the widow as Tarquin stood gazing before enjoying Lucrete. The one with the shirt on the outside was busy with his hand inside his mouth, as if had detected something there out-of-order. Each of the presents was thinking an excuse to leave. Only Augustine was peacefully asleep laid in some chairs alighted in a row.

As Augustine fell asleep, he saw himself at the birth of his son. It was a winter morning and the snow poured majestically in thick flakes outside the building styled in the explicitly unpretentious Gothic lines.

It was Germany. His father stood next to him. Besides him was Holderlin's mother; the frantic woman who died almost fifteen years gone. Holderlin was pleased to see her again. His memory construed her with the best features he still kept of her; a beautiful and obstinate woman who’s the glamour of womanhood was at the prime when she died. Holderlin looked at his father. Koradin smiled back to him and put his arm across his son's shoulders pulling him to himself, as if they were then the pals they had

never been. Holderlin still missed in his life the paternal figure he never had, but instead a father severe and austere. Although, Holderlin now felt guilty for the quarrels they had had and for have forsaken his father. They were so different they were less than strangers, and that void now seemed to have extended to his own life, which he tried to fill, though, without ever finding the it which would result in a positive change, or come up with a place where he would like to go next. His loneliness soon turn in the desire to be more alone. Thomas was the only human being he knew, and the strangers passing outside, he didn't want them any closer. He felt himself trapped in a cage which kept him from been devoured by them.

Holderlin had always seen himself as a timid lion, afraid of making his roar heard in the world. The Hohenfels who’s their might had forsaken. The problem with Holderlin was that, until later in his life, no passionate moments ever happened. He had never been at the edge and overcome when the moment was decisive. Thus, he developed late the feeling so mandatory for one's success as is the trust in one's abilities and resilience in the face of adversity. Such now was proving a handicap; one of the misfortunes of a secure life. This security had once seemed to Holderlin important and comfortable, when he reached the age when he could realise he had had the luck of born in possession of what the most had to work all their lives without ever knowing it. Although as soon as his thoughts mature further, he started to see it as superfluous, and sometimes, even despising the balance of his bank account. The way Holderlin found to express the contempt for his money, was by living a modest life with not more than what he needed. This modesty was Holderlin's way to keep his equilibrium in what he called, to live with both feet on the ground. He had never tried to court a woman telling of his aristocracy or talked haughty to anyone because he was a Hohenfels. Rather, he hid it as if such were a sin or something obscene which he ought to be ashamed of. He had learned through his life that having leads to want to have more, and ambition, a door to opening wickedness and to grievances that men find for themselves, to go in and not come out.

Sometimes it seemed to Holderlin that all the world was passing through it and being lost. Each cutting their way as they could from slums and ghettos, to escape a poverty that it's not poverty until one gets it in the spirit, to gather riches which are not riches unless one can store them in the heart. For only those are treasures and only those have value, while to gather what can, as leaves, in a whirl be swept away by the wind, it seemed to Holderlin an uncanny occupation, which if sound, one wouldn't engage upon.

It was odd to Holderlin his dream to show him about to be father, for such had never made his plans, except in that early age when is in the prospects of all. In fact, marriage and paternity was two of his greatest fears. When in the middle of his youth he didn't have that desire any more. He didn't want to go down the same painful road his parents had gone through. Strangely, Holderlin wasn't afraid to get old, what scared him was to age besides someone else who would notice his slow decadence, and answer with a frown to the wrinkles appearing on his face. He found himself older each time he saw his image in a mirror. His feet, once delicate, were undergoing some heinous transformation as only time could bring upon. On his legs was being written a future of varices which could appal him each time he read it, and made him loathe to show his body again to someone else. Holderlin shivered in his sleep and tried to awake up but he could not. This was as he passed the most of his nights; fighting against old memories being neither sleeping or awake. At long his nights had turned into something inconvenient; sometimes as scary as a horror movie, and he, the director of the morbid scenes, which would deserve a prize just for the destructive tendency of the main character. If what fulfils a man's soul is to reach such state of inner development when he can know what is before and after existence. Tell of a thousand things much

beyond himself. To listen the earth and the dark speak. To perceive after the final frontier, bringing what lays hidden in the other world to be known on this one. Be able to force himself to dive until the bottom of the ocean and never again come to the surface until had understood what is that surface. To tell of what is above and under this world, and of many mysteries more, which the search for answers satisfy the spirit of men, then Holderlin was as self-destructive as a man could be. He was still busy dealing with his own mysteries to be able to give care to those of the World, unaware they are more intertwined than separated, and a sound perspective can only be attained looking at one as part of the other; to the infinitesimal as a part of the whole. Holderlin saw his life as a dart which the thrower stumbled in his movement having achieved but a poor mark, and he found of this short to be no escape. Before his volunteering in The House of Saint Vincent he had engaged in a role of other charitable acts of the same sort, until he quitted realising the philanthropy of a single man hardly could change anything facing the great wrongs of the world. Holderlin had reached the disposition a man is likely to reach much later in life. He found himself old within; and one is only young as he feels. His skin, still with the elasticity of a young man's, gave the wrong idea of the one who wore it. He lacked that elasticity and enterprising in his soul. Holderlin’s' was sad. Not always but for most of the times, and the acknowledgement of such indisposed mood saddened him further, in a vicious circle which for long he was unable to break. He tried to write but not a word would come out of his soul. Holderlin didn't prayed and only asked in his spirit if a God existed somewhere, that one day he may forgive him. He was a reserved man, however sometimes he felt a consuming urge for company which would remain unsatisfied to gnaw at his flesh, as if loneliness was a hungry beast raging each day with a greater appetite before the pauper meal. Then the beast would quiet and again he would feel comfortable alone...at least more comfortable than when in company. Holderlin didn't drunk what forced him to face his situation under the severity of the conscience of a sober man. He felt as a someone trying to return to a place which had never existed.

A gust of wind, it seemed, it was what was keeping him going on his way. The world had vanished; except for the road Holderlin went down, with each day looking just the same, and all the same in the sky and in the horizon. A dull monotony where he was forced to keep his eyes as the way ahead. Holderlin felt as a man who arriving to perform some laborious task, realises them he didn't bring the tools required for the job. He blamed all in the capability to live he didn't find in himself. His father told him last time they talked, he felt sorry to have been the one in who befell the curse of begot the first Hohenfels who wouldn't live up to that name. How can one make anything out of one's life after listen such demoralising and spell-like words? To Holderlin they were as a curse laid on him when he should had been encouraged instead. For long he was unable to break free from that charm and was stuck in that moment of the past unable to live on. Holderlin didn't knew he had to forget it; to get it out of his conviction before he could find strengths to fight for anything in this world, which by now was still there, as a patient dog outside a shop, faithfully waiting for him. When it would be no longer, the last chapter of the tragedy had been written, and just the Epilogue was to follow. Before, when Holderlin tried to build something valid in his life, the ground would always appear to be made of sand, and he without the know-how to reach the steady rock. Inevitably everything crumbled after a while, and he left to another construction in a soil that was just the same. Holderlin ended up by tiring and he finally quitted of build what was sure to collapse, without he ever enjoy anything that would slightly match the effort. If one were to talk with Holderlin for a while, one would first form an idea of him which would then disappear as the conversation continued,

without another could be conceived to replace it. It was not that he was deranged for he was normal, yet, one's mind had, based in the previous experiences, conceived an idea of normality which was a totally different thing, not altogether similar with what was then before one's eyes. It was not common to Holderlin to dream with merriment or festivities. What passed through his mind throughout those hours had usually a more prostrated nature. He wouldn't fall asleep without a while of dejected cogitation at himself and the others who passed by him in the street, and the sort or dreams these thoughts would afterwards compose in his mind, made Holderlin turn around in his bed as a snake amid the flames, unconsciously wishing for the night to end. Sleeping agitated during the serene hours blessing the world with silence and some men with their trials. If the days of a man's life were to have all the length of those hours, then surely he would live for thousands upon thousands of years; a man trying to find his place among the others, Sometimes Holderlin would try to see the bright side, though it seemed to himself a vain and superfluous thing for one to gaze upon, and again he would turn his sight to the penumbra and the uncertainties of beyond, and to the helplessness of a man in this world as in the next. Sometimes Holderlin wished he had born some years later and to belong to this couldn't-care-less generation that is now being educated at school, and be another of those couldn't-care-less we have as the little promises for the future, and who are fated to govern the world in a few years. For Holderlin thought those who couldn't care less couldn't worry, and to one who couldn't worry, only mirth and happiness would smile at him ahead. All what now he couldn't find, would then beckon the way for him to follow, and all that now he feared, would then instantly dissipate in the infinite, vacant and empty space on the empty mind who couldn't care less. The mind unable to focus for more than ten consecutive seconds; who is innocent loaded with sin; light, weighted down by guilt... Sometimes Holderlin couldn't understand why certain thoughts would come to his mind. He would just sit there in his sofa or lay in his bed and they would start, as if some uncanny switch had been turned on and of his mind made a whole amphitheatre given to weird performances from which he was the unhappy spectator. When Holderlin tried to compare himself with others he found there's was no comparison or any similarities besides the physic ones. They were constantly disposed to merriment and any dead pigeon on the side of the road had enough wit to make them resound a sonorous laughter. Not to see favourable prospects for the world, made harder for Holderlin to be able to find them to his own future, for in the end, the world was where he lived.

Holderlin's devotion to the church fulfilled him only so far. He craved for something greater; something as any man had ever achieved. He felt something was demanding it from within, and until he could satisfy his soul, he wouldn't find his peace. Holderlin remembered Jonah and wondered if he weren’t doing the same; feeling miserable in the escape from what could have no escape. He felt his arms would fall from his body and rotten at his feet if he would spend another day of his life without gain a resolution towards what was there for him to do. In his unrest he promised to himself to gain it soon. There were two main traits which differed Holderlin from the rest; he had a total conscience of himself, and a spirit not to linger for long in a situation against his pleasure. This made him arrive where he was and would compel him further on. What he thought it was his father lack of affection for himself, since early brought him the feeling of not be good enough and a constant necessity to prove his capacities; during the time when he could not, such shackled him to a weight heavy and burdensome to carry about. His mother could not be a refuge and was often another inauspicious haven where he reached only to leave again to the unfriendly ocean. If Holderlin could not say his infancy had been a monster, he couldn't find another shape to give it.

A deformed creature with no arms and a sardonic smile in the place where the mouth should be, waving listless a pig-like tail. This acknowledgement he made of his golden years depressed him. Holderlin tried to believe in those still ahead if he, with an ingenious movement, could bring them about. For this to happen he had still to listen a voice within and understand what it said. And he had nevertheless born with an aptitude to sensitive perception. To have grown up surrounded by the courteous manners of aristocracy nourished it further. Though, as a magnet attracts to itself the iron fillings, Holderlin saw that some occult and unexplainable influence attracted men to doom and to destruction, from which, it seemed, was as hard for them to break free, as to the iron, of its own accord, to escape that attraction. This idea opened a new sight within him. Holderlin was convinced that until a man could see things this way his vision wasn't accurate, going his notions from error to error, as electricity, once finding two equal conductors alternates perpetually between one and the other. Hence, what others consider the inconvenience of accurate thinking, was largely compensated in Holderlin by the feeling a genius might experience when giving birth to another wonder, or a shoot-seer, listening confirmation of his predictions. In these moments his restlessness was pacified by the accomplishment; his insecurities reassured for had gone one step further in the winding way of the mind; secret doors through which he went in one after the other in the neverending corridors of the intellect. The mists cleared out; the rough became cotton-like to touch. With effort he was braving the way towards the discovering of himself; sometimes it scared him, and he wished to stop but he went on. He was as an explorer venturing himself into an unknown dark cave where at the end something uncanny seemed to shine; and this shinning, which by then he was beginning to discern, compelled him on.

During this dream one thing that warmed Holderlin's heart was to see was to see again his mother, with radiant eyes smiling at him. She seemed to be proud of him as he had never seen her. It was a shame she was dead. Her loss was the biggest blow of the many in Holderlin's face, and a turning point in his life. He was about to turn sixteen. With the relations with his father straining further at each day it was only his mother, though cold and distant as she was, what was holding Holderlin still to his family. Soon after her death he left. To find his way alone in the world was not an easy task, and now when looking back to how everything came to pass, and what dubious road had brought him to where he was, Holderlin couldn't help to attribute everything to a predestination rather than to his own merit. It was maybe because he had a humble character, or maybe because he had faced such tremendous situations which wouldn't allow him any other way of reason about what stood behind. When Holderlin left Germany, he had no destiny in mind, and for a while wandered here and there trying to organise the ideas on his head, though at each day they became more confused and complex. Soon he was carrying them in his countenance.

Acquaintances started to estrange him. At night cab drivers refused their service. After passing by the metal-detector he would be selected to a manual search. Holderlin found himself incapable of living a normal life. In his mind, one world was forming after the other. Mysterious places he had created and let there to exist hidden somewhere in his mind. These worlds were his notions; the deepest tendencies of his soul, where each one shines with his own true colours, as Holderlin did as soon as he allowed himself to do so. The good heritage he considered to have received from his family was an unshakable character, which he may have got it from his father side, and a stern possession of spirit, that undoubtedly from his mother's. These two helped him in his odyssey through the world. They were his bark and his wind in the great occean of his wills, made of the dreadful currents of his ideas. Such wide and tumultive place

brought him anxieties and concerns towards many uncertain destinies. To wherever he looked he saw men happy only not to be sad, who soon as they were alone were again given to the constraining of their thoughts. Holderlin saw this as an inescapable consequence of the times about. Hence when he was in the world, he felt but a great urgency to leave. While he saw the others as powerless victims he pitied them, afterwaeds he couldn't, when with time he realised they ought to do better though, giving themselves to an uncanny spirit of accommodation, dodged that responsibility, which is to seek the real and lasting pleasure to one's soul, and to do what differ us from the other kinds; when we shun it, we lower ourselves in rank and category. This was what Holderlin had figured when he approached Thomas church. He didn't like religion but he liked Thomas's ideology that each man is him self’s. This was his greatest conviction and what gave motions to his limbs. In his dream Holderlin heard some people enter the room where they were waiting. It was the nurses bringing the baby. His father hugged him and congratulated him again.

His mother held his two hands, kissed him on the lips and said she was the happiest grandmother on earth, then she kissed her husband and told him what the dream did not reveal. Holderlin was anxious to see the baby and know who the mother was. He had had a passion for a girl once who never knew of his feelings.

In this moment Thomas covered him with a blanket and he woke up, for a while regretting not to had seen any more of it. Not that such had any importance, just out of curiosity Unaware of Augustine grievance Thomas in this while remembered of a tale to tell which might shake the listeners out of their dullness.

'Brothers, listen now of one occasion when I still didn't tread the ways of the Lord. It's a strange story, though truth. I was driving, surveying the road ahead as an eagle watches the plain, when at some point I discerned where I could not pass. It was a great apparatus, and nobody passed. It was in a free-way and I couldn't stop either, or it would be as shouting "Watch me!". My mind cleared. My heart quickened its beats, and an unpleasant feeling of perspiration arouse, as again I was in an adrenaline rush, seeing myself approaching swiftly the critical point.

Suddenly I saw an escape. A house at the side of the road. "If only I could knock there and seem to them as an acquaintance..." And with no better alternative I decided to try my luck. I stopped at some scarce tenths of metres from the barrier and rung the bell. If anyone lived there must be poor, for it was a humble yard. Their attention was now upon who had so harshly shunned the control. If I were in, it would be a triviality, if I had to leave it would mean death. I got old in those few seconds facing that door. An old man answered my knock with a kind semblance.

"Did you know an old lady who lived up there," I started, "and died a few years ago? I'm her relative.

She used to speak much of the folks of this house before she died." After a short glance, the old man invited me in with a smile. It was near seven o'clock. He showed me a seat.

"Tell me, my young man, it was my dear Josephine?"

"Yes!" I cried almost rising up in my seat. I couldn't help but to go along with anything just to stay in that house for the next couple of hours. "Yes!" The bells started to knoll frenetically.

"Someone died!" he said turning his eyes to the window. "Tomorrow I got work. I'm the sexton of the cemetery."

My blood chilled. The old figure grinned sardonically.

"How old are you, my young man?" I told him my age. "Still too young to be my business. Do you

believe in the Devil.?" The question upset me.

"I don't know." Rain started pouring. If it hardened, I could leave from what had become an unpleasant company. I tried to change the conversation.

"And that Josephine of yours?"

"Or was her name Mendy...Hellen, perhaps."

I stared confused at the crooked man.

"Do you have any idea of how many of Josephine's relatives were seated in that chair?" I kept silence. "As many as until today loathed to pass that control and knocked at my door, pale as you just came in."

I felt uncomfortable and gazed with repulse at the old man. I tried to talk. The moment seemed surreal. I wondered if all that was going on before my eyes was true.

"Yea," he resumed. "My house is just as good situated. That's why I never moved; all these years. Just for the strange sort of visitors it affords me. Each one lost in his life, they all sat there listening to my counselling's."

I felt my joints stiffing. Tried to stand but was kept. To plea, though could find no words to tell. The bells kept announcing the death just occurred in the alms-house. I made as to leave.

"Not yet, young man. There's a storm outside. Maybe you have to say in for the night."

I started to wish I hadn't stopped. Come what may. I saw a wall; me, and the world out-side. The bells kept chiming as if announcing that the entire world has at last decided for goodness.

"It was a poor man who died. The parson wouldn't jingle them like that if not for a humble soul. Two days ago, Madame Du Pont passed away, and I thought he was announcing five o'clock."

I stared with contempt at my present situation. Looked at the clock on the wall. It had stopped near seven o'clock; checked my watch; it had stopped as well at eight minutes to seven, the time when I stepped in the damned house. I sunk in the chair not wanting to live anymore The old man looked at me and laugh. None from this world could laugh like that. I wanted him to stop. My soul was pierced with agony. I seemed I fainted. He started singing, How sweet is your abode, God Almighty. My soul yearns, even faints. My senses blurred came back to me. The bells were still chiming as if The Plague was again in town. I saw the old man lighting candles in front of some icons. The images reverenced by the dim light were seated and standing figures resembling appalling gargulas; entities out-cast from the earth, now of eminence in some other world. He ended the psalm without mistake. I tried to get rid of my stupor and to react. I thought in run out of the house and ask for help at those men in the barrier. Anything, just to put an end to that madness. But I was afraid I couldn't open the door at once and enrage the old man, who, it seemed, could over-power me with just one glance. I decided to wait for the right moment. The storm ceased. At the belfry, the parson seemed determinate to sound those bells until all hell was in turmoil. The old man sat at the table and started to tell me the story of when he was in-love. I listened as a convict trying to entertain his executioner, and thus to prolong his span of life in a few more minutes, even if miserable.

It seemed that she was a girl from a rich family, and their difference of classes made their relation impossible, but not their devotion to each other. The old man opened a drawer from where he took a bundle of papers and placed them on the table. It was letters. He picked one and started reading to himself.

"She wouldn't mind if I would share them with you, after all, she's death. Today again I visited the cemetery. My attraction for death increases at each sun...at each hour. Yours, for shortly and for always, Josephine."

Lightning’s flashed through the window. I felt I’d lost the ground beneath my feet. I stared at the old man in panic, wondering at what that moment was about. He again started from another letter at random, Yesterday my father intercepted your message and ordered to be whipped the servant who brought me the letter. I don't know if I can live through another week. Your, sad, Josephine.

He read one more. Last night, with the full moon, I went until the old bridge. The flow seemed to call me from below. I just wanted to dive and disappear. Pining away, Josephine." The Old man ended and gazed gloomy at the yellow flame. I picked up a letter. The handwrite was of an extravagant beauty. "I was thinking; I won't see angels if I attempt against my life. So, I will just take my bed and die ." I put down the letter. My senses stupefied.

"And so, she did. That was her last. Three weeks later she passed away consumed by grief." I looked at the date. It was at two days from completing forty years.

"I buried her in tears, with her family all there gathered for the sad occasion, still thinking that had been better that way; they rather a timely grief to a looming shame. From then I live to her alone, to keep her memory blazing in my heart."

"This house is haunted with your grief, old man! You're a ghost. You and she perished long ago. You, at those eight minutes to seven, the time that here will forever be."

I ran out of the house and drove away. The road was now clear. There're no traces of storm, neither could be listened the clamour of the bells. I felt though compelled to know more about it. A few days later I visited the nearby cemetery and asked there for some Josephine, who might have died some forty years gone. The sexton led me to two abandoned graves surrounded by an old chain.

"There she lays," he said, "for forty years, unhappy, Josephine."

"And that one?" I asked noticing the other grave besides it.

"That one is from her passion. Grieving for him, she opened with sadness the door to out of this world. Her love was the sexton of this cemetery. I came to replace him forty years ago. He died one week after her, balancing in a tree. Her family, which had always disliked him, when were both dead, at last consented in their love. They paid for these ornamented stones and laid him forever aside with her."

"Some scarce days ago I met his ghost,� I said. "Still loves her."

Braving the graves from the weeds I placed the wreath at their feet and left with a bow."

At last they were awake. The one with the shirt with the inside out rose and sat again. The bachelor was thoughtful. Suddenly, the timid, with one hand squeezing the other, started expounding facts of his life to the assembly. It seemed that he wasn't the timid creature who we thought him to be, but one given to observance and intellectual cogitation, and rather than feel in company, he had been quiet all night, despising the demeanour of those who didn't knew how to behave. He loathed to know of their conquests, or of their views in practical affairs. He had come for once he knew the deceased and pitied him when he was down on his luck. He knew of the fellow who asked him for his pregnant wife sake. He was aware he paid a pension to a cripple in bed, that kept being collected for years after the invalid's death. He felt sorry for him and wondered at how it could be still such men in the world, with hearts ready to be fooled by the malice of a ten-year-old girl. When the widow heard that he knew the deceased, she looked at him with

her eyes imploring him not to tell, if it were something which could make less of her dear husband. He wouldn't. He smiled at her with complicity, and she, since always estranged being, acknowledged his sympathy, feeling grateful for a kindness which she felt she could never pay him. As he talked, they exchanged glances a few more times. She was a pretty woman reaching her forties. He, a little older, still maintained the fresh and attractive traits of youth upon his trustful countenance.

He was a well-to-do man with an estate close to where she lived. When she needed work to pay her bills, he would, without her knowledge, intercede for her to be employed, giving himself as security for the honesty of her character, for she would never accept work in the house of a lonely man, and he couldn't help but admiring her for her tenacity and simplicity. He gladdened to know the couple so well deserved each other. Both were made of what can no longer be found nowadays anywhere. Nevertheless, he was aware of what was told behind her, and he knew that she was aware of it herself, and just followed living a happy life. She looked at him simply because he aroused her attention telling he knew the deceased. And when their eyes chanced to meet and be locked in an awkward moment, she would blush, and at once turn them to more morbid contemplation of the ghastly face of her dead husband.

The timid was now speaking of those who dare to live without the sly advantage, neither in the tide to seek the upper hand. This was boring the listeners. Some looked through the window at the new day beginning, with the sun bringing its merry beams into the gloomy room. "My mother died in a day just like this," thought the one with the shirt on the outside, now busy trying to remove an old gum from the sole of his shoe. And it was. In fact, the tragedy happened as well on a Wednesday, as now chanced to be.

His mother had died still and young woman, intoxicated with the fumes of the stove; the child, in a different partition, had hardly survived. He was taken to be reared by wealthy relatives. Sometimes at night he tried to remember his mother, but he could not. His memories started when she was already dead.

Though, he recalled that it has been in a sunny day as well as then it chanced to be.

He grew raised by maids who bathed the child once a week and neglected their duties to him in every way possible. Inasmuch, if someone would ask him who discovered electricity, or that speech could pass through a wire, he would be surprised to receive a succinct I don't know for an answer. However, when grown up, he learnt sufficiently to enable himself to tell from memory the order of the numbers of the roulette, besides to point with accuracy the red from the black. At the same time, were one to ask him to mention a title of a book he had kept in mind, he would muse for a long while, and at the end of his mental search, reply, "The Bible."

One night he woke up from a bad dream. He was six. In that age when a child just rushes into her parents’ bedroom, tough, he sat trembling in his bed, looking around the room at the dim light of a candle.

His frightened mind discerned dire figures on the walls. He closed his eyes and forced himself to liger so.

He laid awake until morning. Nothing could scare that child as those sleepless nights. Through those hours (he was still too young to know how to name them) anxieties came to oppress his little heart, assuming evil shapes before his tearful eyes.

He was a little grown up.

He recalled what he could of his mother; little sketches which would vanish with the years, being he still so young. He felt afraid of being alone; panic; horror thunderstruck him, as to a child when is to learn the order of the alphabet. He tried to overcome it. Felt something coming out from under his bed.

Suddenly he seemed to see it emerging from his stealth; always appearing and never coming into view;

always present, and always fantastic. He wished he could fight it with his tiny hands. In his purity the child wanted to pray. He tried to recite a prayer, though, as any child, he found the orisons dull and his mind took never heed of them. He said, "God," in silence, with the voice of his spirit, his little hands clasped in front of him, as he reminded the grown up's do. Nothing happened. He repeated, "God," with his simple mind searching for more words to tell. "My mother died. Feel sorry for me." Thus the child prayed with all the faith he could summon from within his apprentice soul. If any god had seen it, the tremendous scene would break his heart. "Quiet the monsters". But the monsters didn't quieten, neither then, nor through the sorrowful years that passed, but instead of that frightened hearth they made a home.

The child grew to learn to disguise his fears with a reckless attitude.

He had now succeeded with the gum and threw it to a corner scrubbing his foot on the floor. The bachelor took his eyes from the widow for an instant and was observing with repulse the bearing of the creature who announced himself as a gentleman.

This man was a bachelor, though once he had been engaged to a lovely maid of the region, some said, the most gorgeous and chaste of them all, whose traits were a source of delight and solace to the eye.

She wanted to live. Eat jam from the jar. Scratch her legs climbing a tree. Prick her fingers gathering roses or blackberries. She longed to run along a seashore, holding the hem of her dress with one hand and her sandals with the other, escaping from his embrace that would come at last, though, he would not chase her. He believed that common joys were to common people, and to laugh, the simple expression of a shallow mind, and totally unsuitable to a man of his class.

He had a morbid personality instead. He was convinced the Devil woke up at sunset. That brought upon an evil spirit to look in the eyes of a poor man, or to name someone who had recently passed away.

He kept a jar with holy water at home with which he sprinkled the rooms of his house, and his bed before to sleep. He gave her some and recommended her to do the same. She was scared. If he chanced to see a black cat he would stamp his foot three times, and spend several hours that evening seated at his desk, writing last notes to relatives and acquaintances, in fear that he might die that night.

He was hypochondriac like his mother and suffered from Munchausen Syndrome. He said that he had to be bleed twice a month and looked to it scrupulously. After the treatments he would get sick and take his bed for a couple of days, then to return to his normal routine, which was near to total inertia. He despised horses because they smell, dogs for so much pissing, and animals in general. Against those in the sea he held not specific complaint. He wouldn't say pig but swine, and at the meals, instead of wiping his lips, rather he would gently approach them with the napkin, in such solemn gestures, as one would employ kissing the hem of the Holly Tunic, and when dull, instead of say "I'm depressed," he would, seated in his armchair, sighing reply, "An ill got into my soul".

He condemned sculpture and all arts in general. To him, philosophers were an insolent lot who God would one day chastise their backs. Musicians, light creatures who ought to have been through more hardships in their lives. Painters, spoiled children whose parents were too busy to raise them properly, and thus had brought childish things to their adult age.

He considered witchcraft to wonder about the motives of the universe. Didn't observe the stars for he believed to be a pagan custom started by peoples still indifferent to the Lord. He liked puppet shows and flea-circuses, instead, to which he used to contribute with considerable amounts to itinerant groups proliferateting all throughout the region, which used to cross town with sheep and goats tied behind their

wagons.

In his view there were only two kinds of people in this world, and he was fortunate to count himself among those he considered best.

The girl was desolated when one day received a letter from him enumerating the many flaws of her character and pointed them as "reason more than valid" to end their relation.

From then he closed his breast to love, as a flower may close its petals, keeping its centre from the sun.

Another one there gathered from who it suits to tell a few words, was a man near his sixties who passing at the door in the previous day, and with nothing better to do, resolved to stay for the watch. He was not fond of funerals, or of religious matters in general, nor one of those freaks who exult with death, though, he was reaching that time in life when at each day one is more likely to be called to go than to be told to stay, and the sort of thoughts this new phase freighted into his mind, made him not to disdain to spend some hours with the dead man. Why? He was a straying man who might soon find himself in need of the same act of charity from someone else.

He had been trying to make himself in society with the rest. Laughed when they laughed, presented a grave semblance if they saddened, and when chanced that one told of some misfortune of his life, he would pretend to muse and at length reply, "Yes. As if the earth was hungry of our marrow". Sometimes actual sorrow could be noticed on his wrinkled brow if he perceived a genuine pain; but that happened very seldom.

He had for three times repeated the present situation; two to mourn for his late wives, and other to bury his daughter from the first marriage; his only child.

That day he decided not to have anyone else, as one may resolve not to have another dog. He arrived at home and mourned, not so much for what had parted, but for what life for him had become; a dark hall with illuminated rooms extending on both sides from where lively conversations were heard, and he, a man now sentenced but to pace dull along the chambers. He had once visited a church for a few times, though, he felt himself as a hypocrite and did not return.

One day, shortly after he abandoned the ways of the Lord, he was going home late in the evening when he thought to discern two men in the dark; straining his eyes, saw there only one. He decided not to address him unless he was spoken to. Why should he? And he kept pacing on his way. Though, the idea of a man there in the dark, soon started to disturb him. He became uneasy and irritated, feeling himself advancing more and more into the unknown. He inhaled deeply. The air seemed to him foul and pestilent.

He took the next breaths as one may do an act of charity. Then again he looked, and there's still, the defiant figure of that man, standing outrageously, in the border with the invisible. One step back, and the straining of the eye couldn't discover him no more, one distance ahead and he could tell him real. He wished the moon could help him, but it was a new-moon's night. God and the Devil seemed to be plotting against him. He tried to approach the man, though could not get near him; each step overcomed again and always there to beat. He strode furiously towards that figure mingled with the dark, shouting and waving his arms, one couldn't tell if calling it or repelling it. He tried to tell himself that all was an illusion, but illusions are not meant to be seen so clearly, that's why they are called illusions; dreams which our mind recklessly freights onto reality. No! This was something different.

He was now reaching a forest and the crooked figure seemed to retire into that grove. He was

assailed by anxieties and a thousand fears. He had read somewhere that the entrance to hell hides in some alike woods, meant never to be approached. He wondered at how many minutes more he could have remain to live, and shivered realising that those could be scarce. He accepted it. What could he want to see more of life now that all were dead? These thoughts, and others of this strange sort rendered that man less heinous. He made his peace with him. "I won't chase you, odd man! I will stop and go back."

He receded on his way, eager to come out from that place in the night, though he could not leave the man behind either. He ran as fast as he could, tough, at each glance back, he saw the shameless figure closing on his track. He ran faster and faster. All his struggle seemed to be in vain, as the odd man, without effort was coming near. In this parody of fears, he ran the next hundreds of metres, his heart throbbing as one watching a miraculous healing. When at last he was out of the grove, the insolent figure emerged behind him. He could see it menacingly overcoming its way. It seemed to him that those about to die feel more joyful. The vigour left his legs. He felt himself about to collapse. Thought he had to push harder and lost his senses. When he again came to himself it was already daytime. He tried to recall what happened, though, only bits came back to him. Only the fear of death he knew then did never left him.

Thus, he thought of the watch an act of comradeship which one he day also may use.

By now the conversation was almost animated. The one with the shirt with the inside out was trying to assume a decent posture. The timid was by now intimate with the widow. The bachelor was gazing dejected at both, while the individual we learnt for last, seeing to spring such unseeingly romance, now decided not to end his days alone, even if he had to marry a woman to himself by force. The slow passage of the hours increased the impatience in all.

At last was time to leave to the cemetery. The coffin was brought outside and placed upon the funeral-carrion. As pious men upon a pilgrim's road they trod behind the cart in procession; Augustine aside with it. Two miles separated the church from the cemetery. The disposition of all was doleful. All were following with eyes down-cast when Thomas tried to mitigate their sorrow.

'Brothers, the matter of death is not to joke with, though, it's not to be taken seriously either. A few times before I trod these scarce miles with reverent pace. One occasion a man came on our way who asked to join us. With nothing against it we agreed. As we were walking down this same road, he told me a few words about what bumps had made his ways. It seemed that this man had once been a gambler; a man used to bet hard and lose. Each throw of the dice challenged his cold blood as if the Devil were giving the game. At the roulette Fortune held his number; at the track, his horse held its pace. The cards were against him. If he betted as it would succeed another day, he would be likely to call upon the end of times. When, by some whim, he chanced to step his feet into a church, the sermon would be about the Crucifixion. Luck forsook him in every way. He thought to had born in a night of turbulent stars, while the commons, when the astros were bounteous, and veiled zealous and auspiciously over their cradles. At the same time, the humble pieces of cardboard where he was laid when he first knew the world, seemed to be acknowledged by those same stars with repugnance and resentment.

He told me that a man of less intellect than he, would at long had cursed his God and gone mad.

"In my days," he said, "I covered every bet! Until one day I searched and found nothing else to put at stake. In that day, I wrote My soul in a piece of paper and put it to game. The other players astonished and discussed how it could be collected. It was the first time since the beginning of the game that such dubious thing was proposed. At last the item was accepted. To match it, all placed in the stake amounts

between five and ten pounds."

Here, when I thought he was beginning his tale he ended it. My spirit was in commotion, such was my curiosity. "I can't burry the man like this." I thought to myself. I approached the strange fellow now a few metres distant.

"And what happened, pal?" I asked him. "Did you won it or lost it? That hand, I mean. How did it end?" He stared at me in silence. I could tell that he was seeing other things and not myself, seeming as if making to remind, at the same time eager to forget. He cast down his eyes, though seeming to be able to discern across the surface the world bellow, worriedly again rose them to the sky. He lost his hue. The air being loaded and heavy. Through the pores of his skin tiny drops of perspiration appeared giving token of his trial. He pronounced the first syllable of some word which sound did never reached me. I couldn't tell if he was trying to share his burden, or in earnest keeping it his own. I looked at him with emphatic eyes.

Tried to comfort him, though no words could find. I had heard of convicts who march thus to the gallows, or men who awake after had committed atrocious crime under the influence, with countenance of one resigned that in train it will come the end. The cemetery was now visible. His mouth started to move spasmodically, but again no sound could utter, seeming in his unnatural silence to hold my life suspended.

The torment lasted on and on. I repented of my impetuous a thousand times. The motions upon his face disfigured his countenance until sheer panic, with each second seeming ways through which he didn't wanted to go. I looked at him again and he was older, as if years...decades had passed through him in those scarce seconds, or he had been told at once the pain of many men. His eyes were suppliant for a truce; for a deliverance that none could bring upon. The funeral train passed by an alley. He turned away hasting through the narrow street, seeming a child trying to escape from a nightmare. I stood for a moment pitying that man for the back. Tried to recompose myself from the strange hap, and again turned my attention to the procession.'

The way had been trod without notice. The cemetery was now at a few scarce hundreds of metres distance. The timid approached the widow. Let us listen for a while the dialogue going on between the two. '... What do you think about it?' the timid asked.

'How shall I know? I'm simple.'

'Can you love me?'

'I think I can.'

'I have an estate...'

'I don't care for those.'

'I know! I know. That's why I care for you.'

'I care for the rabbits and for the poultry, and for what is going on in the kitchen. I have two goats, an old dog, and a friend with who sometimes I chat at the gate. This resumes my whole life. I'm not smart, though I have nothing against those who are. I will like if you tell me a story, or if you just sit next to me in silence. I will pray the Lord for you, and when you'll be dull, I will try to cheer your mood. I will keep living in my old house, or move with you, if I can take my animals along, and every Sunday after the church, I will visit a grave which to me will be dear.'

'You will have women to attend on you who you can pester with orders.'

'God forbid that I should do that!'

'I will be your friend and soon you will have more, who will love you for your tenderness. You shall no longer live isolated but children from nearby will come for you for candies, and to make you smile.

Neighbours will strive to find an excuse to come about and have a slice of your apple-pie, which fragrance had entered pleasantly through their windows. You will be respected; those who mocked you will be mocked, and who ever treated you with respect will feel at peace. Gone times will stay behind, and soon you will forget them. Occasionally I will join you to visit that grave to where you'll roam every Sunday, and when one day I'll die, you will visit mine.'

'Then I will die from grief...'

'And join those in heaven.'

'I'm not pure.' she replied, 'God will detest me. Sometimes I have bad thoughts. Tell nasty things to the old goat if it's moody and won't come out. Once I found a coin in the floor of the bakery-shop and instead of giving it at the counter, I kept it and bought with it another bread.'

'God smiles when you speak.'

'The gentlefolk's feel aversion for me.'

'The fools feel aversion for you.'

'Dames look at me with contempt. In the other day, they stood blocking my passage, so that I had to wet my feet in a pond to go through, and all laughed heartily as if a deliverance had gone well, or a son had graduated distinctly in Law-School. That night I ate alone crying and asking why. The deceased was already with his shoes on to his last journey; two days later he died.'

'I will love you as a pious loves an angel.'

'But I'm no angel. Angels are in heaven if they really exist; for none has ever seen them. My friend, with who I use to chat, told me that when she was young she saw two, with wings which touched their ankles, coming on her road, and when passing her by, they nodded and made away, flying again back to heaven. But I didn't believe her. I didn't think that she was deceiving me either, but that she imagined them with such an eagerness, that her fancy from a lie made a remembrance.'

In this mean time the cart passed the hopeless gates. Soon after the dead man was again displayed to contemplation. At the hour proposed, Augustine went to initiate the rite before Thomas's final words.

'If anyone here knows a reason for what this man shall not be buried, speak now or be silenced forever.'

'Here!' cried the timid. 'First I got an announcement to make.'

'Let at least burry the man first!' Thomas said guessing the matter.

'Let him see! and witness the purity of what is intended by my heart.

This woman, I tell you, it's no common thing. Cordelia could be her name. Being aware of this, I couldn't let her go to the grave with the deceased, but from the first my heart took a fancy for her, which a moment later blossomed into passion and respectful admiration.'

The widow became crimson red feeling their glances alternate between her, the timid and the dead man, until then her husband, now definitely divorced.

'Thus, I will spoil him of what he no longer is in need of, and encourage her to keep what he still can use; her devotion to his memory. As so, if no contrariety will be found, we would like the brother Thomas to unite us in lawful matrimony, as soon as all the preparations will make possible.'

Thomas was honoured. It would be his first time uniting two souls before the pleased eyes of the

Lord.

'With pleasure,' he replied. The rest started to believe in an invitation for the party.

The moods had changed, and now all were eager to remove the dead man from out of their sight, though it would be still a long while before they could see their wish consummated. Thomas understood the mood of all and took a place of imminence to address the last words before the closing of the lid and unveiled some more astonishing facts about the deceased.

'Brothers, it's with grief that we join here to see this man go under. I didn't know the man so well, and was the widow, or shall I say, the betrothed, who informed me better of who he was. And who he was, is hard to be conceived. She told me he was patron of the arts, and the benefactor of an old lady. If he listened of a catastrophe he would, grievously, say to his wife, "Only if I was there..." "They could all had been saved." Pressures are known to had been made by the Royal House to bury the deceased next to the English Rose. Children in schools drew contented pictures showing the deceased distributing flowers among them, which reflected the memories which they kept of him in their hearts still so apt to love. At the same time, resistance groups throughout the world took from his example of tenacity, new strengths and vigour to their causes. Statements were collected from figures with covered faces who acknowledged the deceased as a soldier of their fight, holding revolutionary flags, saying that a comrade had been lost, soon to be re-joined. "Until then, we will resist!"

As we speak his body it's again being brought into shape, to be exhibited in wax museums throughout the world, until as far as his impact was made. His bust is being chiselled, trying in the best to capture the traits that nature gave him. He refused a request to carry the Olympic Torch. In Saudi Arabia a sheikh named his stallion Second Moses in honour of the deceased's soul. The Pope spoke about his death in eight different languages to an audience moved beyond tears...'

The dead man was buried, eventually, still that day, when of the sun could no longer be found in the sky.

VI The Wedding

Two friends were going on the road to Emmaus, grievesome and dull, when a man came on their way. He asked them at what they were about. They told him they were coming from Jerusalem. "...Haven't you

heard?" He answered negatively and joined the two, on the road to Emmaus. He asked about their grief and told them stories of when he was a boy; a frisky and naughty child playing about that same road they now were upon. One day, he told them, he had a dream, that soon his life would be taken from him and given to all men, and all would rejoice with what to him alone could be but of little profit. Since the dream until that day, on the road to Emmaus, his life had been already taken and given back, to him and to all men.

Of more they chatted, of this and that, on the road to Emmaus.

Life is made of a succession of moments. In it nothing really ends, or anything begins. What of new one starts in life, taking a good observance, one will realise as indeed it started long ago, somewhere in the days of the past. Alike with what it seems to finish today; it finished long before. The previous mutates constantly in the following; often one looks with apprehension to the new creature formed, then to look with joy and hope at another that is just its son. They are each as members of a dysfunctional family coming all hand in hand; always staying behind and meeting us ahead; we name them and give them shape and make them what they are; the numbered pages of our book. The story goes on to no good success, with the chapters being written in the same more or less worried style, what makes of all an exhaustion of faculties, trying to calculate the capacity from the volume, in an intellectual effort which can achieve but the wrong result. From this exploit of the mind the physic is practically detached, keeping during the entire process, as a patient spectator, in a sort of stupor that can be more or less intense; often painful. The narration of facts such as these through the pages of a book, contributes to establish the opinion of those who state that literature has not reached a standstill, but is indeed receding in its everyday capacity to amuse and astound the public, having only to be feared until where more far back it can go. To recite the human drama, it amounts to the same capacity of a man's who dives for long periods of time with nothing but a dagger between his teeth, to emerge again at the surface with a pearl.

Today is one of those happy days, when in the wearisome book of life, we find written a happy chapter.

One month passed since the timid's proposal and the invitation for Thomas to perform the union of the in-love couple. Thomas and Augustine are still making some final arrangements. The minister cannot help to feel some nervousness envisioning the dire task ahead. For as he saw it, a marriage was a serious matter which its success had much to do with who received the two souls in his hands and united them before the favourable eyes of the Lord. Around ten guests were expected from the groom's part and only one from the bride's; the old woman with who she used to chat at the gate. From the watch only the fellow with the shirt on the outside and the man near his sixties received invitation to be present. The widow's heart divides between joy and grief, ending the former for having the better half. Defiant, and oblivious of any protocol, the fellow with the shirt on the outside is the first to arrive. He comes exquisitely dressed, in a suit with a frockcoat, though, with one of the flaps tucked inside his trousers. A lapse likely to happen to anyone who couldn't sleep for the second...maybe the third night in a row, thinking how the present could be different if all had turned out other way. And maybe one has done those sleepless nights for months or even years, so that it's easy to criticise. But to had fell asleep with the sun already high in the sky...and to what sleep, but to see displayed across one's mind broken images of what one rather not to remind, which torment and tired more than if one was performing some laborious task. Maybe still one wouldn't end up

by sweating all those litres of perspiration in which he was soaked when he woke up from that state of drowsiness and apprehension. And if then one could shake it off. But how not to keep the next hour or two staring dejected at the ceiling, interiorizing more that everyone has it and one does not? And after one is likely to gaze at one's toe appearing by a whole in the sock for another half or three quarters of an hour before one can decide one must stand. How to help it? And how is one then to find mood to discover socks that match, and not just put on the first two one manages to release from the bundle? And to check if a flap of one's tailcoat is or isn’t tucked inside one's trousers... If by then the landlord is again with insistency banging at the front door, and one has to jump from the back window some good six metres until the pavement, and all that makes one be arriving now just wishing he could forget himself.

Thomas tranquil features became upset. He stared apprehensive at the disconsolate figure. All he had learnt through the years of his ministry, and all he ever thought to know about men, was now being checked in his heart and tested to the limit. It was still early for the arriving of the guests. Thomas invited him to sit. The gloomy man told him of some he got hidden within; about his mother and the monsters. Of the nights spent awake looking at the ceiling, seeing there evils and dire figures as if he were on an acid trip.

'That when at last he rose from bed was to do more of the same monotony which for years had consumed his soul, causing the flowers of his garden all to die. To do more of what was strange, that caused him to be a gentleman without society. Every time he thought he was achieving something and making a friend, soon they found out he was weird and discarded him as to a stained cloth. For they expected from an acquaintance a normality that was alien to him. To gather in the Grand Cafe a little after eleven, clean shaved and neatly dressed. Not in a suit evidencing by the many creases and wrinkles, to have just endured a night of agitated sleep upon him who wears it. It scared them that when one would cross one's legs the socks for the most would be odd, and that when with all the company merry, instead of contribute to the general mirth, one would be always ready to open one's heart telling of mesmerising facts about oneself which frequently let the listeners uncomfortable, removing from their lips word to reply, who would force a smile and try to find what to do with the hands. Thomas shook his head in aprehension. It had a been a sad account of a too often repeated case; of a man who found not his place in the world he lived in. Thomas had once tried in vain to heal a soul in similar circumstances. Scarce weeks had passed since a fellow entered his door of whom, one could tell, all his life had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. 'We were about to leave when he came in, saying if God had a pair of eyes the both were blind, when he made a world where animals could live in and men could not. I looked sternly at him to show him disapproval. I had seen that man before wandering through the streets and arguing with himself, as if standing in front of a judge, trying, with dubious words, to move him from the correctness of his decision. He seemed to suffer from some mental instability, having deserted from his parents’ house in his early years, wandering through the streets since then.

'At home they realised the child was different and were scared. Somewhere he had seen the adults pray before the meals and at home wouldn't take a crump to his mouth without give praise for it to the Lord. The parents stared at the child with fear and horror, as one seeing in the middle of a dark road the Devil emerging from the ground. They hid the child from their friends and closed him in the attic when relatives came to dinner, for not have spread gossip about the child, "For his own good", they said to themselves, for in this ruthless world he would be at once pointed and called weirdo.' One day the child

listened his parents calling him freak between them and left. It was a July afternoon when his humorous destiny thus goaded him on. He walked until dusk when he found a place to spend the night. Hungry and tired he laid in an old mattress and fell asleep. When he again came to his senses, he saw the clarity of the dawn and left. Now he was not hungry but a hole seemed to have been dug in his stomach during the night where a beast roared to be fed. He walked on into the morning. Passing by a shop he stole two apples. He ate them eagerly, sit on some stairs, imagining how it would be at home with his parents missing him and wondering what might had happened. Time passed and the child gave way stealing to survive; first food, then just anything. This made an impression on his young self. It didn't took long until he entered in more risky games. Years passed on the edge and the child became just a memory in the man's mind, still without understand. He said that during all his existence he wondered at how it would be to live a normal life. For his was scary with everywhere consequences and fires burning. For he was different, and after a while that difference starts to be noticed, and when someone got too familiar, one would have it instead to be a dog stripped out of its skin than to do nothing about it. And it might happen one coming back to him a few times, to show him well and crush him to the ground. But after so many always coming in one's way what is left is a soul revolted. Constantly worried with revenges and paybacks, and all that makes one to be respected by others but despised by oneself, making of all a tremendous loss. But who was there to teach? Pride and vanity are the worst to command a young man's mind; fire and fuel always ready to get started. Thus, it came dreams and ambitions darker of each time he closed his eyes. He strove to climb a letter which reaches deeper the higher it gets. At its top it lays the bottom of the abyss; the reason why when looking from the top one does not contemplate the lights of the city, but gazes instead at a constant darkness. And he might even have got a few jobs, until he ran away with some money which he could put his hands onto, in what he called, an "attributed justice". How to blame him without many others ahead? Does the impetuous of society explained it all? A little virus which corrupted everyone and everything, that now so often feels there's not a soul alive in the world.

Blaming him for that one will end up blaming him for had made that hot-wire and crushed that car against the gold's smith's shop, making in a short a good profit with a victimless crime. Criticise him? As if when one tries to make one's life begging the folks were there to give. And at the end of the day, the man of the bakery didn't prefer to take the bread home to feed his chickens than to lend a crust to one with hunger. If he would ask, of course, what he never did. Except maybe for a few times in the beginning, tired from walking with the empty stomach, and only more humiliations, and occasionally he ending up by destroying someone else's property. And again, that fuss at night at the station with one trying to sleep and a fellow standing insulting the guards at the door. And a good half an hour it's needed for them finally to come to take him out. And when after one hour and a half or so they again bring him back, how can one manage to get any sleep done with the moans and laments of that fellow, who then, all beaten black and blue, can't find a position to ease his bones? After some years of this one must tire of he's an ass. But by then one is already in such an order alienated from the world, that the will to change is no longer enough, and all is depending on conjunctions not less exquisite than the alignment of the planets. He might had thought the world owed him what he was collecting; the irony; it was his burden. This world, which seemed to be cunning and deceiving him since his birth. Hence, he kept bringing the goods from the shops at night, just seen by the moon. Showing knives to strangers; making licit of the illicit and of Chance his fortune. And from the chivalry of the illicit; and from the distortion of the licit until the

extremes where his road did took him and he was forced to pace, aroused a mist from the amid of which he thought to discern his goals. When he didn't have any money, he would go to a restaurant to eat a restless meal. Restless, for in the end was likely to happen charges and confrontations, pushes, and one's closed fist flying through the air, and the escaping from the hands trying to surrender one against one's will.

He was homophobic, ever since he met that old man in his tender age, when puberty was messing with his mind, who chased him through the park at the hour of dusk, with who he came to share the house a few years later for six months...or well over an year, if one is to count all the times he returned asking to stay that was cold and winter outside. Since, he didn't know what to think of his sexuality, only knew it upset him. Technically, it couldn't be said he had never laid aside with a woman, and he had seen many girls naked as well. That was exactly the reason why he spent several months under arrest during his military service, when the sergeant-major caught him on the top of some boxes peeking into the girls’ showers. This exploit brought him notoriety and made in famous among the other soldiers, who shunned to have anything to do with him.

Though, he was now at an age when those innocent pranks do not satisfy one’s spirit any longer, but rather feel unsavoury when one is alone and revive all that littleness again, feeling one would then give everything to enlarge it in just one bit.

Now he spent the nights trying to convince himself that men cannot all be brave and honoured folks; that it must be a reason as well for such one as himself to have come into this world. To damage public property and feel women in busses and sub-way trains at rush hour. To eat in cafes, and overtake with motorcycle in traffic jams. Shake hands with junkies and hashish dealers. Sleep in rooms with single bed.

To order by catalogue and send by express. Wear superfluous linen in the summer. To jeer at the mosque...

All this seemed great but short and the unreality of life.

'This was what I could understand from his incoherent account. I wondered at what could still be done for him and grieved realising there's not much. But let it. God knows it all.'

The first guests arrived at last in company with the groom. The gloomy man forgetful of any regard and musing at his own trials, didn't addressed them any greeting. A while after the church was again full of life, when until the spirit of the watch seemed still to linger on. There were six or seven guests with the groom. Two of them were the man near his sixties and his fiancĂŠ. He had decided, inspired by the marrying coupe, to find to himself a suitable who would make the time pass more merrily. They met by correspondence in a Love Column of a newspaper, where both announced to have no time to waste. She had been the wife of an army officer until his death let her well in life. What could had led a respectful woman to use such method to find a partner? Nothing besides she was a modern and practical as the days about, who used to think that in life one must surrender oneself to the Devil, came it to tempt one or not.

And somehow, she convinced herself that not all there must be scum. Indeed, it seemed she was right.

About this lady there's to tell she was of a tenacious nature. She used to say one lived only once, and that now was the time to do, and afterwards the time to let undone. Thus, monetarily assured while her husband was alive, she never let herself be darkened by his shadow, but was constantly engaged in charity works. Visited inmates in jails; and had held the hand of death convicts until the decisive moment, which was to come about by electrocution. She used to tell the convicts not to scorn it, for, as she said, after all was a mighty thing, but not to fear it either, for electricity was a God's power and not of men, and the

important was to keep one's soul smiling all the way. Some said would try, though the most just stared sternly at her.

She had the pleasant features of an Eskimo woman, as one finds in pictures of exploration magazines.

Constantly happy, with round and prominent cheeks, reminding one of Russian porcelain dolls, as if made by the talented hands of an artist. An everlasting expression of contentment which so often hid her worried self. Having read somewhere that happiness was self-made, she thought the best way to bring it about was by greeting the world every day with a smile. Looking at her, a gloomy man would at once feel joyous and cheered by her countenance, immediately changing his mood for a better one. In her first years of marriage her husband would tell she irradiated the sun. She would say he was as the moon; mysterious and secretive. Worried with how many men were killed and how many survived; with widows, and how raged the dogs of war.

She had yet something we may call a flaw in her character. She was too quick to take to herself a final assumption of someone else's worth. She employed what she considered her power as Customs in a border, trying to scrutinize with a quick survey the intentions of those who want to approach the ground they consider. This habit caused her to commit some bitter mistakes during her life, including the choice of her husband. For in the end she saw what she was disposed to find in a particular person, in a particular moment, influenced by what was going on in that phase in her life. She was however not aware of it, and it happened that occurred more oftenly the misjudgements than the accurate ones. But this little stain was not, however, enough to taint her character having she as many other virtues so seldom found nowadays.

To herself, life was as a bottle of wine; dull if you drink it alone. Hence, she drunk of her life with friends, in fêtes and dinner parties. Receiving the high society, and the thrall of petitioners of her influence to interceded on their behalf in one or other matter, which, unless she intervened, was sure to reach an unsatisfactory out-come. She thought live would shrivel in her hands if she wouldn't be continually chopping bits from it and giving them to those around her. Thus, she tended a few graves which had no one to care for them. Didn’t let pass a festive occasion without send a special meal to the orphanage, and every night prayed to God to better the minds of the mad folks in the asylum, if He thought, of course, that such was for the better.

Her husband was an influent man regarded in the best circles where he used to entertain the companies with the adventurous tales behind each of his meddles for bravery and the Cross of War. He was still a young officer when he earned it. The memories of that night did never leave him, and here he would tell a completely different story from what it really happened.

Some secret had been stolen; the spy had just confessed it; and all who could know about it would be gathered in a conspirators' meeting through a weekend, and all should die that night, unable to be tracked who had been their executioners. All was done under the most secrecy. Few men in the world knew of what was about to happen. The order was first to gas the victims when they would retire to their rooms, then burn all to the ground. He was told that only military would be there, or civilians engaged at their service. He had no problems to carry their deaths in his conscience. First of all, he was a soldier, and a soldier's conscience was made to carry burdens.

It was a frosty night. His team was delivered in the hostile territory. They still had to walk a few miles until at last they reached their target; a big mansion surrounded by imponent walls. He had ten men under his command. They approached the house carrying guns they could not use, "Only in case of

extreme necessity," as he was told. All the work had to be done by hand; first with gas, then with a reassuring stab piercing their hearts. Thirty men should die that way. He was a soldier and a soldier's duty is to kill. Although, when they surrounded the house, they saw lights in another salon and discovered that in fact those men were not alone. In that salon were gathered the wives and children of the conspirators, and none should outlive to tell tale of that day .

There was a mutiny among his men, and after many whispered treats, the rebellious still maintained their insolence, refusing to carry on with the operation. They’d rather face court martial than to call themselves assassins of women and children for the rest of their lives. A few men were still with him.

Their country depended on them greatly than a man can rely on his conscience. He sent the rebelious out of the premises with predictions of terrible out-comes for their insubordination and carried the mission ahead with his loyals. Men to who the word assassin didn't scared. From their stealth they saw those about to die in their last walk until their rooms. One hour after the special team, with gas masks on, entered the house and gassed each accommodation. Fifteen minutes later they entered the rooms and, one by one, pierced the hearts of those unconscious. However, some were not totally out; some children were aware, and all was a mess. The mansion was burnt to he ground. Today, to wherever he looked he saw those flames, and through the flames he recognised their faces, reviving all too vividly his high service for his country, and how he had merited the Cross of War. Hence, he couldn't help but to be "mysterious as the moon", and what his wife called secretism, was the figures of those ghosts still haunting him after so many years gone. Until his death he kept being a dog of war; a soldier, whose mission is to kill when it needs to kill. When she lost him, she mourned for a while until the grief vanished from her heart and realising that in life one can't stand still, she just moved on. Thus, the man near his sixties was gladsome again and feeing like young, believing then in a future which until he doubted still to have ahead. The changes occurring in him during the last mouth had been radical. He gained a new perspective, and if well with not much use he could make of all now, still he was delighted with the sort of emotions this new stage in his life caused him to experience. He had always looked at life with practical eyes, but now he saw it in ways of destiny and callings; of a fated distance to in the end to reach the road meant for one to trod since the beginning of times. His beliefs may by objected by many, as he just a scarce while ago, if listen them from someone else, would be likely to go against them as well. Then he saw and understood.

He wondered at why some men never throve. Such couldn't be their destiny, yet if it had been fated differently, they wouldn't be able to go against it. So, why some men were bid to flourish while others, it seemed, cut short? After a while he understood that too, only he couldn't put it plain in words.

Often when trying to discuss matters of this sort with his companion, he would find himself shortened of those intellectual terms, when in mental struggle to find the only word that would make her understand, and his mind just couldn't reach it. For instance, instead of telling her when pondering at such fact, that 'Looking out-there through the nightly sky, one feels there's an immense possibility of time had absorbed us onto existence by inspiration of a higher wisdom', he would rather say, waving his arms above his head, anguished as a frantic woman when listening of distressing news, "Out-there all is so big (wondrous he tried for it without ever come to his mind) that only a god could had engendered all". She would smile condescending. He felt frustrated and went to a bookshop purchasing a heap of those, which he read avidly all through the nights. He learnt about the abstract thought and the Greek gods. Of Christianity, Buddhism and of the Muslim faith. He read epilogues and introductions; afore and

afterwards. His vocabulary changed. Scarcely two weeks passed he attained enlightenment. Now he ministered to his betrothed long lectures about the future and after the future; until the end of times and beyond. She said that "men should be free!". He told her they should obey, for only then they would be free to walk from under their yoke. Obey to themselves and to each other, and to the natural order which until they ignored. He stood before her as might once Ezra facing the Water-Gate, telling his message to his proud companion. He spoke the Word. He was a prophet. Hence, he had entered the church as a clerk enters a dependency of his ministry, where he's an alien yet part of the same whole.

In this meanwhile all the guests had arrived. Only the bride and the maid-of-honour were still missing; the old woman with who she used to chat at the gate; she wouldn't have other for the whole world. The old woman's parents were fond of Shakespeare and called her Paulina. And Paulina was attending on our queen-for-a-day. For coincidence in this moment Paulina came in, crooked and irreverent as time had made her. She was a lively old woman, whose manners somewhat roughish, granted her the sympathy of all. During the last month she had made acquaintance with the most of the present, or in the house where she helped to pack, or afterwards, when she helped the bride to find again place to her things. Now she had come in to ask the groom to go to the basement while the bride passed to one other room. No one was willing to observe that long-standing tradition, though she threatened to curse them all and leave and everything was done as she wanted. "When I was young..." "All right! All right!" and the groom descended moody to the basement, while the old woman went, with a smile, to bring in the bride.

The bride came dressed in a salmon dress and a veil long way down her back. The peculiarity about the two was that until where the bride was shy the old woman was bold. This caused some strange moments to occur. The bride greeted the guests with a radiant smile and passed to a separate room until the hour of the ceremony. The groom returned to ground level, in a somewhat more quiet mood, though happy for everything being advancing in its rails. He liked the old woman, though, during the last month she had caused him to experience some surreal moments. It happened that during the last four weeks, whenever he asked anything to his bride (who would take a while to think then to give her reply), the old woman decided the matter herself as if it were her own affairs, seeing all with eyes almost a hundred years old. If she were to be opposed in her decision, she would threat to curse them all and leave, and all at once was done as her will. For instance, where was the bride to sleep in the first night? In separate rooms, of course. Paulina planned to take strict care of that herself, by sleeping with the bride in the first weeks until she thought was time. "They come too eager in the first nights, as if God had placed their brains between their legs. We have to make them as patient as sheep." The old woman told the groom that every time a man was abstaining himself, he was pleasing the Lord "who is holy and loathes fornication".

Paulina liked Paul the most from all the prophets who felt inspired to write the Bible. In her young days, after the deacon, she conceived a passion for Elijah and often one would find her imagining herself feeding him instead of the birds and watching him being taken in glory to heaven. She had always been a devout fool. Long ago she had been the mistress of the deacon of the parish, of who was said, took all her fortune before leave to try a better luck in Brazil. All what that deacon had performed upon her were irreparable evils; her chastity and her wealth had gone with the incursion of that vile creature in her life.

And imagining him a hot country, when is hers was cold, twice upset her. She cried and broke some crystals; drew some books from the shelves to the floor and went to play the piano. She played Valquiria, which she thought mistakenly to be of Wagner. It was the opera about the tragedy of a princess in a

kingdom made of cardboard, and while she sung, tears were rolling forgotten down her face. Her fingers pressed the keys as ruthless children stepping on ponds far from the grownups’ awareness. No one could tell that a beautiful woman would decide to try of love only once, though, after her deacon, she consecrated her body to the Lord, and her vigour to help those who couldn't help themselves. With time senility came at last. Sometimes she would say that all people were good, however life was as a tight coat, limiting the free movements of the body, keeping each soul attached to its restriction. Paulina would then provide several examples which the listeners couldn't relate with what was being said, and all ended up tired for listen her. She had been the maid-of-honour in one other occasion, and twice the chaperone to two young couples. Of the three instances she made her mission well; the brides listened some good advices, and the lads never kissed the lasses. Today she thought of the most in her past with pride. Of course, there were a few events which she tried not to remind, as are in the lives of all who didn't fear to live. Though it was not in her power to bring things about differently, and she just tried to keep those memories far away from her mind. Hence, she forgot her deacon, her demons, her youth and herself, and her life passed without she again could notice it. She had devised a way that would allow her to live without any more sufferings and disastrous consequences, and that was to step aside of how much of life as she could. No one could tell what her life would had been if she hadn't met that ruthless man who dispossessed of her greatest value; her illusions. For one to lose one's illusion, is as to an engine to lose the torque of one of its cylinders, what makes it run harder to a worst performance, making of the steep climb of life, a distance more tiresome to go through. One day, already too late, she felt sorry for her decision. No one could have told her how she would feel when her youth would be gone, and her choices would be counted as irreversible. And if in fact two or three did, she just did not listen, being counselled as she was then by her grief. In that day she wept again as her formula had kept her from doing all those years. Of her life it could already been written a summary as nothing was expected or desired to come upon. Now, nothing could excite her but seeing the Lord, or some gossip about the priest; or some scientific breakthrough in the field of Arthritis Rheumatoid. Early in her life dire doors had being left opened for her to pass. She walked through those as the heroin of a tale goes from page to page; from chapter to chapter, from one adventure to the next. As the leafs were staying behind, of her story all about loneliness and disappointments, the argument often seemed to her vain; indeed, out of purpose.

To herself it minded the same which day it was for she celebrated only two; the day when Jesus born and the day when he died. It grieved her, however, that she didn't believed in any Jesus, and she knew, unless she could bring herself to that soon, the end of her soul might be dire. This importunate her more than any other thought. No matter how she would look at it she couldn't perceive a way of escaping from an eternity of terror. She used to ask herself in those moments, if God could love her so wrong, that in the end of all her troubles and misfortunes, would ascribe her still a worst lot. She reminded her mother telling her when she was a young maid, that if she wouldn't be able to guard her chastity until marriage such would be her fate. So, she got excited with the idea of seeing the Lord.

But now she had a mission, and all those thoughts were well far from her mind.

Thomas invited the guests to sit. Until now the fellow with the flap of his tailcoat tucked inside the trousers, sat dejectedly at the end of a row of chairs. Suddenly he rose and asked when the bride would arrive, or if she had decided not to come at all. The company looked sternly at him. Had they been able to see what was going on inside his mind they would spare him those glances. The fact was the spirit of the

wedding had touched everybody, and when one chances to be him it touched not, how not to sit despondent, mindless of everything? And if for an instant one can get rid of that state of lethargy back into awareness, inevitably one makes like a fool, asking if the one who has already arrived will ever come. Then one may try to mend it by making a good joke, and at once all at once seem crossed and to had taken it to the heart. And one ends up by standing there in silence, enduring another major humiliation, as a charlatan exposed to the audience he was trying to con.

One of the presents feeling sorry for the pitiful creature, told to the assembly there's times as well when only monstrosities and disparities from the truth would come out of his mouth. This individual had a nine-to-five job in a communication company. His world was the wire and whatever it could provide.

He was the pattern of the modern man, who dress badly with new clothes. Accelerates from zero to a hundred in six and a half seconds, while he feels himself stagnated and going nowhere. Modernity in the modern man is the letter of self-reprobation which he so eagerly climbs.

"I," he said, "tried once to quit of the empty way, though, I realised that what my way had of emptiness the other had of hardship. Thus, I tried to see wisdom in the change, and perceiving it not, I kept living my reduced life, which until had showed me but the regular sky that everyone else was seeing.

So, I, as the rest, took no notice of it. The crowd has no time for what is not fantastic, or for what does not involve the suffering of another human being. Hence, and in ways to not bore the crowd, everything has to transpose limits into someone else's freedom.'

The audience seemed starting to feel uncomfortable. The fellow regretted having brought the subject about. All he wanted to say was that he had never had a friend, so the wire seem to make life easier and simpler to manage, when all can be avoided with a simple log off.

It hadn't passed long since he had an experience to show him he was right. He was coming home in a summer evening when, passing by the church, was possessed by a sudden fear. It was not usual to happen, though it was not usual as well for him to walk through dark alleys at the forgotten hours of the night.

When some distance trodden into the ebony, he thought to listen his name being called. It was not a common name so that the chances of being someone confusing him with someone else were reduced. He turned slightly pretending to admire the baroque of the facade at the dim moon light, in order to not look like a fool if the calling was not addressed to his person. Though, turning around he saw no one there besides himself. He started again; now less eager on his way. Just a few paces strode into the dark, thinking this odd, when again, clearly he heard it. Now with greater insistence and denoting a certain impatience in its tone. He made as to answer, though he remembered listening saying that when is so it can be the Devil calling and decided to wait until he knew it was human what was chasing him. The alley seemed a never-ending way. This ought to have happened to everyone once during his lifetime, as an impression that comes to mind and fleets away, though, to him, each time it happened, it had the means to snatch him from reality to some distant place. The uncanny voice insisted and again called his name, and he in maintain stern silence. He turned back of a sudden as if to surprise the saucy insolent capable of such low prank, and nothing there but he and the dark. He disliked greatly this state of listening voices and, reading from psychiatry magazines he was so fond of, he, involuntary, started to think less of those who heard them. He thought it was indignant to a man to lose the control of his mind. He tried to figure what he would do if the same happened to him; probably nothing. When he was lost in these and other subjectivities, again was disturbed in his tread of reasoning by another loud call. He started to feel

offended...exasperated by that mono-word utterance. Who would be so coward to test him so? He thought this transposed all limits. Another call he would take all to the utmost of its consequences; were the Devil or a man; for now he felt he feared none. It called again; he decided to ignore it. Next time he wouldn’t, and the voice would learn to had provoked the wrong man. It called once more, and again. "The insolent!" he thought, "straining a man's nerves to so near the danger." The voice called again, even with arrogance.

Imperiously, as if in that moment demanding a satisfaction. His pride told him not to give it. He didn't answer. Now he was decided for silence, "Come what may". It called again. His tongue started in his mouth as a raging lion pacing the insides of a small cage, though he kept it closed in stern defiance to that man or beast. He reminded an uncle of his who had been possessed by madness in his late years; he wondered if the same had happened to him. He felt nevertheless sane; and the voice again loud and clear.

He looked back, as one corageous who fears not for himself, though, saw there not a soul. Ran back until the corner of the street to check if the impudent would not be hidden there. All was serene on that July evening. It would not be more quiet if he were the only soul alive in the world. He looked abruptly around the corner and nothing but a lonely cat looking for its prey. He thought this was a mock and cursed the world with the Plagues of Hell; the living and the dead alike; none to escape but those who did not born.

His name came again about, more as a reproach than a calling. As if the voice was summoning him to trial; dire, as is said one will listen calling to step foward on the Judgement Day. He was not ready. He had never been able to put his house in order. He would have to plead "Guilty!" in front or the Great Judge when the hour was to come, even if he felt himself more as a victim than an offender; for he had never been guilty...of what had he been guilty? He didn't know what to do. To keep on his way, or to turn back with all his might and try to leave the voice behind. He tried his chance. He ran back as fast as he could.. When his breath was spent, he halted and the reproaching sound again calling terrifying on his mind. He stopped, turned back, and again started in the first direction. Desperate tears rolled down his face. The voice called in a tone that seemed to mock him; a grown man crying and sobbing like a child.

He answered the calling with obsceene gestures and with terms here improper to repeat. Dogs were barking in the yards. Now he believed in the Devil and in hell. Sketches of his past passed before his eyes.

He saw again his friend, Oscar, being run over. A basset-hound that was his companion since he could remember. He heard it again. Now he didn't care. He had greater concerns on his mind. He realised his lot of a man alone in the world. All his life he had been alone, though, only then that struck him with fear. He felt as one let behind at the hands of a ruthless enemy, arround only war and no one to come on his rescue Now he no longer walked in one direction but pacing the alley back and forward, talking with himself waving his arms as a Church's Inquisitor. His name sounded again. Oddly, it brought to his remembrance a queer soldier who he met in the days of the army with the same name as himself. He remembered him well even so many years gone. A strange impression would be all one would be left with after talking a while with him. Two law officers came at last to wonder the reason of such commotion. The inopportune voice told again that word which had become vile and vexing to himself. He saw the agents and thought them part of his malady. He started to dance around and take off his clothes. When the agents got near him he told them absurdities and tried to follow on his way. He was arrested and taken to the mental hospital, and in the police files, classified as Delusional. Long passed since with him still trying to get over that humiliating night. Now, if voices would call him, he would not answer them. And if figures would approach him wearing police uniforms, he would not throw them stones and roll naked on the

ground trying to resist the arrest, abusing the agents who were just doing their duty, and their mothers in the bargain, who so hopeful had delivered them to this world, with terms so injurious and base as only such circumstances could had brought to mind. Now, when he remembered that night, he concluded that only the Devil could be calling him, though, for what, he couldn't tell. He tried to change his life and to get out of the ropes where he had always felt himself, and to make of his life a contention overcome on the last round. He remembered of a little faith he once had and asked it for a blessing which he didn't found himself worthy of. The voices silenced. The dark alley led to an illuminated street through where he followed not, but instead turned left and went home to be alone. He quitted the cable, and from then on faced the life from which he couldn't just log off. If one were told of this incident in his life at once would realise at once the odd features on his face were token of that night. If not, when looking at him, one would think he was a man who had embarked all his fortunes in a steamer only to see it all wreck in the middle of the ocean.

Meanwhile in the room the bride was having a hard time to take heed of all the advises the old woman had to give her. Paulina told her that society it's like a travel agency which offers a program to all those who born onto this world, granting them the enjoyment of their time in a merry and pleasant way.

An illusion of life hindrance in the search for what life really is about, and what may fulfil it. And, as the frog, that will be boiled without jumping out of the water, a multitude come and go without ever know how is to live out of the pan. The old woman said that once she was that frog. Watching the orderly processing of minutes and hours in wasted past. Convinced of her capacities limited and not needed in this world. She told the bride a story of "a deacon messing with a maid" who spoiled her of the best she had and let her behind. She said she could had been that maid too. So ready she had been once to believe in an honesty which, in the end, is nowhere to be found. But only ravishment before and after the service, got with promises one had no intentions to fulfil. What else could one do than to stop to believe in the world and in men? and to keep one at home trying in the best to master the self only with pious thoughts.

She told the bride that of all men who until today walked on the earth, none was as Elijah. She repeated several times how he had been fed by the ravens and listened whisphers of God at the entrance of the cave, whom afterwards picked him up in a chariot and took him in glory, guffawing and cheering to haven. She said that never a woman had got such intimacy with Elijah as her at night in her thoughts. The bride was bored. The old woman said that boredoms and disappointments were all the lot of a married woman, which tended to increase with the years. She said that God gave them marriage as endless toil, while to men, as an entertainment they could "go in and out" when they pleased. The bride said the groom was none of those, but a man of respect and good trait. Fast to take pity, and slow to take offence. Of pious customs and moderate passions, who saw life not as a meal to devour, but as a dish of the most exquisite cuisine, to relish with ease and with care. She said the groom knew the solution to every question, and held in his hand The Key of the Compartment... Lo! as the Warder of the Soul, with which he could open the doors of perception of men from every creed and of any nationality, and was capable of bring about a union where all were apart.

She said the groom trod a world which often became too small for him. "It needs bearing," she said, "to wear authority. Some men bought their bearing, and their authority, and others did not".

Outside the room the guests were excited with the approaching of the hour of the ceremony. Now all guests had arrived. From those who came for last there are two from whom is mandatory to tell a few

words. They came separately and have no relation whatsoever. Though they have a greater affinity than found between brothers or even fathers and sons. And such was that both believed in the Darwin's theory and in the Devil. A contradiction which none of them could explain. If one were to try to find on their background an explanation to such relation, he would soon find himself led more astray than when he started. One came from a good family, the other from the gutter. One used to abuse the Jehovah's Witnesses, the other was of moderate temper. One read philosophy, the other comics; though the belief in the Evolution and in the awful creature was common between them. One had a job of importance in the Town Hall, the other worked in a slum...a dump hole where sordid customers sat alone or in twos, and hookers preformed their job in dark corners where the dim light didn't reached, as the attraction the place had to offer. The odour of sloven bodies, liquor's and cheap perfume, mingled with the smoke of cigarettes and not seldom, with the vapours from the latrines, formed a foul and pestilent atmosphere which would revolt the stomach of a decent man. It was one of those places where the employee never looks in the eyes of the customers, as in a pension, or in a sordid cinema. In the karaoke nights, one couldn't tell if all became merrier or more decadent; perhaps the both were true. When a woman would sing, was often interrupted in her performance by obscenities shouted to stage, followed by coarse swearing in return from the artist to the audience, and was all over to the unhappy singer. It chanced that sometimes some blues were allowed to follow undisturbed until the end, if the performer sung of platonic loves, treason, and the will to die of the disappointed lover. The singer would express the despondency and the thrills with the same uninterested and unpretentious gestures, with the audience waiting in silence for the end to clap effusively and cry to stage what they would perform if they found themselves with the diva in one of the dark corners. The owner of the establishment was a tenacious fifty-year-old woman who practiced that sort of business all her life. In the older days she used to join the girls but now she was a respectful woman, who wouldn't sit at the table for a normal fee, and all was depending of the generosity of the customer. With this occupation she managed to make a good fortune over the years, what made her achieve some status in town. Friday's and Saturday's evenings all tended to be more unrestrained and often in those nights reigned chaos and debauchery. Going in through those doors one would have the feeling or being passing the gates of Sodom or Gomorra; one would be reminded of Darwin and of hell. It was not uncommon to see their disputes flared by alcohol and claustrophobic environment, which were sometimes solved with the fists, others with a pocket-knife, which afterwards would be dropped to the floor to be picked up by the owner of the place who knew how to make it disappear. The police would come over a few hours after to be told, that, if in fact a stab had occurred, it had happened out of doors, for hers was a respectful house as could at once be noticed by the presence of so many ladies. The police would leave hardly convinced, and all would resume its normal activity.

There could be ordered famous drinks as Jack the Ripper or Bloody Mary, but others of less renown as well, as Woman With Paranoia, or Hepatical Cirrhosis among many others. Strange and peculiar facts brought her to that kind of activity, which she didn't caused neither was able to avoid. As the most, from her tender age she developed an unrestrained passion for money, specially the one easily got. Life was hard, harder in the small town from where she came, where time seemed to have dropped its magic wand and stood still. The little girl grew dreaming with a prince, who would come in a white horse to snatch her away from the morbid swamp where she was stuck. One day that prince appeared at last. He didn't came mounted in a white horse but driving a red automobile. He didn't possess a castle with a rampart in a

kingdom among the clouds, but a brothel with many sordid rooms in a faraway city. She believed in a farytale and left to never again return. Until today her life had been made of illusions and waking up; of falling from dreams and again, with effort, to climb onto new ones. She used to think death would come next when one couldn't do it anymore. Hence, still now she forced herself to dream with something.

To work there, as this fellow, sometimes at the counter, sometimes as doorman, or helping someone escaping by the backdoor, had scared his soul to out of himself, and with time turn him in the gloomy and taciturn creature he was nowadays.

The other who arrived when himself has in fact a more complicated story. He worked in the administration department of the Town Hall occupying a post for which he was not qualified and had attained it by influence of his predominant father. Often, he was given a deputation, aware there were at least ten people better qualified for the task than himself; his father had arranged it all. This lowered his self-esteem. As far as he could tell he was no better than the worst, and, or something would happen where he could prove his value, or he was decided to end it all. He started to hate his father, who would so zealously look over his affairs. Their relation became tense. A rupture was likely to happen at any moment. Years passed with him eating of this lean menu. Everything had lost its magic when he was still a child. What Sartre called Le cĂ´tĂŠ lumineux de la nature humaine was being obfuscated and darkened by what it seemed to him, an evil and omnipresent fatherly figure. He had reached a stage of disappointment with life. He had expected from it in his youth something which was never delivered. A state of potentialities where every enterprise heartily taken was likely to succeed. In which men could surpass themselves at each day, competing with themselves rather than with each other, in a foul emulation which is the road to the abyss and to nowhere. To nights set thinking, when thoughts come one after the other as the minutes of an hour, obeying a law of their own against which we are helpless and powerless victims.

Somehow his despondency increased every time he saw his father. Looking at him, he would for some strange reason be reminded of a grizzly she-bear, appearing from its hole with its cub soundly kept, standing in her twos, as triumphantly, after the long and strenuous winter. He tried to shake this image from out of his mind what often would take a while to be accomplished. Hence, he visited him very seldom and never invited him to his house. He knew his father would reprobate the way he lived, with no attendants or even a housekeeper. He would be given to criticism, telling himself pierced by shame to the very mortal blow. Such filthiness as one couldn't find where to lay a hat, had injured his soul to beyond of recovery, hasting to add that wardrobes were not meant to storage boxes, and clothes to be kept in a heap.

As if he could only reach the surface of things when their essence it's much below. This perturbed the son mentally and disposed his personality to what others feared and avoided. He started to arrive at home after seven and address his acquaintances by their surname. Red the obituary in the newspapers and books of Nietzsche. Brought purple curtains to his room. Changed from mint to Camille tea. From Polyester to Cotton. Sold his fast car, bought a faster one. Saw refused two requests of audience with the queen.

Searched for himself inside himself, until one day he wrote to his father saying he was a new man. As usual every time he held a pen some good or evil possessed him and he could not stop. He wrote many pages saying, that all his life had been the saga of a man trying to get rid of the power of an obscure and tyrannical figure, which sometimes seemed to exist or not. To dwell only in the recondites of the imagination, made to fill the gap between absurd and reason, tying the loose ends of existence, and link each day with the next. He announced his father he had got tired of living that sort of pathetic platonic

paternal relation which seemed to had led to a dead end, from where it was good to receded to the main road and go each separate ways. This, he called wisdom; and folly, to let his heart to cruise any longer in the bark of illusion, which had taken him to agitated and easy seas; to winds at favour and against; through waters shallow and deep, with patience and obstinacy, as one goes up a hill. He didn't notice the length of the letter nor the course of time. His heart was dictating to his hand and he with no power whatsoever over neither of both. He repeated himself several times. He informed his father he had bought new curtains to his room and of the visions with the she-bear. He didn't end his reasonings. The pen was flying over the leafs. He was thinking one thing and writing other different. He wrote that all what he sought in life was the happiness of a man who is going along with a multitude and has the feeling he's going in the same direction as the others. His father didn't believe him; tore the letter into pieces and threw the smithereens in the hearth. Nothing could upset him greatly than those passions of his son. "Such extravagance of superfluity" as he named those raptures and outbursts which inevitably led to nowhere.

He would visit him one of these days. One week passed when the old chip knocked at the son's door, of who he always thought would fall if his strong hand were not there to hold him. He was vexed to see his son to come answer the knock personally, and not a groom or a door man, who would ask his name and suit departing then hastily to announce it to his master, the owner of the house. As the door was closed behind him, he felt the odour from the latrine. Such affronted him beyond speech. His son said something that he didn't listen; he was wishing he could go back in time forty years and not have him. His son repeated what he had just said, about the inopportuneness of the hour. "Am I not still your father?" The old man asked, and both found themselves going through an awkward moment. The progenitor stood waiting to be led into the living room. His son asked at what he had come, for both had very busy lives.

"Your letter perturbed me. In my age to live emotions of pleasure, or extreme disgust, can send the body to the grave without any more delay or protraction." They stared at each other in silence. The words extreme disgust were still hovering in the fetid atmosphere. They realised both were enemies. The father left and the son was happy to see him leave. Today we see him there as if nothing had happened. He tried to forget it. Conceived a belief in the Devil and just moved on with his life.

The ceremony was now about to begin. The groom was impatient in his place. A dream was about to come true. Thomas asked all to rise. The maid-of-honour brought the bride with solemnity and placed her aside with the groom. The couple looked with rapturous eyes to each other, then, cheerfully at Thomas.

The guests were in ecstasy gazing at the in-love couple. Only the old woman was apprehensive and looking at everything with a frown. With her age she had seen many happy scenes end up in tragedy and grievance to the maid. Listened to many promises of eternal love last only until the groom could hold in his hands all the gold and silver, and some large amounts he could convince one to withdraw. Besides pearl earnings and necklaces, as many sundry jewellery let by heritage. And more, that all it's humiliating to remember, and after so many years gone, still can make one fell used and dirty, and to spend the nights awake blaming oneself, that one should had known better, and not to go giving the best prize of all always that he came with tenderness, or with impetuosity, crying "Now! The priest is gone!" Indeed he was gone.

Though, one should have known better, but how? If one was young and fool. So that now one is not so quick to believe as the others, and when one smiles, it's not really a smile what appear in one's face, but something that gives token of what stood behind. While the old woman was lost in these dark meanders, Thomas continued.

'Brothers, the contemplation of the eyes of the spirit was given for men to be able to discern across the penumbra and ebony and see until the other side. With those, let us look for a while longer at the mighty scene.'

The in-two-weeks-made prophet told to all about the eyes which of late had opened within him. He said he was a prophet from another God, or from the same, who had been so handled and distorted to the limits of inadequacy and futility. Thomas found this a worthy saying and became curious to listen of what could this man had been told in so scarce time. He invited him to take the pulpit while himself sat for a while.

'One day,' the prophet begun, 'I listened a voice calling to my heart. And never Aristoteles or Plato laid more attentive ear to Socrates' teachings, than I to this voice and to the things it had to say. It showed me the wonder and the new, out of reach when looking at it with carnal eyes. Decided to have other men seeing like me, I asked for patience and for wisdom; for understanding and for impetus, and all what the common man cannot reach, while worried with gather here a little portion of gold, rather than to stimulate refined feelings in his heart. I was once one those, who thinking to be achieving, was giving my life in a plate for the rich men, as spiders, to suck it in. Of this foul none can escape, though one can make less its damage by letting at last the spiritual side play a major role in all our decisions. Each triviality has to be made a part of a big quest; each step another look of a man within himself, searching for himself.' Thomas nodded agreeably. 'I was sent to announce The time of the Great Decision, and I say the moment is now. A foul decease is spreading infecting how many it touches. The monster of the West is waking the one from the East to kill their victims by their eyes, as a fish is caught by its mouth. The chariot pulled by the dead horses comes adorned with fake states of life. The trumpet sounds! Hear its call, saying, the moment is now! To surrender to what one must surrender, and to react against what one must to respond offensively.

To surrender to the spiritual side.

I look and see a world eager to end before its last day. The Herald of the Tribune. Speaker of whom does not speak to the ear but to the soul; prophet of what is not plain in words but in the transcendental discourse, where the understanding of the spirit lays at listen, and the sounds of the world are noise and pollution, and what drags the littleness of one day to the next. Instead of each day to be made colourful and bright, giving one the inspiration to live it with a new movement of the body and of the mind, which may disclose what differently does not appear. What will keep concealed while we seek it with more illogical steps, for what is so near and nowhere.

One day I saw a multitude and a great sadness, in a time that was neither night or day. They were going to the abyss from where the dark comes from. And I asked why; why were they there if life did not?

Could they still choose? Were they still my brothers and I theirs? Or had life destined them some other errand; to remain, as signs on a road, indicating the characteristics of the pavement, for one to avoid or not ?

Today let broken on the ground the chains which once seemed of so great power, rendered as cobwebs by the might of a higher will; the voice of the spirit which commands, "Pull! Pull until it tears!"

And as a politician after an inspired discourse he turned away and stepped out of the stage. Thomas tanked him and again assumed the pulpit.

'Brother, inspired words those which came to your heart. I wish they would suffice to bring all men to action. But the truth is the fertile ground was for too long left uncared for all sorts of vicious things to

grow in it. Then, words, don't sound more as words than each morning seems to bring a new day. And the sad is, that is always there, that new day, at each moment, what makes of all a tremendous loss.

Life dispute us as prostitutes dispute a potential client in a corner of a poorly illuminated street.

Tempting proposals testing one's character from which one might have more or less chance to escape. The price paid is everything one would like to be, and he isn't. And those old dreams, as a costume received when child and never used, are still there; still in the box. Now seeming ludicrous and total unsuitable.'

These words made the fellow with the flap of the tailcoat tucked inside his trousers to recall dreams he had when a child. Contrary to other children he never dreamt to be a doctor to heal the sick; nor a soldier to hunt men and kill them in foreign lands, but he wished from his tender years to be someone of influence, to whom others would come searching for answers themselves couldn't find. As the chances to that dream to materialise started to decrease, and all he could discern for his future was uncertainties, he wished in vain he could go back and fix everything. Bring his mother again to life and forget all what came with her death. He wished he could go and make right the wrongs of the world. He used to try to figure what those were. To himself was everything. And if the major were obvious, those divided in so many ramifications and subtleties, that all now seemed to be degraded and corrupted. Gradually these thoughts hardened around him forming the walls of his world. For a while the room left was plenty and enough, for a man alone in company but of old ghosts; monsters as he named his despicable and only company.

Ten years ago a force seemed to be wakening inside of him which seemed, in the beginning, would render those walls to rubble and their collapse would provoke a quake to be felt even in the most distant parts of the world. For days he got exited imagining himself being reverenced in the streets, deciding mentally the amounts he would give to human and animal charity. This philanthropy, he thought, would buy him a place in the heart of God. Here he was out of his rapture and sunk in the sofa, realising the heart of God was not for sale. More often He seems not to have a heart at all. Judging by the way as He always lays on the clouds while the world here is on fire. That struck him more as to be the case. This awakening force in him; a drive of nature; the reason why Man sometimes has the feeling of existing such thing as fate, was not yet enough to break what seemed to be the greatest bond of all; self-abandonment.

He never gave the first step. Soon as he thought better all seemed too laborious and complicated; the reward dubious, and in all a vain expenditure of energy. So, he gave it up. Now that ten years had passed, he acknowledged it as another mistake, attributing it to a tendency of his character against which he was a hopeless victim. He felt himself entangled by several invisible forces from which he could not break free, not even when he wanted. For the rest he was apathetic and willing to sink under the hand oppressing him. For, as he saw it, life was a sinking down anyway. It would be hard, with the scarce facts we know about him, to tell indeed how much of all had been his fault, or of a malignant influence which since the beginning seemed to be watching over his days. But what we can nevertheless remain assured is that life had never meant to him the same it meant to the common man; the monsterless, as he named those who were different from him. It was rather something he found unquantifiable in stage and in degree.

In his mind thoughts passed from one to the next as frogs leaping from one side to the other of a pond. He was thinking that each man has, besides the one who spend the night staring at the ceiling, another man within. One who goes to work, smiles at acquaintances in the street, and celebrates effusively another goal scored by his team. His team, for the other has no liking for sport at all, or for

anything that has to do with going anywhere. So much is like so, that he thinks his other self is a fool, and hardly can wait until he's home to get rid of him and put him in his proper place; among with the clothes to wear in the next day. Though now the sorrowful fellow sat dejectedly in his chair trying without success to cause his other shameless and extroverted self to arise and assume the control. Sometimes that could happen as well, and always in the moments when one mostly desperately needed him, and one was let there just to be oneself. He looked at Thomas trying to take heed of his words. The minister was saying that men let something behind to be less at what they arrived at.

'Let us go, brothers, pick up what was forgotten where it stood. When we left to tread this road of anxieties, which leads to no other destiny but to more behind. To what are we nourishing our bodies? To submit to the arrogant authority of traffic lights; to walk in line in narrow places; to go abroad and return; to step in restaurants after the Kitchen's closing hours, until that what is left is a man with the impression that something didn't happened?'

'And so, it seemed the life I lived,' said the fellow who worked in the Town Hall. 'Early I realised the gap between what could be wished and the things to be accomplished. The way which one was called to tread, it seemed to me as the distance that a man, caught of a sudden by hard rain, finds between him and a shelter. An illogical number of steps which provokes his anger, an compels him to address the shadows of the night as if they were real. He tells them his thoughts were it the coordenates to a new world to where all could leave. Portals of one place to another; from this dimension to the next. Gesticulating as a Roman Senator he tells himself that none of the shadows are real but the shadow of a man. Suddenly he quieted. Maybe realising that such was he. Maybe because he passed by someone else...who Knows? The certain is that he never arrives at any destiny. The rain never stops, running from the gutters to the sewers, until it reaches an ocean that none knows where it is.

Now it occurs me that life is made as well of something else. Of a constant struggle of the sediment to come to the surface. The weird of it is that it goes against our principles, when one shouldn't mind it at all. And it's only when the individual is waiting for the dregs of the coffee to settle down that he better notices this fact, when, in reality, it's constantly happening all around him, and is indeed what is frustrating him without he can tell from where his frustration comes from. Of course, it would requir a degree in Psychology for one to be able to understand the most of what happens in one's life. Instead of have to burden the mind with boredoms, one prefers to pay a visit to the shrink every now and then. What against it? Everybody is doing it. In all, it seems as if one was given a complicated equation to solve, and one still sits at the desk racking one's brains out unable to go any further. One day might happen that from the window one's stood gazing dull all one's life wondering if next, something will appear in the horizon.

Something new and powerful. Not even has to be something, but a concept, or a new idea which will prepare and ilumine the way to others; or even in a fancy for a bottle of wine if one does not regularly drink. This new and powerful brings along the chances to succeed in finding the next valour to the equation, which can be a number, or a symbol related with a feature of life one could not yet figure out.

Frequently I had been astonished realising how often in the street the man passing by looks more successful than myself. I found this uncanny and immeasurably sad. As if they had been able to do something that I could not. Then I think that all men are better than I, and all fated with more gladsome fortunes. I call this state Being cooked at mid-fire. At night, the clock mocks me with its tardiness. It was through my nights awake that I realised that it doesn't matter to where one turns, life seems to follow a

direction of its own, and for the most contrary to our interests. For this reason was created the Salvation Army and the Insurance against natural disasters. For what we can control is but a small part of what it happens. It's rather as if one has gone to see a movie and is allowed to live all those emotions without play any more part in them, than to had got the ticket to show the doorman. Though, the uncertainties are real and often it can be demanding to have always to count with unforeseen and contingencies, be it to go half-way around the world, or just to arrive each day punctually at work. This pressure brought about Psychiatry, women's neurosis, and the ingestion of venoms. In its other extreme, it put the Sputnik on orbit and laid Man on the moon. It was Beethoven's symphonies, and Shakespeare's vein. Though, when this causes the heart of some to enlarge, and their breast to expand as the sails of a ship when shown to the favourable wind, in others their hearts shrink within themselves, as does a grape into a raisin.

The guest continued telling next what we already know of his own family affairs and the strained relation with his father. He said to the assembly he had since always looked at life as if seeing it by the rear-view mirror of an automobile, as the road staying behind, whether one does look or not. None of the presents knew how deeply he felt these words when he stepped out from reality and from everything. He called these moments One-quarter-to-twelve syndrome.

It's not only this man was afflicted by this sort of thoughts, but sometimes, due to spend the days closed in his office and the nights alone in the silence of his house, he started to listen voices too. They seemed sometimes to lament, or to be engaged in some sort of deliberation from which he took no part.

He felt vexed by that speech that could as well be nothing at all. The voices could quiet if he went to the kitchen to pick up a glass of water or going with him chatting all the way. Such annoyed him as the smell of a dirty baby. He would empty the glass of one draught and dash it against the floor, and wait impatiently until dawn when the voices would silence in his mind. Looking at him, somehow, this was well implicit in his figure. It were not only the disillusioned manners of his demeanour, nor the grumbling tone of his voice, with arms laying despondent aside with his figure, which wove gestures among his words not according to his speech, rather would tell even of bigger trials than one would listen from his mouth. In a while admiring his features one would say his out-look befitted him well, yet, in a way, was total unrelated to his person, confused as one would be by that something within him; that thing uncanny in his self which gathered all that as a whole. That something stronger than all what was weak; that deeper virtue holding all the pieces together; something, one would say, few men until today had possessed. With this he ended his speech saying he wished eternity to all men.

The bride was becoming anxious in her place. If one were to look inside her mind, one would find a tourbillion of emotions which she was having a hard time to understand. To try to do so ourselves, we had to go back in time until the moment when she was told her husband had had a stroke and was in the hospital, the doctors still trying for his life. In that moment, the walls and roof of her happiness collapsed crushing her more to the ground. All her life had been a sequence of rising and fall, then to try to rise again. She had come from Berlin shortly before the war, when the Nazi chimneys were still gaining shape in the skyline. No one knew but they guessed what was on the way; and they were Jews too.

She was a little child then, travelling with her parents across the country by dirt roads and meads to avoid police controls, near starving, until they at last could reach out of the German territory. Her parents explained the child that "Now, in this country, someone hate us." "Me?" "No! All of us!" but it was more than a child could understand. From then darkness came over Europe and of the world. Men were not

men, and at each morning they woke up and went to kill. The ground was soaked in blood, and the air pestilent from the putrefaction and the ashes from what was left of the Final Solution. The Devil was in power and the mother Earth groaned under its rule. Babies stopped to be delivered in joy as death was falling from the sky. Little boys aimed their slingshots at bombers passing over their heads to make rubble out of cities. Time became a monster; men became monsters; hunger became a monster roaring everywhere. Those were times of necessity to the spirit too. Sadness and apprehension reigned that seemed affortunate the unborn ones. God had been cast to out of Earth. No man dared to dream but with the end of the violence that made victims on every side. Her family kept north towards the border where they crossed to Belgium, then Holland, reaching England at last. There, her father joined the British army and died bravely somewhere on the Northern Front. She remembered him with pride and tears down her face. From her mother she came to know the most she knew about him. Her mother told her he was kind but brave. That her father used to say he’d rather die twice than to stop believing in men, and in the remarkable things they were capable of when they were sober.

After the capitulation mother and daughter settled down in a little village where the little girl grew only to doubt more of the world, and what one in it is fated to live. When she was feeling secure her mother died. Years later, when she was thinking her life would go wasted, her husband knocked at her door, a man out of a blizzard. When she was thinking that God had remembered her rather than with a frown, he died, and the world again fell on her head. Then, with his body scarcely cold she said yes to her groom and was seated now next to him who made her happiness, as one sits on a bench, expecting that at any moment might have to stand. This peculiarity is found in those who passed through hardships in the preliminary stages of their lives and enjoy each present bliss as something that might at any moment disappear. To herself all was inconsistencies. The way she was told never happened. Now she wondered if it wasn't with all the same. For she saw the world as a pauper workman going to his job but with two oranges inside its lunchbox. She used to muse at this and found it strange. In a way senseless, for it was her who had to struggle all her life when the world seemed not.

She had a theory as with time the poor men became invisible and only the well-to-do appeared to sight. This upset her for she couldn't make head or tail of it, as one trying to read a medical prescription. It was certain that it must be so, though until what degree she couldn't really tell. She was convinced that figuring that difference out one would at once achieve the quantity of presumption in the world as to find ground where to build from root a whole new science. She thought of a name she would give it though she couldn’t come up with none. Smarter folks would think that out if such moment would arise. She was searching for answers and finding only more doubts; aiming to the sun but reaching deeper into the core of the Truth, as if there's no barriers, and no other distances between her and it. These thoughts would flow as the gentle waters of a brook, where other lives swum in it, with or against the current. In her mind she had a place as the French Guyana, from where rockets can reach easier the outer space, through where she was fond of letting herself go. In these moments, the annoyance of passing at the door of a mosque, on to get in in a toilet from where someone just left, seemed to her trifles and minor concernings to occupy a spirit then just too eager for discoveries. With the passage of the years, however, she had come to see things more down to earth. Now it seemed to her that a man going peacefully about his ordinary life was not as a steam-train passing through an exquisite landscape, but that he was missing a part of life, which if definitely lost could turn all the rest to insignificance; the excitement of conquering the world.

Here her defences were breaking down and the enemy was jumping in. She started to regret parts of her life behind. Strangely, not the times of the war, but those in which she had got a direct influence. There had been decisions in her life which required a great more deal of wisdom that only afterwards came to her. To herself life had been as a house which, for external reasons, had to be occupied before being finished, the constructor dismissed, and one to make use of it just the way it was. She tried to interdict her mind to this kind of thoughts. It saddened her each time she reminded it. If she would keep for long musing about those tears would fall down her face, unrepressed, as naughty children having their way.

Often, she would reach the conclusion that each moment was merciless and absolute as the steering-wheel of a vehicle. Such she identified as what had taken her parents away from her when such was the direction next, and what one day would drive her out of the world as well. She found in that fact a sort of injustice; a kind as the cholesterol in the pork meat, though she couldn't see how it could be other way. It would be as asking the clock would advance some minutes faster than the others. And she was no fool.

She knew such was impossible to be done. That all obeyed an order, intertwined one thing with the other as tickly as threads of a cloth, and if men could claim to be something, they were not more than the down of that fabric. She had a simple mind which didn't allowed her a better perception of reality, neither wiser terms to express it to herself, but her spirit encouraged her mind with ideas as the wind the revolution of the wind-mill sail.

Outside the flux of movement in the street kept its pace undisturbed along lanes and busy sidewalks.

Walking among the throng the individual forms a whole which is indifferent to himself; often his antagonist. This struck her as the peculiarity of the days about. She found a similarity in this with a man walking on the side of the road, being dazzled by the lights of the incoming traffic. Such seemed to herself a no man's gain. It might happen that such unexplainable phenomenon is always leading men to these dead ends. She couldn't find any other explanation for this strange, but that men when in company, turn into whole different creatures, freed from inhibitions and restraints, and such awakes what worst Nature has in itself. She kept with this thought for a while longer. It came to her that life is mostly as a flag which the wind sometimes brings to oscillation. She compared this oscillation of the ensign with a man going about some new creation, whether in science or in arts. So that was sad to her to see other flags which didn't waved and flapped at the wind but kept instead despondent down the mast. "Not less than a hellish scene!" she would cry in her mind. She tried nevertheless to believe there was a reason for life to compel each man with a different momentum; a diversity which might have some wisdom it. She reminded how her father was agile and decisive, while her own movements were clumsy and irresolute.

And that difference can well be the case with everybody else, only to a higher or lesser degree. For she realised the mind was a world apart, that must obey to different laws, in a way much more rigid and exquisite than those which rule the material one. This sound to herself as the nearest to the truth. For a while she had been dealing with it in her mind and could never express it so plainly. And in the end, one couldn't tell that each exertion would lead to equal benefits, so, there she had to grant them some reason.

She tried to develop this thought a little further, though the infinite thread of it kept undistinguished to her discernment.

When her mother died and she was let alone she was afraid. She felt the scarce light she had to show her the world had gone out, and she to go from there at the odds, groping her way through the darkness.

Soon, times came to show her where she had been right and wrong in her assumptions. This didn't come

about without some discomfort, as an angler pulling the line to find there neither bait nor catch. She tried to get over it by nourishing again the hook, so to speak, and tried to tell herself that much of the pleasure of the fishing was in contemplating the ocean. Thus, she thought it might be an equal pleasure in watching from the window the flow of pedestrians in the street as to rush among them. "Is as if one could bring oneself to love from a distance better than others can near it!" she would say aloud. Though she remembered her mother saying one could love from a distance but only for a while; for time makes of every brand an ember and of every ember ash. She wondered if in this case the same also was true. If to love the world from a distance would at length lead to an indifference for what was going on in it.

Inwardly she was walking at the edge of an abyss from where she was attracted to look below. What made her think that it might come the day when she would be able to jump from that edge without fear the fall, was the simplicity she saw in everything and in everyone. This made her believe of one day to reach a state of self-awareness when all the limitations would disappear, and only possibilities remain. Then she would be able to throw herself from any height, or with a leap to reach any mountain top, from where she could look at the world and see men from a perspective as they had never seen themselves. In these moments of deep cogitation, she saw the world as an aquarium, where the creatures in it had more or less aptitudes for swimming. This might sound queer and disconnected though to herself there was no more certain truth. In the peculiar understanding she made of it such was the reason for caviar and champagne to come about; penthouses and five-stars suits; to lodge those who swim with the tide, while the rest swims against it. No matter how optimist she would force herself to be, she saw that all things were in a semi-developed state. She wondered if they would ever reach the full ripeness of their capacities or would keep forever as the prototype of a fast car shaped out of clay. She thought it would be sad if such were to be the case. For she believed as well there's some potentiality in the world which could only materialise with the full growth and the full maturity, and a full trust in one's abilities. In the semi-developed stage, she perceived no hope; as if the sun would rise at each morning to never leave the horizon. She found this as insufferable as the rest and a great nostalgia came over her.

One day, while coming with the groceries from the market, it came to her mind that what men call symbiosis, is merely the hope of some to be advanced without having to walk the distance. Maybe it's not quite like that. More often it seems to be no symbiosis at all, and if one's way is rough or rougher that's with him. What seemed nevertheless clear is one's helplessness against the present state of affairs, as a wife when her mother-in-law announces to her son, she's coming to spend a few weeks with him.

These and other equally disturbing thoughts passing through her mind made her now sit restless aside with the groom. As he looked at her with the expression she had become so fond of, all at once vanished and peace and happiness took their place.

The groom had listened the several interventions, though in a state of rapture that kept him from giving the proper attention to what had been said, sometimes even from listening anything at all. In this while seated next to the bride, he had travelled many years back in time. He saw himself again when a child; his nanny, and the faithful Spike that was his company wherever he went. Now he could say life had taught him different things than to other men. He had born in the middle of a wealthy family, son of a doctor, and a woman afflicted by some unknown illness which often took over her self with recurrent and violent seizures. This impressed the child and marked his character with something that would jump to notice, yet, one couldn't really tell it was there. When he grew up, however, that solely became his main

trait; a constant expectancy for the worst and the helplessness of a man against it. As he used to see mirrored in his father's eyes holding his mother's body against the carpeted floor, staring at him almost in terror not knowing what to do. This didn't keep the child from growing into a merry and well-disposed man. It came upon him mostly in his moments of loneliness, and in the way the world gave itself to his understanding. That was maybe the reason why he proposed to the widow. For he thought that always that a man would find himself in a position to play a prank at the destiny, one should do it, and those pranks would be as the flowers one would collect along one's way. One day, when he was still a child, his mother didn't recover from one of her seizures and "went to heaven", as they told the child. However, from their tears the little boy realised they were lying and his mother had just died. Nevertheless, he tried as he could to nourish the idea of his mother with the angels. Her death brought him an indifference towards the rest.

He understood for the first time that men could die, and of all he saw, it seemed to himself that nothing was worth the struggle. He assimilated more this idea in the day when he finished his treehouse. He didn't know any other kids to come over and play with him. Hence, he just sat there, alone, learning his lesson of the world, gazing vaguely at the walls of the tinny compartment, with thoughts he couldn't understand coming into his mind. Twenty years passed he still sat alone looking at the walls of his living room. The partition, now larger, was crowded with voices and events of the past which he might had lived or not.

Now the world appeared to himself as if made of many tinny rooms like his where each one sits there alone, gloomy and nostalgic. And this living-room, just happens to have the peculiarity of going along wherever one went.

Things he had once wished and didn't happened, he didn't attach more importance to those than to a dream one tries to remember in the morning but he can't. He used to tell himself that all which didn't happened was the structure to what was made, and the moments behind, the parts of which life is formed.

For if one was to see it objectively, one would come to the mind that each one's life is as a movie projector in a cinema. An incomprehensible assemblage of parts which allows one to live those many emotions for a while. It's hard to tell if other man in similar conditions would be able to see things differently. He didn't bore a grudge against anything; it was simply the way the world appeared to himself. Sometimes with the fragrance of an Rosemary field, others, in the morbidity of oppressing cloistering walls covered with tapestry, and with portraits of ancestors of his who had achieved distinction, staring from the pictures with critical and disapproving eyes upon their heir who until was passing unnoticed.

All his life he had been as a man trying to reach a destination and always embarking in a train to somewhere different. That was somehow easy to guess just by looking at him for the first time. He also seemed well-to-do and intelligent, though those were all second traits which could take a while to notice and would be altogether missed if one never came to the talk with him. For he didn't exhibit his wealth, and how many can know a man intelligent just by his gait? There's still one other feature not commonly found in a man of his age which is worth of reference; he was terribly afraid of tempests. Not properly of the rain but of the lightning’s. When he was a child, he had seen one of his father's servants stricken by one and the fear of those never let him. Not at home, of course, but every time he was caught by a storm on his way to somewhere. One night I was coming late from the house of an acquaintance when he was surprised by a heavy rainstorm. The horses panicked with the thunders shaking the ground and were running through the muddy road with all their might. They knew well the way home, only the driver was

wondering when the chariot would flip over or he be cast from out of his seat. Often, he would give the night off to the coachman and drive himself the four imposing black stallions which were his pride. As the storm increased the mounts got wilder and wilder, with what seemed tears of excitement coming from the eyes of the beasts. The horses covered each yard of ground as once Achilles’s horses taking Patroclus to the scene of battle. He thought if he had ever lived his life such was one of those moments. The rain hardened. The sounds of thunder caused the hairs of man and beasts to stand. The black stallions shone under the brief flashes of light as the dark clouds clashed against each other. The sound of their hoofs and of the cracking of the chariot, with its structure being tested to the limit, brought him a fear which was pleasant to feel. He tried to bring the horses to stop but he could not. He decided to give them rein and let them do their will. The sky seemed to be made of lead when he could see it. In the dark in saw fantasies mingled with reality unable to tell between both. The elements in turmoil seemed to awake a new state of sensibility in him. In that moment, the reasonable and the intangible merged. The yellow was concocted with the blue inside his mind forming the green of eternal Spring. The past became a road to the future.

He felt as Ally Baba when bringing the treasure from inside the cave into the open. And that cave, that was only himself, where he had stood all his life dejected at the entrance, unable to see the way in, or imagining the riches within it. Apathy, and a foolish hope that all would come to a good end by itself, had kept him from discover the entrance the sooner. There's no way of telling if he would ever find it if it was not for that night in the rain. Maybe on a sunny day he could have seen it as well, the case is that not so often happens. As if there's some major order dictating how all it must be down to its molecular structure.

At least such was the conclusion he had reached one evening while standing in front of his fireplace listening the rain rattling on the windowpane. "After all," he said to himself, "there's a great truth in the saying The dog has nothing but its fur. He threw the cigar into the flames. It took a while to get ablaze.

He stood there watching it being caught in fire, as a man alone at a sea-shore gazes absentminded at a wave coming near, he at safe from wetting his feet. When he recovered from his lapse of attention, he wondered if he could ever be able to calculate with any degree of accuracy how many goods manufactured on this while; how many more born to join the labour force, and all what makes irrelevant if each individual exists or not. As if one were in this world but the smoke coming out of the exhaustion pipe of the machine of progress, which if not one, would just casually burn another fuel. He disliked this kind of thoughts and tried to keep them from his mind, for his heart would start to beat faster and a bad humour was likely to arise. In this way he discovered the annoyances the eyes of the spirit can bring, and why some call it a blessing to keep them shut.

If one would ask him for some advice, he would tell that the important was to something to be made.

If one would ask him, what, he would answer he didn't know, but the important thing was that there was something to be made from where anything could begin. This sort of sallies soon started to scare those who noticed the changes in him. He no longer would eat meals alone but ask the coachman to join him, to whom he would enquire about facts of his life, to which the coachman would answer sometimes with truths, more often with lies. Now he plunged big slices of apple pie and ice-creams into the servant's children's hands, who ran away screaming in fear and in joy. In all, he became a new man, as any man discovering himself. He found within a place where his soul could spread its wings and fly. He didn't know yet where to go, and it wasn't until he met his bride that he found a destination. Until, he had been aiming at shadows; each day at a different one, in hope that one day one would turn to substance, to

suddenly happen when he the less expected it. What feels like saying in a moment such as these, it's that life is not only the collection of misfortunes that sometimes it seems to be. It has other driving force behind it as well. Something always there waiting to happen. Something as mighty as the burning of the sun to which all other forces occurring in this planet submit, that orders that every man shall have his hour. A time of glory during his existence when one can really feel alive. To some that is likely to arise when watching the birth of their son; to others, when they dive deeper the rest, or, as to himself, when marrying his ideal of woman. He was still having a hard time trying to convince himself that all was about to become true. He had always been suspicious with feelings of happiness, as any man who lived his while. For he believed as well in a force equally mighty which seemed capable to deviate men from their goals. A hand that any sky could torn to pieces, slapping men in the face since the times when Cain was around. He tried, nevertheless, to keep a positive way of thinking (what was often beyond his capacities), and to believe in the good order of things that would in the end prevail. He found this crucial as equilibrium to a ropewalker. When he was unable to do so he felt as a man who had been thrown down of his balance. Not seldom this balance would be hard to retrieve. For days he would be pragmatic and answer succinctly to the questions proposed. Reproached the coachman for snoozing in the chariot.

Chased away the brats with his cane, until at last regained his composure and his balance, and would act again as if he had never been cast from out of both.

He was a man loved by how many who knew him. Such could well be noticed each time he rode to town. His unpretentious manners and patrician attitude made him welcomed and a pleasure to see him arrive wherever he went. His friends wished him many years. His rivals in business respected him.

Enemies he never had. The sourest relation he had ever got with someone had been with the purchaser of a property from his, who afterwards cut some trees dear to him, what made him to present a complaint in court, for his father had planted those many years ago. He grudged to have lost the case for he was convinced of the reason on his side, even if the terrain had been sold and "concerning with the new owner what might do with it" as the judge deliberated in the end of the session. One week later he went to apologise to his once antagonist and both became as friends as before. For to himself, integrity in a man was as the scent in a rose, and from the cunning ways of the world, to exhale a more fetid stench than from a pigsty. He escaped from that world creating to himself a new one. He wondered at what it had kept him from doing it before. It was because he had always looked at life with objectivity, he realised bringing another bottle of wine from the cellar. He thought one should do with one's assurances as a painter with his water-colours on his palette, and such would bring one to more near the truth than if one would analise each matter individually. When he met the bride, in the watch, all became at once an harmony of colours and sounds. He was thinking he would like to hurry the ceremony, though, he said to himself that now he had all the time in the world to all things. That nothing would ever run away from him as it had until. Sometimes he would try to pay attention to what Thomas was saying, until he saw again the smile in the bride's face. A smile he no longer could live without. Each completed the happiness of the other or was it altogether, in a meticulous process of adding and division much beyond the capacity of calculation of the human mind.

Time was passing morosely to some, swiftly to others. Outside the ever-increasing motion of the world kept its rhythm undisturbed. Some affirm it advances day and night with little or no sense of direction; as a drunkard returning from the tavern after a night of heavy drinking. This fact, if admitted, it

can be told to have two main reasons; the swiftness with which all goes, that, alike with a race car driver during the race, forces one to keep one's eyes in what is furthermost, bringing him to lose the peripheral vision (the perception of the nearest reality), and to a certain tendency of the human's spirit to want to live what is defiant and risky. One could tell there's some romanticism in this behaviour, as little of selfpossession as well.

There are plenty of examples since the days of the first couple, that what to some seems unreasonable, appears to others as the way to go. This trait of character cannot be observed in any other creatures rather than Man, and domestic animals. One would say that savagery it would be more the way to go about our ordinary lives, though men cannot be wild without turn themselves into inconsequent fools. Someone engaged in finding an explanation for this peculiarity would be wrong to say that such is the way of the present, for reading of other times, one easily becomes aware that such has been the way in every present. To attribute all the blames to God, besides be tendentious and reveal some spite, would be not as well correct; for even God, in the beginning, had a completely different idea from how all came to happen. To assert it to one's instincts, psychoanalysts say we have none, but are the result of what is around us. What is then of so harmful and pernicious to turn a man into an alien to himself, and give him that instinct for resignation when it's time to bring one's fist down the table? Some might say that it's everything, claim that I will try to refute, but if one stops to notice it better easily will come to perception that in the middle of everything there's always something else, which until had kept unseen and will remain thus, for as long as one will tread at the cadence of the world instead than at the rhythm of one's own heart. The firmness and rigidity of character this behaviour demands, is alike with the fisher man's who goes all his life to cast his nets in a lake where he knows there's no fish, that sometimes it seems he would go the same if the lake had no water. It's maybe because the lake sites at half-distance from his house than the sea. Maybe because he had never tasted a fish...who knows? The certain is that what he rejects, would resolve him better than very things he chases and gives his life for.

Nowadays the world ignores the individual and considers only the collective. The work with no name on it. In this state of inner suffocation one visits art expositions and admires the architecture of old buildings, or simply stays behind the windowpane counting the vehicles passing in the street, seeming to obey to each other yet, often entering in direct contact, which in terms of law is defined as collision. Then more statements are written than when a man dies. These reports serve the purpose of distract men for a while from the afore mentioned state of melancholy and suffocation. Although the incident causes another and more consuming feeling to arise, when one looks despondent at the scene and apprehends the fragility of everything. Here one starts to prefer dramas instead of comedies; some grow a moustache, and not less change from Porto to scotch. By these traits alone one can identify them, those who such restlessness woke up within. Often, they become melancholic and to tendency to fail when they shot. Drop whatever they are holding. Try to fall asleep three times in the same night, and always point the bread in the bakery instead on asking it by its name. Everything everywhere seems about to give in. Of a sudden one can see the weak points when others cannot. One thinks one became god, or at least very intelligent. There are a few to who this feeling leads to in front of a dark cave to where they peer and nothing can ever discern.

One would say that modern man lives in a somewhat old-fashioned manner, and even with a certain fear for what is modern and new, where matters of spirit are concerned. The manifestation of such fact causes to the experiment observer sometimes hilarity, though, at each witnessing of the phenomenon, a

perplexity capable of let him dumbfound in the middle of whatever task he's performing. This it's said to occur ever more seldom, for observing men are in extinction. In their place came the forgot-the-waterrunning man who seemed to have arrived to take over the world and settled in it with as little baggage as it's possible to have. Nevertheless, what remains for one to taste is the insipidity of the way trodden, when it's already too late to return. Here was created the market to strong bear (what would had been unimaginable just a few generations ago), and the profession of Interiors decorator, in a vain effort of men to surround themselves with a harmony they can't find within. However, within oneself is one's own house and from that there's no escape. Each interior will soon turn dull and uninteresting as an old dog, while one makes a supernatural effort to be pleased with it. In medical jargon such behaviour is defined as psychosis, dividing then in many other terms, as less evident is the state of alert. The present situation it can only be compared with a net being pulled from which scarce fish can escape, while on shore some stand eager to feed upon the catch. In the crowded inside of the net it happens what is likely to succeed in such circumstances; intense body contact between the creatures teeming with life, all trying in the best, according with the possibilities, to make a little more comfortable for themselves. In similar exploit one goes for a walk in the park or buy a pet, wishing that it can somehow make the time pass merrier, and sweeten one's bitter hours of loneliness. If one looks at the situation with compassion is heart breaking, hence, the best way to look at is as one looks at the electricity project of a major construction, trusting that if all will preformed their tasks to their best, in the end all the lights of the building will go on with a simple turn of the switch. It remains to say, the major part of the population had never seen one of those, what often proves an hindrance and a shortenage in one's capacity to deal with the world, and to understand how the world deals in return. Thus, one feels upon an embryonic state which is never to come to embody in anything. An everlasting condition of childish thinking and childish ways of amusement, in a moment demanding sternness and possession of spirit. Later in years one seems to sit at home impatiently waiting for one other self who is never to arrive. The self that one passed the last decades (consciously and unconsciously) shopping off and dismembering until not even the shadow be left of him.

This doesn't happen only with a few but with the most; a delusion which can be mild or severe. Treading the streets there's still one more peculiarity that jumps to notice; the burry-of-the-head-in-the-sand way with which all seem to face their situation, what makes their smiles seem more comical than they are intended. Some might say that smiling is the best way for one to take one's lot. Nevertheless, such denotes a callousness towards life, as a will to sink under an oppression which could, with half the effort one sometimes makes to smile, to be overcome and the tide turned at one's favour. Some interested to keep all the way it is may call these of subversive ideas, for fear what impact they might have in the Gross National Product, if one would at last be able to differentiate what it matters from what does not. This change would mean the same to them as the Devil means to Rome, so they do all they can to excommunicate these principles from the face of the earth with sensationalism and ultramodern technology, and with shows of politics from which the result is more of the same. Walking through the streets at night musing at these thoughts a man would feel helplessly lonely, as a sailor seeing the captain being tossed over-board during a storm. Sadly one has to be glad with the idea that life is short and all will soon be over, and one at last capable to forget everything; and as for the others who are to come, it will be as it will be. This complacent, and somehow coward way of thinking saves ones from a role of trials from which hunger and fatigue are not excluded.

This resumes in a very succinct manner what Thomas has been expounding to the audience during the while until it came the hour to start the ceremony. Among the guests there's anything to report, except for the fellow with the flap of his tailcoat tucked inside his trousers who rose and sat again several times during the speech. Sometimes he thought that what was being told was not quite accurate, others, that some fact of major importance was passing without mention. For instance, all his life he had been coward and complacent until as far as a man could be, and such, he unidentified not as a benefit, but what had shaped for him the world of troubles in which he lived in ever since he could remember. Although he had never found the courage to act differently. If one doubted, he could point one by one the many opportunities he had had to change the course the events were taking and he never engaged in none, or if any he ever came to try, he quieted in the first step. Now he was starting to feel bored with unpleasant thoughts crowding his mind. All his life had been an effort to get rid of them, and of each time only more burden. They would arise mostly when he was alone or going about through the streets not really with any destiny on his mind. They would upset him, and he would like not to go on thinking on those. But there was nothing he could do. When in company he would be more than five minutes without being spoken to (for he never would address a word out of his own initiative) his mind would travel through a world of its own. A mysterious, dark and uncanny place with no well-defined laws, from where he often had difficulties to find the way out, and only a forced contact with reality could again bring him back. A teacher first noticed this when he attended still the elementary school. This teacher taught Religion & Ethics to a class not much interested in the subject, and it was only the ruler he was always so eager to bring about, what kept the pupils in silence and in order during his class. Though he noticed there's a little boy who didn't needed thrashing's to be quiet. Instead, the savant had great ordeals to get two words out of him. The child usually answered correctly to the questions and got distinctive notes in his texts.

Although, looking at him, for the most his mind seemed absent of the classroom. He wouldn't answer until his name being called several times, and even then, it would need him a few seconds of glancing around, for the child to remember was seated at his desk. The teacher liked him, and when he had to punish him scourged him not so violently as the others. The child understood the need of mortality in the world and of the floggings. He always evoked God as Our Lord, believed Jesus Christ was His son, and the Devil, the Enemy. In the third grade he presented an essay on morality. He wrote that morality is an escape from what it seems to have no escape, as the crutch to one who leans, and only a strict code one's heart could feel compelled to follow, could assure to one the vertically he is likely to lose in the everyday struggle. The teacher read it to all the class and gave it the highest note he had ever gave to a pupil's work; 9.8.

In those days he still could look and see magic happening, aptitude which later he lost. Maybe because his mind became over-loaded. Maybe for some stupor possessed him...for some influence as one can only ascribe to the Devil, he went down that same road through where one follows leaning on his way, unable to remember what crutch; what is there to be used as an escape from a situation which seems to have no escape. Early in his life the world started to lose its importance. How could he find it interesting when it was only he, and the others passing outside, with whom he had never felt an affinity, as a continuous movement which never passed where he was? He thought that animals enjoyed a kind of happiness that had been denied to Man, and maybe that is the reason why one nourishes a feeling of revenge against them, undeniably seen every time one reads the menu in a restaurant. Often observing the

majestic animals and comparing them to the traits he saw in Man more obviously shown, he acknowledged as degrading to belong to the human race. If in these moments some evil woke up within him, or if that was just the way he was, there's no way of telling.

There are those who affirm that harder the conditions more likely is to the genius to arise inside a man. He thought it was something in the same way with heroic deeds which can only be performed in moments of tragedy. This gave her some hope of one day to make effective use of what until was burdening him.

Finally, Thomas asked all to rise. The old woman was in frenzy. She asked to be read the passage from the scriptures since when Elijah was fed by the ravens until he was taken in delight and rejoicing to heaven. Thomas excused himself saying that such might be too long. Paulina was crossed but assented it.

The two wedding rings waited upon a small velvet cushion. When all were thinking that at last the ceremony would at last take place, the Lord spoke by the prophet. It was taken by all as a sign He blessed the union. Due to emotion the bride fainted in her seat. The groom was alarmed. Paulina went as fast as her frame allowed her to bring a glass of water with which to sprinkle the victim. Before she could return the bride recovered and the procedures could be resumed. Some remembered days of joy, others, times of trouble. It was as when persons from completely different backgrounds looked at the same picture; for instance, a landscape covered with snow. Only if a snowflake would come out of the image right into their faces, the bewilderment in all would be the same. During the last couple of hours different emotions succeeded, as incoherence's in a mad man's speech. It was one of those occasions when the speaker seemed to be able to see within the listeners hearts and place there his words himself. This occurs very seldom. As well, if one was to look at the assemblage there gathered, they would seem a lot of common folks with no fat or lean to say about them. While that if one were to know them a little better, just as we did during these last two hours, one would realise (as we did) what incredible and fantastic creatures they were. This happens mostly with everyone, so that it's accounted as folly to judge by what it seems. Each one of the presents, it could be said, appeared to our knowledge in the original and unique way of himself.

An essence which will one try to find in someone else, will always worth the while. One is so different from what one looks, as the publicity of a race car differs from the man behind the wheel. Looking at the advertisement one is left with the comfortable conclusions based in the familiarity one has with each product. The pilot is the enigma, who seems to have been born to take all to the limit. Each one is a treasure waiting to be discovered. The reason why we don't venture upon that more often is for a subliminary fear of finding in another better than what we have. One would better understand this fact if one could, for instance, in a supermarket line while waiting to pay one's groceries, to step out of oneself and observe from a distance the contemptuous eyes with which one gazes at the cashier; and that cashier, in her day off, does the same to her colleague of profession. All for fear that with different eyes one would discover in other's a flower alien to one's garden. Taking a little better notice of all its progress, one is forced to admit the world isn't striding towards better ways, though the times call to it, but goes with the same old shoes through the same wasted roads, to reach the same conclusions which led to the little glories of the past. It's in moments such as when one gazes at two dogs mating while waiting for the bus that one is stricken by the limitations imposed by the human society upon oneself. And all is but our fault, for the provincial judgement which in a short took over our minds and of our characters. We created taboos and are always ready to assimilate nothing for something. It may be said that men have a poor

sense of improving themselves, individually and as a specie. Nevertheless, no blame is to be laid for the short results on him who try the best he can. Only sometimes it seems obvious there are some who are not trying much. Someone who had read this book without paying much attention to it, may say that it is exactly what it is about, while with a more heedful reading of its pages, one will realise that is instead about that every man craves and wishes to do better, independently if he ever comes to try it or not.

The ceremony followed without any more delays. The grooms said yes and were declared man and wife. The wedding rings found place on their fingers, and with some final words and a kiss, congratulations came next to the married couple. Destiny had blessed their tale with a happy ending and ours as well. Thomas’ church grew in wisdom and in number. The devoted Augustine kept faithful to his minister and believed than of his teachings, there were no greater truths in the world.

Often pacing along the margins of a river or standing still at a seashore, and wondering at the immensity of the waters, one feels there's some mystery and power in those. Something that all which has been written cannot even begin to describe, though one can't really tell if it's there or not. Philosophy stands for the bed of that river or of that sea.