sábado, 9 de novembro de 2024

Crimes, sovereignty and world government

 


 I have highly illustrious precursors, including Kant, when I never tire of insisting that, to an ever greater extent, nations need to renounce large portions of their sovereignty in favor of a global democratic federation, in order that the world may be less chaotic, unjust and self-destructive (see pollution). 

This is not “mere” idealism; utopian propensity; fanciful optimism (in the style of J. J. Rousseau, where man is born essentially good and subsequently corrupted by society); altruism and the like. Man is both good and evil, in varying proportions, according to genetic makeup, education (formal and informal), the cocktail of beatings and caresses received since childhood and assessment of the legal and social advantages or risks that surround his activities. If it is advantageous to be good, either here or in the afterlife, he is, even if basically not so. He dances according to the music being played. But that’s enough of generalizations; the reader has no time to waste. 

When a law student, I was highly impressed by the fact that a foreign citizen, duly sentenced by the courts of his country, was able to move freely about Brazil, make a Brazilian woman pregnant, father a son and, as a result, free himself from the threat of extradition and completing his sentence. It seemed to me to be the easiest and most enjoyable preventive “habeas corpus” in the world. At liberty thanks to a gratuitous, illiterate, but for all that extremely effective, unqualified attorney, the respected “Mr. Spermatozoid”. 

Ronald Biggs, an engaging Englishman, who took part in the multi-million pound Great Train Robbery of 1963, was one such case. After serving a few months of his prison sentence in the United Kingdom, he scaled the wall and fled to Australia. As he certainly did not feel safe in that country, which has strong ties with England, he ended up residing in Brazil, after becoming aware that several benevolent legal concessions exist here that are well-suited to his case. He became emotionally involved with a good-hearted nightclub dancer, made her pregnant and, as a result, guaranteed that he would be able to stay in the country. The British government sought his extradition, however, as Biggs’ son was his dependant (of course...), and no extradition treaty existed between the two countries (the old problem of sovereignties), the fugitive continued to live here for as long as he wanted. Free and (according the respective Wikipedia webpage) charging anyone who so desired sixty dollars to have lunch and a chat with a “celebrity”. According to information provided by the fugitive himself, his portion of the loot had been reduced to a minimal sum, as a result of attorney’s fees and other expenses related to his fight against returning to prison. Nevertheless, when his longing for his homeland became unsupportable, he returned to England and ended up being imprisoned. Now old, sick and debilitated, photos of him aroused compassion in those of a more sensitive disposition and inclined to pardon. 

What is interesting here (someone needs to write an academic thesis on this sociological phenomenon) is that a large portion of society, principally Rio society, even adulated him, considering his personal appeal and audacity for having participated in a robbery the current value of which is equivalent to more than one hundred million reals. “Success”, in any of its forms - political, economic, sporting, artistic or “congenially criminal” - legitimizes any kind of act. In the First World, male cinema artists, in order to reinforce their reputation as “tough guys”, liked to be seen at shows and restaurants in the company of high-ranking members of the Mafia. The affectation of adding an air of shadowy danger to their status. This occurred in the case of Frank Sinatra, Alain Delon and other inflamers of female hearts. A fictional English politician, feeling that he was being more than a little blackmailed by the person who was speaking to him, mentioned, wishing to impress, that he had contacts “in high places”. To which the other replied, with assurance, that he also had contacts, but “in low places”. This is something far more intimidating, as evil can be inflicted with the power and speed of a lightning bolt, without any bureaucratic hindrances. 

That which was mentioned regarding extradition only goes to show, in summary, that in the difficult harmonization of sovereignties, crime very often goes unpunished, or very nearly so. This, at least in theory, would not occur if there were a global federation or confederation, with worldwide jurisdiction. 

Another example facilitating impunity lies in the setbacks faced by state prosecutors when they are overruled or delayed in their attempts to recover large amounts of money deposited abroad. Given that the money can be transferred to another bank or even another country in a matter of seconds, with a simple mouse click on a computer, the diligent prosecutor almost always arrives too late with his petition for freezing deposits made by those availing themselves of public money. While the prosecutor studies the banking legislation of the country where the money is to be found - wrestling with a language in which he is not fluent - and once again prepares a request for its return, the money in question has already been sent to another bank. And so everything starts all over again. Even the private creditor of a millionaire debtor, who has financial resources scattered all over the world, cannot manage to make demands or even subpoena the important debtor, making his credit – even if judged to be without further recourse to appeal – a very nice sum without any real significance.

 Extraditions are subject to the influence of the international prestige of the countries involved. In the case of the Canadians who were arrested and sentenced for kidnapping a famous São Paulo businessman, the Canadian government managed to arrange that they be repatriated in order to serve their sentence in their own country, with probably benevolent consequences. If, however, a group of Brazilians were arrested, in Canada or the United States, after carrying out kidnappings, it is highly probable that the Brazilian government will not be able to extradite them. With Bush as president, it would certainly not be possible. 

Even horrendous homicides end up being almost unpunished as result of this “excess” of sovereignty, with each country living in its own isolated world – pure political schizophrenia. 

Look at the 1981 case of the Japanese Issei Sagawa, who, in Paris, killed and “raped” (in fact, he technically violated a corpse) an attractive female Dutch student, a colleague of his at Université Censier in the city. He did this because the Dutch girl (who assisted him with translations at the time, in his apartment), refused his advances full of passion and libido. Issei, who has the appearance of a somewhat developed dwarf with a large head (I’ve seen a photo of him), was 1.48 m tall and weighed 44 kilos, very much less than the Dutch girl. The girl, seeing him as only a colleague, ordered him to concentrate on the work they were doing. The Japanese got up, took a 0.22 caliber rifle out of a cupboard behind the girl, and shot her in the back of the neck. Following this, he had sex with the cadaver and then cut off the lips, nose, breasts and private parts, storing them in the freezer of his refrigerator for future consumption. And he actually ate a large part of this flesh prior to being arrested. He had this strange compulsion, associating the sex act with the act of eating. The case in question is briefly described in the book written by Canadian writer Max Haines, in Book V of his series entitled “True Crime Stories”. The story appears on page 121, in the chapter “Fantasies Turn to Cannibalism”. It’s a pity that this series has not been translated into Portuguese. 

After cutting up the girl’s body, the accused placed these mortal remains in two suitcases, which he transported by taxi. He intended to throw their macabre contents into a nearby lake. In the street, on leaving the taxi, he noted that people were looking with mistrust at that small Japanese figure dragging two suitcases that were much too heavy for him. Startled, he abandoned the suitcases on the sidewalk, thinking that there was no evidence of him being linked to the homicide. The police only found him because, on reading the newspaper headlines, the taxi driver remembered this strange oriental man and took the initiative of informing the authorities. 

Following the gathering of irrefutable evidence against him (found in his small apartment, principally in the refrigerator), Issei confessed to the crime but was considered to be crazy and not responsible for his actions, even though he was a cultured and intelligent man. He was fluent in German and French, present in France for his doctorate degree in Japanese influence on French literature. The judge determine that he be committed to a psychiatric institution. 

Issei was the son of a rich Japanese industrialist. After spending three years in an asylum, his father managed to arrange for his extradition to Japan, under the condition that he remain confined in a sanatorium for the mentally sick. However, following 15 months of internment, he was discharged. The Japanese doctors concluded that he was normal. France could do nothing as each country has its own sovereignty. And, after all, what does being “crazy” really signify? 

After his release (according to Max Haines), Issei Sagawa wrote several books on his favorite topic - cannibalism. It is likely that the victim’s family (whose name I will not mention here, out of respect for the suffering of others) does not have a very high opinion of either the seriousness of Psychiatry as a profession or those intimate with the pompous word “sovereignty”, generally pronounced in a solemn tone of voice. 

On the other hand, the family of Issei likely thought that everyone deserves a second chance. After all, the Japanese guy spent four and a half in asylums for the mentally sick as someone “normal” according to the psychiatrists of his country. In all certainty, there will be those that think Issei became crazy as a result of unrequited love. Someone once said that “Man is the fire, woman the tow, and the Devil comes and fans the flames.” 

Note: The present long tale
— or is it a short novel?
is part of the e-boo 
“Tragedy on the Greek Island”

Marketed -  by Amazon.com

 

terça-feira, 22 de outubro de 2024

The cockroaches will inherit the Earth (a fable)

 

Written, in Portuguese, by Francisco C. P. Rodrigues, Brazilian author.

Two cockroaches a male and a female, a respected couple, talk in their language in the sewage, while they nibble rotten remains of food. His name is Glutof and hers is Kiti.

“Why such enthusiasm?” asks the husband, suspiciously. He is skeptical, solemn, hard-shelled, cult, repulsive, with the eyes of a serious-minded owl. A very well fed glutton, he resembles a dark and obese date, gifted with slim but sturdy and hairy legs – or whatever is the right name for its bristles. Fortunately, Glutof does not put on any weight on his small thighs, which allows him to spring at an incredible speed in moments of danger, particularly when hunted by the damned triad of men, rats and cats. The latter are revellers who kill just for fun, since they actually don’t chew their victims. They just feel too disgusted.

Glutof is proud of his brown, rather black brightness of his wings which he can frill with tremendous success, causing screaming and fainting amongst the opposite sex. Although fat he is a womanizer, or “cockroachizer”, a word he intends to include in the first dictionary of the language for cockroaches, still in its early stage and with him as a coordinator. He likes very much to philosophize and enjoys himself with the nonsense of his peers, almost all of them dumb, when compared to him. A genetic mutation had occurred, characterized by greater longevity and a larger size of the brain. But not all cockroaches have benefited with the increase of intelligence. By the way, this is also a human problem, though way older.

“You, critical and conceited as usual!” Kiti protests. “What a terrible obsession you have of diminishing me and spoiling all my fun! It isn’t enthusiasm, goddamn! I was simply dismayed or rather, horrified – is that good for you? – to watch the loathsome cleanliness of the new restaurant around the corner, that huge one. I managed to get in there only once, under the door, on the inauguration eve, and I peeped. Last night, after the inauguration, I tried to go back, to pinch a few things, sneaking through the corners, but I really got scared. Too busy. The only crack that could help me get in had already been closed. The measures taken by the scoundrels to keep us away were perfect. Entrance, only through the front door but with the risk of being squashed by the doorman’s shoe sole.”

“I still think you look rather euphoric, almost satisfied, unconsciously approving the abominable cleanliness”, insisted the husband, a theoretical much respected for his zeal in the protection of the everlasting values of filth. He interrupted the sequence of little sucks on the moldy bread and snapped his lips to sip from a little cup of mucus, dripped from a nursing home for elderly paupers.

“It’s just that I, although disapproving of course, any kind of cleanliness – what do you think I am, huh? – I like to see things well done. You know that I’ve always been a perfectionist…”

“Relatively”, interrupted the husband “at home, you take it easy. There are still many things to clean here and there… the cleanliness is becoming unbearable. You are not such a good housewife; pardon me for my frankness…”

“But you do not cooperate, either!”, she raised her squeaky voice indignantly, flapping her antennae. “You just stand there, in that old lawyer’s office, the landlord, nibbling old greasy books, bought in second-hand shops. You, my dear, you are addicted to salt and old human grease”.

“It’s you who can’t see an inch beyond your nose. It is not just gluttony, my dear. I study. My idleness is misleading. Well, indeed, it’s true that I also enjoy eating. However, I study as much as I eat. Oh! This is worth a pun”, he smiled, pleased with the finding: “And how I do read! (Exclamation). Above all, I relish slowly, tasting not only the grease from the fingers of Adam’s decadent offspring, but also the abstract side, the printed ideas themselves. This in order not to walk around speaking rubbish, as many of our hard-shelled and slender legged brothers. One day we will inherit the Earth…remember the prophecy? I have read that if a nuclear conflict takes place, only we will remain alive. We will be well protected down here, whereas the biped scoundrels toast up there, deservedly. Can you imagine the binge afterwards? Everything will be ours….from litter to computers…”

“Well, if there is time to run down here. If you are at the library when the ‘Big Boom’ happens – as you will probably be, since you are addicted to greasy books – then you won’t inherit anything at all! You will be just one more toasted date. Besides, to which atomic war do you refer? The only two giants that could do us a favour have patched it up! It is all demoralized now! The Russian chief, that blond heart-sufferer bear (she meant Boris Yeltsin) with Mongolian slanted eyes – his mother must have had a Japanese neighbour way more handsome than her own husband – has turned into a capitalist! Instead of using his plump fingers to push the missiles’ launching button, he has fun in pinching his secretary! It is disheartening…”

“Don’t lose your hope, Kiti”. She is gracious, with long eyelashes and with a brain full of crazy and right intuitions, all mixed up. A hottie, she is basically just pheromones and reproductive organs. She has the fame of being frivolous, but up to now no one has ever had the courage to bear witness against her, because she is influential and vengeful. The owl face intellectual, already on his fifth marriage proceeds, academically: “Parodying what an American businessman has already said, no one up to now, has ever lost money when betting on the stupidity of bragging state leaders. Or rather, in the stupidity of human species altogether without any exception, who claim to be so rational, spiritual. We, who know them well, and eat everything they throw away, we know what they really are deep inside. Especially deep inside…

He made a pause to nibble a piece of a rotten banana and continued erudite, pleased to hear the voice he knew so well how to modulate with so much authority:

“Fortunately, the so called emerging powers are just concerned with mastering the atom, scaring their neighbours. Therefore do not get disheartened. One day, they will be making atomic bombs in their backyard. Our turn will come, Kiti. I have always believed that our ideals of justice and supremacy will end up prevailing. The power of empires goes up and down, just like a seesaw. It is written in the history books that I lick – I mean – I read. Power shifts hands. I feel it in the air, especially in the polluted air – this pleasant and perfumed aerial garbage – the signs that our turn is coming! The current system of domination is utterly unfair! Any human being, smart or dumb, as soon as he sees us eat a meager crumb on the kitchen floor – even when we are on the verge of inanition – instantly opens his eyes wide like a mad exterminator and runs towards us, with his paws up. Why such prejudice? After all, we are cleaning their kitchens, without even charging! They would save up a lot without house maids! We could all get along so well, in harmony! At night, the humans would spread their dirty clothes on the floor, go to sleep naked, and we would invade the house, eating all the digestible dirtiness left on cups, bodies, dishes and cutlery. Clothes would be instantly “dry cleaned”. We would lick everyone in the house, sparing them the morning shower. Great savings! They would wake up thoroughly clean! But instead all the beasts do is crush us!”

“What if we set up an underwear “rodízio” (rodízio is a kind of Brazilian restaurant service, where the guest is served a new dish, as soon as he is done with the previous one)? We could make some money out of it…” Kiti proposes her eyes gleaming, always mindful to get some profit out of any idea. She considers herself a great entrepreneur.

“Well, you would be in charge of it. I do not enjoy involving myself with money issues…I feel as if I would lose my dignity.”

“It is all fine with these theories of yours. You know I don’t make a fuss about these readings. I personally only enjoy fast readings, but I would like to know how we are going to eat, in case a nuclear war breaks up. Wouldn’t the supplies be contaminated by radiation?”

“Oh, well…” he sounded surprised. He had never thought about that. He labeled his wife’s bouts of good sense as ‘sparks from the horseshoe’, as once a famous Brazilian critic had said. But he did not admit he was wrong. “Indeed, of course, hum, in fact, I had already thought about that… for a time, which our experts would determine, we would not eat what is on the surface. We have, in the sewage a gigantic and delicious natural supermarket stock, all of it ready and seasoned for our consumption. Therefore, we would only have to wait – it would be just a matter of waiting for a while in the sewage, until the level of radioactivity decreases”. He made a pause again to lick, snapping his lips, a kind of chocolate mousse extracted from a white piece of paper, square and of soft texture, and concluded:

“That would be the glory! As if we were now in Cambodia …”

“Why Cambodia?”

“Because there has been a succulent civil war in Cambodia, which lasted 25 years. During this period, between 6 and 10 million land mines were planted. The result is that now, every month, between two and three hundred people ‘go into the air’ in Cambodia; and not with airliners. It is the country that – though tiny – has the highest rate of amputations in the world. We must agree, it is an earthly paradise! If there were tourism amongst our species… wow, could you imagine that? Yummy….just the thought of it makes my mouth water! … And the flame-thrower? We could even choose between rare, medium and well done meat”

“There you go with your polyglot exhibitionism…”

“And the experts say it will be necessary about three hundred years to find and disarm all the mines.”

“Why did they plant so many bombs? Wouldn’t a more traditional kind of agriculture be possible?”

“Kiti…You need to read more carefully. No one plants bombs, my darling. They place explosives in the ground! Each rival group, while withdrawing, would spread the mines to … I mean, to wound (he did not approve of dirty language in the mouth of great leaders) his rival group. And since there were many comings and goings in the continuing skirmishes, losing and regaining territories, the result is that the country turned into a vast butcher’s shop, supplying legs, heads and arms in retail. To us, a paradise, because we are very light and we can walk over mines without detonating them. Our Cambodian cousins, those lucky ones, have blood and fresh meat at hand, at all times. It is even causing damage to their liver now, they say, due to excess of iron in their nutrition. It’s just like drunkenness; it gives you that big headache the next day. The ‘very intelligent’ humans, ha! ha!” He laughed, raising his eyebrows, frilling his wings in disdain. “Never thought that one day, the firing would end? Have they forgotten that old definition that they are ‘featherless bipeds’? Since they can’t fly, they tread…and as they tread, they fly.”

“I’ve heard that a horrible little English princess – I think her name was Lady Di– had been campaigning for the ban of land mines. Do you think this misfortune will come upon us as well?”

“Unfortunately she is dead now.”

“Unfortunately?” Kiti opened her wings, surprised. “What is wrong with you? It is a good thing that she died, because this disgusting campaign stopped.”

“You have no vision, Kiti…I say unfortunately because with her death the press started to venerate her, therefore strengthening what she had campaigned for. I’d rather have her alive, only pestering… Alive, she would be less threatening to our cause. They harassed the infamous princess for years and years, keeping an eye on her, taking pictures of her from a distance, criticizing and gossiping all the time. On account of her they had even wanted the fall of the monarchy. Now the wicked reformer died and there you go! They made her a goddess! And here lies the danger for us! Henceforth, in a crisis of consciousness – such a sickening thing among humans – and above all to sell more magazines, the media wants to put into practice her ideas. This is how it works with human beings. It is only after the person is dead – no longer arousing envy on others and also because she is rotting – she is given the right value. All I hope for is that the little English princess, uglier than hygiene – and I’ve heard humans saying seriously, the opposite – does not have posthumous success in her absurd campaign to ban land mines. But even if there isn’t a nuclear war, they will die anyway, only slower, cooked in the slow fire of the greenhouse effect or poisoned by carbonic gas. They are too dumb and ambitious to stop in time.”

“Will we be like that one day too, I mean, with these character flaws like the human beings?”

“Probably…” Glutof sighed. “I’m sorry to inform…But this is the price of civilization”. He felt proud of his statesman’s coldness. “Unless we create a new Ethic, on which I have been working for years, with the deepness everyone can see. To begin with, we need to invent a reinforcement of coercion, a cockroach-god in our image and similarity: hard-shelled, with large antennae, powerful and vengeful. To a chief, president or director, not everyone is bound to obey. But a cockroach-god, with real power over life and death, the planetary cockroaches will fear…and obey. I will talk in private to him – my own self, of course – once a week on the rooftop of a tall building”, he smiled, ironically, closing his owl’s eyes “and then I will transmit to our people the message that only I heard. What do you think about the idea?”

“And do you think our people will believe it, in this divine private colloquium? Our people are more suspicious than the humans, because they have suffered much…”

“They will believe, because it’s good for the soul to believe. One always believes in what one wants to.”

“But do you believe it yourself?”

“Of course not. However, no one will ever be able to prove that I don’t believe it. Unless you open your pretty little mouth, of course; but in that case you know what awaits you. I only sell a truly necessary product. Hope, as long as there is fear in the heart of the cockroaches. It’s mere business. And speaking of fear, the human race is sinking exactly by lack of fear. Their trend right now, the ‘must’, is the deep understanding of the motivation of human actions. The idiots want to ‘understand’, mind you…. Result: they have concluded for example, that it is of no use filling up jails, because jails recover no one. Of course it doesn’t! But does impunity recover him, by any chance? They walk around, like dizzy cockroaches – oops! I meant dizzy humans – not knowing what to do. And rascally they find a way of reconciling an old wish of drawing back from circulation the detestable thief, while at the same time they can praise themselves, saying that they are doing him a great favour, by ‘reeducating him’. Me, once I’m in command of this junk, I already know how I will solve the problem: immediate death penalty to all cockroaches who commit a serious crime. This will indeed be an example. We won’t spend money and time on processes, paper, prisons and specially food. For small infractions we torture the guy, by keeping him in a sickly clean place for a few days. To him it will be like death! He will never want to make any wrongdoing ever again. Otherwise he returns to the cleanliness.”

“My goodness! How much finesse! When you want it, you can be really mean… maybe it would be better to just kill all at once….But how would we kill the most perverted criminals, since we have neither weapons, nor teeth or even hands?”

“We would train rats. They are clever, but dumb. There is a great difference between cleverness and intelligence. All they think about is gnawing and fornication. Unless they also suffer a mutation like ours. Then we will be damned because they have a bigger brain…and teeth…. By the way, I have already instructed our staff to inform me about any radioactive material found in the sewage. We will immediately isolate the area because with radiation, anything could happen. If rats become like us, well, goodbye to our future millennium of glories! They would be the ones who will substitute men in the dominance of Earth.”

“But back to the new restaurant around the corner, you should see the cleanliness of the kitchen! All sparkling! Not even a little dirt capable of…”

“Stop it! Stop it!” He interrupted her, shouting, tapping, shaking, rude, crumbling and throwing away the chocolate-stained toilet paper. “I can’t stand this dirty talk of yours any longer, right at meal time! Do you want to make me throw up?”

“Geez…Did you need to yell like this? Are you disgusted by the cleanliness? What a delicate sensibility…you sound just like a little girl…”

“Hey, you watch your tongue”, his antennae were vibrating with indignation. He had never beaten his wife, but he was about to do it.

Kiti did not get intimidated: “By reading too many human books you’re throwing a poet’s tantrum, all too delicate, sensitive as an ivory tower. Watch out, huh…I know one that became a sissy…”

“What kind of books would you like me to read, you silly? Do cockroaches have publishing houses and printing industry? Now we are smart, of course – so much that the humans don’t even suspect, because we mask it up – but we have to, for the time being, draw the available culture, the one from the humans, until we can elaborate our own, which will be, of course much superior.”

“I said that to upset you….Because you were rude to me.” With her two big antennae, especially gracious on her, she stroke Glutof’s antennae, smoothing them, while at the same time she emitted pheromones that turned him on. But he controlled himself because he found it dangerous to have sex right after sumptuous meals.

“Sweetie…” she asked, tenderly, “why do you read so much? Don’t you think your exaggerate? It can damage your eyesight… And we don’t have yet ophthalmologists among us. Speaking of it, I think you would look neat wearing turtle glasses. A more intellectual look is just impossible. You’re my mouldy bread, my over a year expired ‘doce de coco’ (a kind of Brazilian coconut sweet). There are many hard-shelled scamps out there envying me, you think I don’t know it?”

“I read because in case of a global cataclysm I want to be prepared to organize our species toward the new millennium. We, cockroaches, will not repeat the same human mistakes.”

“What mistakes, my darling? Excuse me, but with or without mistakes, they are on top…They are millenniums ahead of us. Our genetic mutation - thanks to the blessed radioactive dirt that they throw anywhere – is too recent. Humans smash us left and right. Or poison us with those deadly spouts. The other day I almost died, I told you, didn’t I? You would be almost talking to a ghost now. I think I even have remaining sequels. I haven’t been the same; a weird sensation in my lower womb…The housewife, a promiscuous despicable – probably coming back from revelry since she had huge rings round her eyes – as soon as she turned on the kitchen’s light and saw me there, right in the middle, dizzy because of the brightness; she ran to fetch a tube of insecticide. The cruel woman didn’t want to mess her rich shoe sole. At this moment I shot in circles, like a busca-pé [busca = seek + = foot (a sort of firework in Brazil, which creeps between the feet, when ignited in a party)] until I remembered that the best would be to escape underneath the door that leads to the backyard. Meanwhile, the killer beast while panting, whirling, and afraid that I would climb on her, tapped a warrior dance, trying to spout the insecticide towards me. Fortunately, it barely hit me, but nevertheless, just with the fog, right away I felt terrible colic. I think I had an abortion…It came out all mixed up. They don’t make mistakes, my dear. The world is theirs; no matter what we do…Up to this day I still regret not having climbed up her legs, up to the end. I would give carefully give a little bite right there. I assure you that the vagabond would faint out of fear!”

“When I talk about making mistakes, Kiti, I’m referring to the human behaviour towards their own fellow humans. They will eliminate themselves, be it by bombing, pollution, or criminality in the streets. We do not need to interfere. One should only wait. In Algeria, some fanatics – who won but did not partake in an election – are beheading hundreds of people in the most remote villages. Victims, including children, who by no means have contributed to the political illegality. They also rape young women. And they kill with axes. Our Algerian cousins are the ones who delight themselves on these evil humans, our forerunners.

“Regarding us”, Glutof proceeded, as he felt specially inspired, “and also the rats, for example – these resistant scoundrels, very clever but short sighted, who also attack us when starving – they, the humans, are very efficient….Well, partly efficient, because I have heard that in the Pentagon building there once was a plague of thousands of American cockroaches, right there, face to face, excellent computer warriors, as they are. Yes humans know how to kill but, fortunately for us, they hate themselves mutually. They love each other during small intervals in life; but, once thwarted, they hate each other. One needs only to disagree and is right away damned. Father hates son and vice-versa. It is amazing.

“Excuse me, but I don’t find it quite so…”, Kiti felt a subtle pleasure every time she found a flaw in Glutof’s arguments. “Some human beings are not aggressive, not even with us. Last week, I and about fifty friends were down on the sewage system’s roof, gossiping, when a worker, from the public system, descended there through a small ladder. Seeing us, just a few centimeters away from his head, he shouted over to his colleagues, who were just above, at road level: ‘Everything is fine, guys! There’s no danger!’And he started working on the sewage pipe, without causing us any damage whatsoever. A saint, an exception. I was touched… I almost flew to his lips to give him a kiss…. Really, humans are astonishing… they are not always evil.”

Glutof smiled, amused with his partner’s candor. “So the pretty girl thought that the man spared you because he liked you? None of that, my darling. He let you alive because the fact that there are cockroaches in the sewage pipe means that there are no toxic gases around. Exactly when there are no cockroaches there lies the danger. If there are, they can work without fear. They only spare us when we’re useful, got it?”

“My God! They do nothing without a selfish motive.” Disconcerted, Kiti scratched her right armpit, as she always did, when she felt ridiculed. “How you know it all, sweetie… Why don’t you, with all this knowledge, organize a mass attack against humans? They are frightful. They eat a lot and have a calm life. I have seen a big man jump like a monkey, panicky, just because there were two cockroaches in his shirt, which he dressed in the dark. Or just because an innocent colleague of ours flew and casually got into an old man’s mouth. He was practicing respiratory exercises, making a deep inhalation movement. It was indeed the death kiss. The poor little thing was spat as if she was a disgusting thing and…crumbled! The scariest of all is that the old man afterwards went off to pray! Can you imagine that?”

“I know that humans are chickens, but they have the technology of death. In a war, we would be defeated. We would only win a few initial skirmishes, by giving them only a few frights. Flying, for example, into their eyes, or into their mouths, or hiding ourselves in the underwear of a few big shots, vibrating our wings near their …. you know where …but that would be all…frights, little things. At most a few infarcts, because these big shots, full of power, pizza, lasagna and ‘filet mignon’ (prime beef) have their tubes – what is the name of it, again? Oh yes, arteries! – Altogether full of fat. Nature was a stepmother for us. We do not even have stingers. If only a mutation towards this was possible….But they occur without any control. Now we do have intelligence, but you have noticed that not everyone has it. We are really far from being able to manipulate genetic engineering. Without hands, little beings that we are, what could we do meanwhile? Just think and organize ourselves. And hope they kill each other, which is almost certain.

 “But, my darling, some of them are terrorists, blow themselves up with bombs. They seem idealists.”

“Right, right…but only the silly ones…

“Darling, you talk so much that I get dizzy. I am worried with time…Don’t you think we should be going home right now? Soon the rats will wake up…

“Well, I am starting to feel tired. O. K. Let’s  go home.  

Entwined, they slowly walked towards the hole down the house’s sink in which they lived. They did not notice that two big famished rats, with evil eyes, were coming right behind them, on their tiptoes, their mouths already watering for the ‘dates’ which they considered as good as eaten.

Kiti, lighter and less greedy, miraculously escaped the attack, but lost two of her legs, an antenna and a wing. She cried, mourning the next day at her husband’s funeral. Or rather, at the two little hairy thighs and one wing’s funeral – all that was left from “Glutof, the Rescuer”, the great leader who had already joined history.

But she was pregnant, and soon, very soon, all those projects of heroes, still dormant in their eggs, would be born, replacing their father in the heroic creation of a new civilization.

(This fable was written some years ago. So it refers to Boris Yeltsin and other facts more mentioned at that time)

THE END

 

segunda-feira, 14 de outubro de 2024

Autopsy

 

 

 

The alarm clock rang at five-fifteen in the morning. Roland, a criminalist by profession and some sort of a stunt writer switches on the reading lamp and glances at his wife, who had already woken up but lies motionless, her eyes closed. Suffering from insomnia lately, she usually sleeps until late.

She did not intend to get up while it’s still dark but vaguely remembering something her husband had said about waking up early, she asks: — Why are you are leaving so early?

— Witness an autopsy. It’s got to be today; it’s already been agreed. As I am a writer from the realism school, I want to see it in person. Imagination is not enough. I need it for my next chapter.

— Do you already know whom they are going to autopsy?

— No. I intend to see two dissections. One male and one female. I am still not sure whether in my story I'm going to dismember a male or female. — Roland sometimes, playfully uses dark humour, precisely because the wife does not approve his literary style and she makes it quite clear. She thinks he does not have to be so conspicuous to attract readers.

— Are you sure the public enjoys these barbarities?

— In general, the male audience likes it, but it is necessary to be stylish, injecting a bit of philosophy into the butcher shop.

— Wouldn't it be an emotional imbalance for these readers?

— Everyone is more or less imbalanced, dear. Some psychiatrists for example are much more ‘’nuts’’ than the regular person.  The danger lies in the fact that anyone who dares speak up can be framed in an academic abnormality. If, on the other hand, he is too reserved, there is something fishy... A “very straightforward” mate would reveal, for this reason alone, a condition to be investigated. 

An hour later Roland steps into the morgue. He asks an employee the whereabouts of Dr. Moraes' office, his friend and former client. Without his permission, he could not attend the examination. The authorization had already been granted. Minutes later the doctor shows up.

— Hey there, come in, come in… Our Brazilian Zola… — cries out Dr. Moraes, good-humoured, round face, stocky body, white metal glasses. — Watching the Academy, huh? Have you bought the uniform?

— The gown would get into my way; strip me from my freedom. I, to impress academics, must touch up everything I write — replied Roland shaking his hand. — How’s it? I am ready for the massacre.

— What kind of autopsy do you want to watch?

— What do you mean? Are there differences?

— Of course, it depends on the purpose. Well, if there is no specification, I choose. Well ... You will watch the necropsies of two people who died without medical assistance. These are usually people without resources. For burial purposes it is necessary to check the "causa mortis", when the cause of death is unknown. Whether it was violent, a suicide, a necropsy is also required.

— Any death will do for me. The whole body, of course. I need the details.

— Necropsies are made in another sector, not far from here.

— You do not say autopsy. You say necropsy. Is "autopsy" wrong?

— I think it is more appropriate to say necropsy. “Autopsy,” from the Greek, would strictly be a self-examination. Necropsy would be the examination of a body, but this issue of appropriate names is irrelevant.

Walking briskly trying to keep up with the doctor’s pace Roland smelled formalin and other odours he could not identify. He heard some yelps.

— Looks like dogs yelping. Am I right?

— Yeah. Medical students doing experiments.

— Painful? Asked Roland, penalized.

—Sometimes. They try to anesthetize first.

 They stopped in front of a glass door.

— "You mean you’ve never seen an autopsy?" Won't you feel bad, pass out?

— I don’t think so. I am a cold person. If I feel sick or noxious, I’ll step outside.

— Just a warning: once inside do not lean against anything. The corpses may have a contagious disease and you would take the pathogens along with you. I strongly advise you to stick your hands into your pockets.

Roland accepted the suggestion and they both stepped into the large room.

Next to the entrance, on the left side, there was a table and onto it three small bodies. Very young children. Two dark and one white. They had a huge cut from the neck down to the pubis, but the cut had already been sewn. Even if they were dressed and lying in a bed, they would not look like children sleeping. Death had left its mark on the eyes, albeit closed. The small bow legs were a sign of rickets. That itself would awaken a feeling of loss and abandonment.

To the right of the door is a row of tables with small wheels. On top of each table, a corpse. Some, with their faces covered. The closest to Roland, the face uncovered, is a dark-haired boy, twenty-five years old, bearded, with a narrow face, a thin body, thus presumed despite being covered with a sheet up to his neck. His face resembles the usual depiction of a light-skinned European Christ. Tall, his thin yellow feet protrude far beyond the sheet covering him, generally made for people of average height.

The neighbouring table is occupied by the corpse of a burly man in his 40s.  Puffy face and an angry man's expression.

           Excuse me, asks a male nurse, standing between Roland and the corpse of the hard-faced man. He pushes the wheeled table until it is parallel to the autopsy table, which is about three meters long, more or less. On the side where the corpse feet are, there is a stainless steel sink built into the table itself. In this sink, the organs are washed, cut and sliced ​​for examination.

The corpse is transferred with some brutality - practical, routine - from the sliding table to the fixed table, without the slightest "deference" to the human being though dead, as if dealing with a large bag of potatoes. Since the man is very heavy, the two male nurses had to work hard, coordinated - “Let's go together: one, two, three, now!” - to transfer it from the table, one holding the feet and the other, stronger, taking charge of the trunk. Because of the removal effort, the heavy corpse was practically rolled onto the autopsy table, almost falling on the other side.

The dead man's arms were stiff and bent, as if in a defensive position, in a boxing game. In such position, it would be impossible for the nurse to work on the chest and head. It was therefore necessary to stretch the arms of the deceased combative mature man. Roland, always imaginative, involuntarily thought: - "Our white Mike Tyson would not agree ..."

Sure enough. Indeed, it was hard to ward the deceased off, due to the cadaverous rigidity. One of the nurses, the skinniest, tried to stretch his right arm, giving it a tug. With no success, he tries harder, his right hand holding the dead man's right hand. They seemed, for Roland, to be engaged in an "arm wrestling contest". The first result was an honourable draw for the deceased, who certainly had been a very strong man.

Not wanting to embarrass the visitor, the skinny nurse, as if guessing Roland's imagination, took a quick look at the writer and used both hands to stretch the stiff arm. Roland, an addict of fiction, immediately imagined the protest of the dead man: "That’s not fair! I'm going to bite this bastard's ear!" Whether or not fair, the living human throwing all his weight, almost suspended in mid-air, won the struggle stretching the dead man’s arm while the other nurse held on the other side of the corpse, preventing it from moving away from the right position.

Thus duly with the arms stretched out, the nurse who was in charge of the head tucked a block of wood, like a wedge, under the back of the corpse, who was standing now with the chest high and the head dropped back. Then he took a large kitchen knife and sharpened the blade on a long knife sharpener. He set the sharpener aside and began to cut into the scalp, starting the operation behind one ear. 

He made a very straight cut, cutting deep, with small movements of the knife back and forth, so that the blade edge reached the skull bone. He kept on working, until he reached behind the other ear. He dropped the knife and dug his nails into the cut. He gripped one of the sides tightly and started pulling the scalp towards his forehead.

The scalp was very tight; it did not come off easily. It popped up "tack, tack" in a row. When the resistance was stronger, the nurse helped cut the holding tissue with the knife, cutting the remaining links underneath. So, he did, until the scalp, inside out, reached the mouth of the deceased.

Thus, the sight became unbearable. Since the hair was not short, it looked as if the deceased was bearded — which was not the case — and had part of the face covered by a mask of raw flesh obviously covering the eyes.

Until that moment, Roland had managed to hold on. He was swallowing hard. His Adam's apple rose and fell. It was necessary to employ all his resistance when the nurse picked up a bow saw and started sawing horizontally the forehead producing a lid. The partially bare and bloody forehead, sawed without the least hesitation, was a view, which only did not make Roland vomit because he always had an enormous difficulty in vomiting.

The nurse sawed the skull completely, marking a large cap. Moreover, the brains, which were close to the skull, were cut.

After using the fine saw, the nurse tried to separate the cap with the unique movement of his hand. He dug his nails into the crevice of the bones, as he had done before with his scalp, but he did not succeed. Maybe because there was not room enough to insert his nails.

Everything was routine for the nurse. He picked up a chisel and hammer. He placed the chisel blade in the slit on the forehead and tapped the other end with the hammer, easily forcing the edges to separate. He put the chisel aside and, with his nails well positioned on the edge of the bone, separated the cap, which came out with a good portion of the brain.

Using both hands, the nurse carefully removed the viscous brain, which made "cloft, cloft", when detaching itself from the skull.

By then the other nurse had already opened the belly, from the breastbone to the pubis. Roland had not even seen him make the large longitudinal cut in the abdomen, so impressed he was with what was happening in the head of the corpse. When he looked away from the capless head, the chest was already open. The second nurse, equipped with special scissors, with short and curved blades, was busy cutting the protection bones of the chest in order to extract and examine the heart and other organs.

The same nurse — or was it another one? Roland was already a little groggy from the carnage — turned over the green intestines and pulled out the liver, which was placed near the sink, after which it was washed and sliced. The nurse cut and examined the colour of the slices, exchanging a few words with the doctor, who took notes.

Then he took the brain his colleague had given him and proceeded to cut it, also into slices.

While this nurse examined the slices of the organs, the other took a handful of sawdust, which was in an open bag, next to the table, and filled the void of the skull. He replaced the bone cap on his head and pulled the scalp back. The cranial bone was covered again, presentable.

— Now he has become "brainless" — joked the doctor who had lost all sensitivity to spectacles of this nature.

Roland, seeing the dead man's half-open mouth, asked:

— His tongue is very dark, don't you think? Does death darken the tongue?

— Eh? Muttered the nurse, curious. He forced the jaw down, opening the deceased's mouth wide. Not satisfied, wanting a better examination, he gripped the tongue tightly and pulled it out as far as he could.

— Ain’t nothing wrong - he concluded, examining it. - That's about it" he said, looking at the tongue, which almost resembled a cow's tongue, only less bulky. Satisfied with the inspection, he pushed the tongue back, shutting the mouth of the deceased. Then, he started sewing the scalp, using a kind of shoemaker's needle. In this job, he brusquely moved the head of the deceased, paying little attention to the indignant face of the bully who either in heaven or in purgatory — Roland wondered would be boiling with such disrespect. At certain times according to the needs of his job he pushed the cheeks from one side to another. According to the position, the dead man's expression seemed even angrier at such insults, as if his face was being slapped.

The nurses, very experienced, were well synchronized in their tasks. While the one on the head was grotesquely sewing the scalp, the other was quickly removing blood by the ladle from the abdominal cavity and throwing the organs back — liver, intestines, pancreas, etc. The brain was also thrown into the belly. Roland could not help but imagine the amount of work that this citizen was inducing in Doomsday with the dead coming out of their tombs. To judge souls it would be necessary to examine their bellies. Like many people he knew.

The belly was also sewn quickly, with a little sawdust inside to absorb the remaining blood.

Roland, after the scene of macabre violence, found it necessary to rest a little. He asked to leave. In the corridor, he took a deep breath and then felt a deep need to smoke. He puffed and concluded that he knew little about life, in its deepest sense, despite his forty years.

— How’s it? — asked the doctor. — I thought you were going to faint. It would not be an unusual fact, for those watching for the first time.

— How many autopsies do you do every day?

— Forty on average.

— I was surprised that the corpse did not stink. At least not as much as I had expected.

— It's just that it came out of from the freezer. But you need to see when the power goes out for a day or two. It has already happened. Fifty corpses decomposing, no Christian can stand it.

— In such cases, how do you do it?

— With bad smell and everything!

— Watching an autopsy, we realize man is nothing. A precarious piece of meat, always about to decompose. A lesson in humility, the horrendous spectacle I have just witnessed... Are you a religious man, Dr. Moraes?

— I'm Catholic... Shall we continue? —   Shrugged the doctor. — At half past nine I have to attend a meeting.


Francisco Cesar Pinheiro Rodrigues
Desembargador aposentado
oripec@terra.com.br

Conheça meus livros publicados na Amazon.com.br

 

 

quarta-feira, 18 de setembro de 2024

Ao querido amigo Elias Farah.


Cerca de um ano atrás fui agradavelmente surpreendido  pelo Dr. Elias Farah com o convite para que eu redigisse o prefácio de sua mais recente obra — acima mencionada. Honrado com sua lembrança, escrevi prontamente o prefácio, que consta no livro impresso.

A justificação da minha surpresa com o convite, é porque nunca me considerei, a rigor, um jurista. Embora “viciado” pela palavra impressa e com mais de 6.000 livros comprados, aguardando leitura, meu preponderante interesse intelectual nunca foi centrado no Direito. Essa orgulhosa e bela Ciência tem seu ponto fraco no momento de sua aplicação ao caso concreto. A excessiva abstração e extensão das constituições, nos variados países, possibilita decepcionantes distorções   interpretativas, via infindáveis recursos e até mesmo habeas corpus concedidos de ofício “anulando tudo”, com a benevolência ou severidade judicial variando conforme a tendência política de quem julga ou está sendo julgado.

 Napoleão Bonaparte, militar e político inteligentíssimo, chegou a dizer, em momento de desabafo, ou blague, que “as constituições deveriam ser curtas e vagas”. Quanto mais extensas, palavrosas, maior a possibilidade de infindáveis conflitos interpretativos, tudo dependendo do caráter do julgador, da sua honestidade intelectual. Resumindo: o Direito, como “ciência” merece total respeito, mas seu “aplicador” nem sempre está isento de preconceitos, simpatias ou antipatias — pessoais ou políticas. Mesmo em países francamente ditatoriais, com “ditadura do proletariado”, ou de extrema direita, com inspiração nazista, existem, “tribunais’, meros prédios, com magistrados nomeados, controlados e intimidados pelo ditador, interessado em manter uma aparência de legalidade. Stalin não fechava seus tribunais, só trocava os ocupantes.

Pedindo desculpa pela digressão, voltemos ao que interessa: explicar porque volto a falar sobre o Dr. Elias Farah e, seu livro “Reflexões Jurídicas II” e porque, no referido prefácio, usei algumas linhas elogiando a modéstia pessoal do prefaciado.

Por que mencionei, várias vezes, que meu amigo Elias Farah é um homem modesto? Essa bela e nobre qualidade humana — cada vez mais rara com a globalização —, a modéstia é um traço inato do caráter, nada tendo a ver com a abundância, ou escassez, ou riqueza intrínseca de sua obra.

O cidadão pode ser até um premiado Nobel, sem ficar proclamando isso em toda parte, promovendo-se, procurando jornalistas ou sites para entrevistá-lo. Eu poderia citar aqui dezenas de grandes cientistas premiados pela Fundação Nobel de  quem o leitor nunca ouviu falar. Há bilionários discretos que não gostam de exibir sua riqueza. Vez por outra fico sabendo, apesar de ler jornal diariamente, há décadas, que um determinado cidadão — para mim um completo desconhecido — de um pequeno país é um dos homens mais ricos do planeta. Grandes pintores do passado, escritores e cientistas foram modestos, as vezes só reconhecidos e valorizados depois de falecidos. Porém na música, nos palcos, no cinema, no futebol e nos demais esportes de massa um comportamento modesto é hoje quase impossível porque seu ofício, seu trabalho é assistido ao vivo, nos estádios, na televisão, em filmes e na mídia em geral. Assim mesmo, há diferenças entre tais profissionais. A maioria procura os holofotes. Uma minoria prefere fugir deles, preservando sua vida familiar. Nos dias atuais, se o artista for reservado demais seu empresário o criticará porque seu lucro — do empresário e do artista —, depende da extroversão, do “grito”, do “aparecer”. Quase todos querem ou precisam ter seus cinco minutos de fama. Se essa exposição torna-se incômoda, passam a usar óculos escuros.

Na advocacia e na medicina a vontade de aparecer sofre restrições porque há controle externo e legislação proibindo a autopromoção. Em síntese: afirmar que um determinado profissional é um homem modesto não significa que sua obra também o seja. 

É o caso do advogado Elias Farah, autor de 8 livros, volumosos e substanciais mas no fundo sintéticos  porque o Dr. Farah sempre foi detalhista e conciso, pesando cada palavra. Para ajudar os leitores que desconhecem os fundamentos legais de determinados problemas ele menciona a lei, ou decreto, sua data, artigo, parágrafo, alínea, jurisprudência e também sua própria opinião, ou interpretação. Quando tem, vez por outra, alguma dúvida sobre o mérito de um assunto controverso ele diz isso expressamente.

Uma singularidade minha mas que não deve ser apenas minha: quando topo com algum profissional — qualquer profissional, até mesmo braçal—, que realmente conhece os segredos da sua atividade mas que, por modéstia, esconde sua superior qualificação, sou o primeiro a recomendá-lo, promovê-lo. Faço isso com satisfação. Por que só elogiar depois de morto?

 A modéstia pessoal é uma virtude, não uma falha a ser escondida. Não confundir, por favor, modéstia com moléstia. Principalmente quando o profissional revela uma inteligência e um senso de responsabilidade bem acima da média. Frequentemente o modesto ganha menos que seus colegas mais atrevidos, não pelo próprio trabalho, mas pela ousadia no cobrar, ousadia que falta no “modesto”. Alguém já observou que pessoas bondosas, generosas, não são bons comerciantes. Na advocacia também isso pode ocorrer, com um grande advogado criminal trabalhando de graça, para defender um injustiçado. Tales Castelo Branco é um deles. Até políticos podem ser modestos, usando pouco os microfones. Ângela Merkel, por exemplo, tem essa característica pessoal. Não procura holofotes, os holofotes é que a procuram. E ela não pode fugir das entrevistas, no cargo que ocupa.

Penso que já escrevi, até demais, esclarecendo que a modéstia pessoal é uma bela qualidade e pode existir em um Papa, um prêmio Nobel, um bilionário e até em um político, excepcionalmente. O cidadão pode ter obra extensa e de altíssima qualidade e ser de temperamento modesto, reservado, pouco falando dele mesmo quando isso não é necessário.

Voltando ao livro “Reflexões Jurídicas II”, explico qual a utilidade da sua leitura. Sendo uma coletânea de ensaios, a maioria de assuntos jurídicos, alunos do curso de Direito teriam proveito quando pretendem escrever tese de grande relevância no momento. Escolhido o assunto, lendo o livro do Farah o aluno fica sabendo porque o tema, aparentemente vago, é tão importante, no momento, e qual a legislação sobre ele.

Mesmo os jornalistas podem tirar proveito da leitura dos ensaios. De modo geral os jornalistas conhecem os assuntos sob o enfoque político, não jurídico. Não têm tempo para longas pesquisas. Caso decidam investigar a base legal do problema, encontrariam nos ensaios do Farah os melhores argumentos, já meditados, resumidos e indicando as fontes legislativas.

Quem quiser saber o essencial sobre drogas, entorpecentes e variados tóxicos, leia o que escreveu o Farah no referido livro. Aprendi muito com tal leitura.  Foi como ler um livro inteiro, sintetizado, abordando o tema sob o ângulo médico, jurídico, policial, social e moral.

Termino por aqui, repetindo que o prefaciado, mesmo tendo escrito centenas de artigos muito bem argumentados é um homem, no fundo, modesto. Que continue assim.

Perdão pela extensão. A falha é minha, não do homenageado.


Francisco Cesar Pinheiro Rodrigues
Desembargador aposentado
oripec@terra.com.br

Conheça meus livros na Amazon.com.br

segunda-feira, 22 de julho de 2024

RECORD BOOK

 


           Around eight o'clock on a Saturday morning, a citizen named Paulo woke up smelling the coffee. He washed his face, brushed his teeth, and went down to the kitchen for the first meal of the day.

As he took the first bite of toast, the doorbell rang. Looking out the window, he noticed that Rui was playing, a gardener who comes every month to take care of the garden.

This gardener is a very original human being — you will agree with my opinion if you continue reading — aged between forty-five and fifty, of average height, slightly overweight, calm, laconic, and an informal authority, in the neighborhood, in the knowledge of flowers. What he knows he doesn't know through readings, it is through direct, personal contact. He is a much sought after gardener because he is more interested in his colorful “darlings” than in the money he earns with them. He's also a man of word and incredibly persistent.

It is worth clarifying that the fact that Rui loves flowers does not mean that he is something effeminate. He is straight, without a doubt, although respectful in the extreme.

Rui does the job that is asked of him without putting pressure on the customer — or rather, the customer’s wife — because men, “insensitive animals”, in his opinion, are almost always not interested in these delicate and colorful products of nature. Maybe because they don't know that flowers, so pretty, are nothing more than explicit, shameless bisexual organs that only think about “that”: propagating the species. Some have a uterus. Not being able to leave the house, they adorn themselves with colorful petals, thus attracting the attention of insects that, after landing on them, carry with them, on their legs and body, the pollen that will fertilize distant flowers. Rui knows this — but without scientific names — and “forgives” them for the “hassle” because he knows that, not being able to fly need to reproduce “by mail”. And without breeding, his gardening work would suffer.

Continuing, if the owner of the house wants to plant this or that, Rui does not object, even when the customer reveals bad taste. At most he is disappointed, but he disguises it.

Because he is polite, capricious, and respectful — he never says a bad word — the female residents also admire him because they are not afraid that he may take “certain liberties” by probing for possible sexual needs when they are too playful and communicative. As for the price charged for “blossoming” a garden, this is discussed directly with the gardener's wife, a smart, somewhat harsh and business-savvy woman. Her saintly husband doesn't like to discuss prices, budgets and payment methods. He is a top 10 artist but only top 1 merchant.

Rui, as I said, is not an ordinary gardening professional. With his distinguished face and discretion, everyone thinks he could be, socially, much more considered. He looks more like an accountant, or manager. He exercises his profession as if he were a kind of goldsmith of the plant world. His wife is more educated than him, even because the gardener's formal education is almost none in print. What he knows, he knows very well, but little, and only by mouth.

On the first Saturday of each month, Rui appears at the lawyer's house, usually with an assistant, taking three or four hours to take care of the flowers as if they were precious. This Saturday, he's alone.

For the reader to better understand what he is going to read, it is necessary to know a little about the unusual circumstance of the birth of this silent professional, as he is the central figure of this narrative.

Rui had an unusually original biography beginning. His birth was the longest in the entire chronicle of births in the backward village where he saw the light of day. His mother, a tall, burly woman, was pregnant with twins, but, believe it or not, she was unaware of the fact. “Doctor” in those parts and time were rare. Only the bulk of the belly would provide any indication that the heir would come into the world accompanied by a bosom partner. It so happens because the volume of Rui's mother's womb, in proportion to the overall size of the pregnant woman, was not worthy of attention.

 The birth of the twins was tumultuous. It happened like this: in the middle of the night, his mother felt “the pains” — or was it intestinal cramps? As the local midwife, a curious one, had assured that the delivery was still a month away, the pregnant woman took it for granted that it was just a desire to “go to the bathroom”. And she went, alone, holding a candle, to the rudimentary, dark and smelly “house”, which was a few meters away from the small house in which she lived and was fixing. That night the husband was not at home.

According to reports — always inaccurate and certainly exaggerated —, Rui's mother took the wrong path. In this, the first baby “dived” between the two parallel wooden boards that served as a seat, or rather, a squat in the rudimentary toilet. The bloodied and rosy fruit of love fell from a height of half a meter into the dark pit, whose chemical, and mainly aromatic composition, the reader can well imagine.

I do not understand the resistance and uses of umbilical cords after childbirth, but, lacking more information, it seems that the presence of the cord was not understood by the first-time parturient. The concrete fact is that the greedy little boy plunged into the soup of excrement in the middle of the dark night. This is because, in the confusion that followed the sensational dive, the candle went out, leaving the parturient in despair, screaming, not knowing that a second offspring, Rui — “They forgot about me!” —, was waiting, in the womb, for its turn to enter such a hostile environment.

Desperate, the parturient almost threw herself into the pit after the baby, who she thought was unique. Continuing to scream, her desperation woke up a family who lived close to the “little house” and soon they ran to fish for what, by normal things, would already be a smelly little angel. But to everyone's astonishment, the baby was still alive, practically whistling, floating on its back in the brown pool, not giving a damn about the smelly baptism. Fished, the baby didn't have a single scratch. It was only, they say, a neat bath to be in order. Fortunately — the local “in the know” explained — he had floated on his back.

But Rui, his brother, was not so “lucky”. Or, because of the mother's fright, or because perhaps every double birth have some risk, the fact mentioned is that his birth was the longest and most painful in the history of the village. He was born a few nights later — Rui doesn't really know —, practically strangled, his face colored between blue and purple; something even picturesque, technicolor. It is said that a long depletion of oxygen during childbirth causes irreversible brain damage in the baby. In fact, Rui must have lost a few billion neurons in those suffocating hours that followed his native colleague's diving jump.

This world is full of paradoxes. Rui's brother, who was born, pardon the word, in shit — more literally it would be impossible — had a life free of difficulties. This was because he was a fast learner, energetic, articulate, imaginative, albeit selfish and a little bit crooked — a combination of intellectual and moral qualities that are unfortunately quite common and unfair.

Unfair because the bad guys are usually smarter than the good guys. However, Rui, who was born in poor but clean sheets, had to give up studying after failing a few times in his first year of school. Reading, for him, was a painful, almost impossible task. He just became literate. Perhaps it was a problem of dyslexia, at a time and place when the existence of this learning disorder was not even imagined. But, on the other hand, if there is any area of the brain with the specific function of managing character, that area was not affected by the long suffocation. Perhaps it was even fortified, by some natural form of compensation, for you, reader, will hardly find anyone more responsible, correct and persistent than the aforementioned latecomer.

The lawyer's wife — her name is Helena —, is proud of her large, intensely flowered garden. Its size proportionally exceeds the size normally reserved for gardens. This is because the house itself is not very big. It's more beautiful than big. The land has more front than back. There would be space for parking several cars, but, as the owner couple didn't use more than two, Helena insisted on transforming the extra space into something special that would draw attention for its beauty, because she was also very fond of flowers, despite being a woman. essentially practical, objective, of German descent on the side of the father and mother. Her husband, when annoyed by her verbal coldness, used to call her "German", or "Nazi".

To take advantage of this wide area, she designed several beds, lovingly tended, giving those who arrive — in spring —, a surprising sight, intensely flowered, almost enchanted. Something unusual in a big city, such is the amount of roses, carnations, dahlias, azaleas, rhododendrons, primroses, and other flowers that, to be mentioned here, would require the specialized knowledge of a botanist, not just any narrator. The couple's older friends often say that the garden, in spring, is reminiscent of the movie The Wizard of Oz in its colorful version. And who takes such good care of this flowery edition of Eden from São Paulo? Rui, always tenacious, orderly, respectful, carrying out to the letter — rarely innovating — all the orders of the lady of the house.

With the gardener's biographical parenthesis closed, let's return to the lawyer's house on the Saturday morning when Rui rang the doorbell.

In order not to leave the gardener waiting at the door, mister Paulo dropped the toast on a saucer and went downstairs to open the garden gate. They exchanged the usual greetings and the gardener went in to do his work.

As usual, Rui used the side corridor to reach the backyard of the house, where there is a maid's room where he usually changes clothes. This time it was not necessary because he was already dressed in work clothes. He just sat at the table at the back of the house — a balcony, next to the kitchen, used for washing and ironing clothes — and waited for his morning snack because the hostess kindly “made a point” for him to eat something and take a drink coffee before starting his work. Since Rui was a silent and patient man, his presence there, near the kitchen — separated from it by a wall with stained glass — was not noticed by the owners of the house, imagining that the gardener was still far away, changing clothes in the maid’s room, which not worked on Saturdays. Rui was, in everything, a perfectionist, never a sprinter.

Returning to the kitchen for breakfast, the lawyer, as he passed through the living room saw, on top of an armchair, a book he had read during the night and which had impressed him. It was the Guinness Book, 1974 edition. He picked it up and when he reached the kitchen he commented, laughing out loud, about the most absurd records he had read the night before. In doing so, by mere coincidence, the gardener was unintentionally listening to everything through the window.

—What people do to become famous!" exclaimed the lawyer to his wife, after reading small passages. — Dangerous activities! Take, for example, the diving record of Italian Enzio Mallorca. On August 11, 1971, in Syracuse, Sicily, he dove to a depth of seventy-six meters. I don't know how the blood didn't foam when he came back to the surface! Who knows, he even died shortly after...

—Nice nonsense... — was the woman's cold comment, almost always looking at things on the practical side. —Useless risk to life... If you hadn't read this now, I would have died without knowing it.

—Look at this one,” he continued, flipping through the book: The longest race was the 1929 Transcontinental race (5,898 km), on foot, from New York City, USA, to Los Angeles, California. The winner was Johny Salo, of Finnish origin, who died on October 6, 1931. This took 79 days.

—When was the race?”, she asked, frowning.

—In 1929.

—And he died in 1931?

—Exactly,” he replied, checking the text.

—So it was the running that killed him.

—Well, maybe he died of some other cause. Going back to records, I don't see anything wrong with them, as long as those degrading competitions are avoided, as was the case with the slapping championship in Kiev, Russia, in 1931. It's here...' He pointed with his finger at an excerpt from the book.

       —Slaps? Virgin Mary! Tell it”!

 —There was perhaps a tie between Vasilly Bezbordny and Goniuch — he read the names with difficulty—, after thirty hours of continuous slaps in the face. Have you ever imagined the state of their cheeks right after the competition? If they were sitting, resting, with their eyes half closed, by a window overlooking the street, the passers-by could only see their faces, they would probably laugh. Or call the police, thinking the two were insulting them, the public, by showing off their red, swollen buttocks. The eyes must have been tiny... If there was no marmalade... No, no... If the tournament was in public, sound evidence, the “symphony”, played with four hands and two cheeks was needed. They were real slaps between two friends, probably.  Had there been any kind of enmity, even disguised, they would have killed themselves at the base of the “cookie”. The hands must have swollen too...

Speaking of hands, look at this one — he continued: “The world record for handshakes was set by US President Theodore Roosevelt. He shook hands with 8,513 people on New Year's Day at a White House reception on January 1, 1907.

        —Well, there's nothing wrong there... Not even interesting, either..."

The lawyer didn't like the comment very much, but went on: —You will like this one: 'The longest distance record, for throwing dry cow dung — dry! good... —, a rural competition, was 50.62m achieved by Harold Huler Smith”. And then there's the women's record for that throw, 30.81m set by Patti Bruce, records set at the Beaver World Championships in Oklahoma on April 21, 1973.

        —These two well deserved each other... They should get married...Can you imagine a domestic quarrel? What do you think would fly back and forth?” — she commented.

        —Woman has a lot of space in this book — he read: — ... female record of speaking uninterruptedly was set by Mrs Alton Clapp, of Greenville , North Carolina, USA, in August 1958. She spoke for 96 hours, 54 minutes, and 11 seconds. In the United States, these specific tournaments are called “Gossip Parties”.

         —Chip, compared to some friends of mine on the phone.

        —There are also gastronomic records, which, now, perhaps, are no longer accepted by Guinness because they are very bad for health. It appears here that certain records were “claimed”. A David Man ate 130 fresh plums in 1 minute and 45 seconds in Eastbourne, England, on June 16, 1971.

        —And he never suffered from constipation again..." she added, seriously.

        —There's a guy here in Belgium who, holding a cable with only his teeth, pulled two wagons weighing 36 tons on the tracks.

        —I don't believe. If I were on the judging committee, I would examine the slope of the terrain well... I would like to see him pull uphill...”

        —You want to kill people…

To all this, Rui, sitting on the other side of the window, paid attention. After the report of the world records, the couple fell silent and the lady of the house took the snack on a tray to the gardener, not knowing that Rui had overheard the conversation.

After breakfast, Rui arrived at the kitchen door to return the tray, asking for “a word” with the owner of the house.

— With pleasure … — The lawyer answered, thinking it was some legal consultation.

Embarrassed, the gardener, noticing that the lady owner of the house was no longer in the kitchen, began: — I'm sorry... I accidentally overheard you talking about those records, those things that made some people famous.

—Well, in some cases it's a bit of a silly reputation... Did you hear the slapping dispute?”

—I heard... Wrong... Very crude... I've heard about this book... Well, I'll tell you a secret: I've always wanted to do something better than others... Something different, that would stay later for me after I stretch my shins. As gardening, I will never appear in a book, no matter how well I work.

         —But you do it very well!

         —I do my best, but I would like to be able to show some world record to my mother, who is old and has suffered a lot. I would like her to be proud of me. Next to my brother, a rich man, I am nothing. I feel in my chest a strange anguish for not being able to do something big, talked about all over the world. I will never be a writer, a scientist, a politician. My problem is that to do anything great you need to study; or a lot of money and, as you know, I have a problem with this reading business. It looks like a disease... I can't, no matter how hard I try. And I can't get rich either because I'm too honest.

        —Well, if you beat a record, your name goes into that book. It's called the Guinness Book and it's published in several languages around the world. But what kind of record do you want? The problem is there... A show of force? Of agility?

      —Well, I have strength, but nothing special. And I'm slow... At school my nickname was “Turtle”, but one day I lost patience.

The lawyer thought but it was difficult to suggest anything. And he didn't want to blame himself for any accident. He did not even mention, in order to avoid a fatal copy, the mad ambition of that citizen who tried to “bite”, that is, to hold with his teeth — coated with a steel plate — the revolver bullet fired into his own mouth. He died, of course, from a gunshot wound to the mouth. In fact, the same way his father had died, both circus professionals. The grandson, if any, was expected to inherit more judgment and less persistence.

—Doctor… — suggested the gardener, while the lawyer thought — who knows something to eat? In this I can use my patience.

—It seems Guinness no longer welcomes such exploits. Let me take a peek... Meanwhile, how about getting to work? — he suggested smiling.

The gardener agreed and went to get his tools. The owner of the house sat back down to leaf through Guinnes. He was looking for new information.

After about some minutes, the lawyer left the room and approached the gardener who, on his knees, was pulling weeds.

—Look, Rui, it's difficult... Almost everything requires a lot of strength, or speed, or a very special skill. After all, they are records. Do you know how to dance or tap? He asked, smiling, imagining that heavy Fred Astaire tap-dancing and twirling with his top hat and tailcoat, slinging Ginger Rogers around the waist.

—I'm too heavy for that, doctor..." he admitted, almost smiling.

—There's also mention in the book of a distance spitting contest, or throwing — with the mouth, of course — of a melon seed. Only in the United States. You can't go there, it's too far... Here in Brazil nobody organizes this nonsense. There is even a record of continuous showering. It lasted 174 hours in Indiana in the year 1972... That sounds like a good one! It just depends on persistence, water and electricity. What about?

        —I'll think about it..." he replied, not interested. 'What else did you see?”

        —Well, if you still smoke — the gardener had quit the habit more than three years ago, without relapses, because he had a lot of willpower — you could try to beat the record of a Robert Reynard, from England, in 1971. With a single puff he made 86 smoke rings!

        —My wife would kill me if I do that, she insisted so much that I don't smoke anymore. Besides, I don't think I could make more than five or six rings at a time... Sorry to take so much trouble... What else did you see?

          —A Herbert T. Waldren, here says the city, but doesn't say whether it was in England or the United States, won the national intercity contest of 'screamers' eight times. You have something within your reach! That is, it does not require muscular strength or agility. How about screaming hours and hours?

        —That's one I can think of, but I don't like screaming. I never scream, you must have seen it. So, what's left? Oh! Bathing for many hours

        —Better say days!”, corrected the lawyer. — But let's stop here… This way, you don't finish my garden. Next Saturday you tell me what you've decided, okay?

        —Thank you, doctor. Next Saturday we'll talk again. Today I charge only half for my work.

        —Nothing like that. And get to work!

        —Sorry, I insist! Today I worked less.

The lawyer didn't want to argue but intended to pay Rui's wife straight away, who would obviously demand full payment. He went back to his room to change clothes, a little upset at the disruption of his Saturday morning routine caused by his unusual research. Entering the room, his woman asked him: — What were you talking about so much?

He smiled: — “You have no idea... He wants to be in the Guinness Book ...

        —You are kidding”!

        —Not hard!

        —Doing what?

       —He has not decided yet.

       —I hope you don't mess up...

       —He has, in fact, a great quality, the only one necessary in a competition that only requires tremendous persistence 

        —He is nice, polite, I like him, but he's stupid. I never imagined he wanted fame”.           —Stupid? He takes good care of our garden...”

       —Because of me! the one who gives all the tips, when we need to change something. He is incapable of quick improvisations 

        — If he took any initiative in our garden, without you, he wouldn't get out of here alive... In that he's smart...

       — Don't come with hints... Boss has to command and employee has to obey. You are prejudiced against German descendants...

              — I don't think so. I just think that some of Germanic blood exaggerate this discipline thing... On the other hand... No, never mind!... Let's not fight, otherwise you'll go on a sex strike. And tonight I'm prone to introductory acts to the perpetuation of the species.

In the middle of the afternoon the gardener said goodbye. But not before asking the lawyer if anyone had broken a record for eating hard-boiled eggs, which he liked a lot.

— Wait a minute, I think so, I'll see; I more or less remember the page.  In a few seconds, the lawyer located the paragraph: — Here is: a Belgian, Georges Grogniet, ate 44 hard-boiled eggs, without breaks. This happened in May l956 ... But look, Rui! It can harm the liver.

           —Don't worry..." was the gardener's reticent reply, leaving.

Two days later, on Monday, around eight o'clock at night, the gardener's wife, a thin woman, tall, not ugly, with decisive gestures, came alone to the lawyer's house, asking to speak to him. He had just finished dinner and was watching television. The visitor was nervous, even somewhat hostile. It was she, as I have already explained, who “managed” her husband's activity, setting prices and organizing the parish's service days. Despite having little education, she was well-informed, watched the news and debates on television and read newspapers. All the money he earned went into her hands, who were thrifty and shrewd. As soon as she sat down, she asked in a scolding tone:

        — Doctor, I would like to know what you suggested to my husband!

        — I didn't suggest anything…— A slight dread crept into his spirit.

       — This morning, he didn't even went to work... He was bad, very bad! Wax color, almost fainting. He said his head kept hurting. I even thought he was poisoned because he also vomited.

        —Did he explain why he was like that?

        —He didn't say anything. I think he was a little embarrassed. Suspiciously, I found a large quantity of eggshells in the garbage can. I gave him a squeeze and he told me he ate over twenty hard-boiled eggs! In one stroke! It was maybe over twenty because after twenty, he admitted, he fumbled the bill and started to feel bad. He did this when I was at my mother's house, otherwise I wouldn't let him.

       —Has he gotten better yet?"

 —He was in the Emergency Room. They gave him an injection... Now he's home, lying down, white and with bad breath! He didn't accuse you, but he said he learned about these records from you. My husband, when he gets something into his head...

       —But what could I do? I don't have to talk hidden inside my own house. Also, your husband is not a child...

        —In some ways, he's still a child...

        —It could be worse... There was certainly just bad indigestion. And how could I have guessed that he would want to imitate those crazy people that appear in Guinness? For a silly little fame, reputation. To be in the newspapers, or in that book, they do amazing things!

Hearing the words “little fame” and “newspapers” their eyes, already large, seemed to grow. Raising her eyebrows, she asked: — In these records is the prize… in cash?

        —As far as I know, no. — Ah! greed, he thought —, and went on :“but, indirectly, there may be some economic benefit if the winner is asked to do television commercials. But I don't advise anyone to...

        —TV? She interrupted him again, her eyes even wider. “Can he appear on television?!”

        —Calm down, I say this as a hypothesis. It is not what has happened often. But who can prevent, for example, a laboratory that manufactures capsules of, say, artichoke, or Chile boldo, or some antacid, from remembering to make a commercial in which the glutton, by hypothesis, speaks on screen as he was soon relieved, taking the medicine after eating too much?

        —In short, there might be some money in the game,” she insisted. 

        — As far as I know, no one tries to break records by thinking directly about the money...

        —But you, just before, said that, 'indirectly’ —, she stressed the word —, the record can bring money.

 He paused, while Helena, ten feet away, pretending to tinker with some vases, listened to them with a half-naughty expression, eyes half-closed.

The lawyer sighed, amazed at the turnaround in the visitor's concerns: — What are you planning to do? Your husband may even die in such an attempt!

—Well, I was mad because I didn't know that side … but, hey, if he wants to try, and if it's not a dangerous thing, why not?

        —It's not possible! Now, are you the one who's going to want him to stuff himself with boiled eggs? His liver will turn into mayonnaise!

        —The decision will be his, his alone! And who said boiled eggs? Besides, I doubt he'll give up, because he never gives up if he's not doing something illegal. My husband is an honest man. But if he breaks a record, we'll make it! Oh come on! I will take care of the commercial part! Let's buy a better house! My brother-in-law, his brother, they are twins, a vain smartass, he'll stop showing off, all rich. We'll buy a decent car! Have you seen the state of our Beetle? It can't even walk without pushing! And nobody wants to buy the carcass. To drive again I would have to spend a lot of money! I've also told Rui that if he earns money with a record, he'll be able to help some of his relatives who earn a rickshaw. This reinforced his idea of continuing.

She got up excitedly, pacing back and forth like a caged tigress. Stopping abruptly in front of the owner of the house, she asked: — Could you lend me that book, just for a few days? Since Rui is a stubborn mule, it doesn't hurt to do the right thing. If he broods, he, not me, mind you! I'm the one who will choose the type of record! Something that no one thought of but that doesn't kill him! After all, I don't want to be a widow. I love my husband. I'm sure he never cheated on me.

         —I can't borrow it. This book is not mine — he lied. —I was supposed to return it tomorrow morning…

—What a pity … But it doesn't matter. Thank you very much, doctor. It was quite an idea of yours.

—Wait! I didn't have any idea. It is clear?

She didn't even seem to hear. She quickly waved goodbye to the owners of the house and left with energetic strides.

The next day, Tuesday, a public holiday, the gardener and his wife showed up around ten o'clock in the morning. Through the window, the lawyer saw the couple and soon concluded, annoyed, that the rest of the morning was lost. The purpose of the visit was obvious. But what to do? Pretend he weren't home? When he was a lawyer in criminal cases, looking out for the client's interest, he lied more than the devil’, but outside the case he was a man who was a friend of the truth. Resigned, he tied his shoes, went downstairs and went to receive the future celebrity and his manager. He invited them to come in and sit in the living room.

—I found it! was the first thing she said excitedly as she sat down. — Rui has already decided what to do. We just need your help. In return, you no longer have to pay for the garden service.

—Here comes rocket! he thought uneasily. From that ambitious woman could only come some danger. Cautiously, he asked: — What kind of collaboration?

—I thought, indeed we think, of something that no one else has thought of! It's something to eat... Or rather, it's something not to eat, but now it's going to be food. Guess... No, you can't guess!

—Look, don't get me into this, please... I beg you...— He was beginning to find the two figures amusing but slightly curious.

        —But there's nothing that can harm you!”

        —So why do you need me?"

—As a witness”.

—Witness to what?”

—We were there in the house, thinking, thinking without ideas, but looking casually at the old Beetle, I had a 'pop'.

—So far, as far as I know, the only ‘snap’ that worked was that of Father Vieira, joked the lawyer, trying to reduce the tension of the dialogue.

—I don't know this priest... Is he from our parish?" she asked, striving to be polite but not at all interested in the ailments of old priests.

—Forget the snap... What's with the old VWT?

—Rui is going to eat the car! She smiled triumphantly, dropping the bombshell and glancing at her husband, who seemed a little oblivious to the conversation, perhaps still with the excess of yolk in his brain.

— Eat how? He thought he hadn't heard correctly.

—Eat! Eat! With the mouth!

—But how is Rui going to eat the metal, the plastic? There are no teeth that resist! Think about it, the springs, the bumpers!... Or will that be off the menu? He insisted on joking, kindly.

—No, he'll eat everything: doors, latches, steering, horn — no, no horn, because it doesn't have — seats, clutch, brakes, tires, tube or tubeless, gas tank, etc. Even the keys, to impress, as if it were a cup of coffee... Ah! - he reminded -, he won't eat the glasses only because he can cut his intestines.

—'I must be dreaming…' — the lawyer thought, a little dizzy. He had already faced many strange situations, but now he felt as if he were in the presence of two aliens. Who was the madman there? After all, it was two against one. He was in the minority. And at that moment, Rui, the wise one, was grinning, seeming to understand and approve of everything his wife said — which gave more credibility to the unbelievable project. Rui opened his mouth to say something, but his wife didn't give him time:

—No one thought of it before! Every bit of the car, whether iron, plastic, rubber or wood, will be reduced to dust. Rui eats a portion each day and after a while he will have eaten all the Beetle. Is it or isn't it? Ate, didn't he? When someone says have ate they ate a whole chicken, he don't mean the chicken went down the gullet the way it came out of the oven.

—Really..." hesitated the lawyer, overcome by the infernal imagination and logic of the tireless ambitious. But an objection was inevitable: — But how are you going to reduce everything to daily dust?

—That's already settled!" A cousin of Rui works in a metallurgical plant near our house. In the factory and in this cousin's house there is the machinery I need. With chainsaw and other gadgets everything will be reduced to dust. I even thought about putting the powder inside capsules, to make it easier to swallow, but then I wouldn't have that shock anymore! In addition, people would suspect that they were being tricked with wheat flour capsules. Every day, ten minutes after stopping the factory, a worker cuts a piece of the Beetle, as if it were a steak, and then shreds it; after which Rui swallows it with water; or milk, which is healthier. What do you think of the plan?

The lawyer, seized with sudden melancholy, did not know what to think. Then he remembered the beginning of the conversation: — What do I get into all this?

—As the witnesses at the metallurgical plant are just workers, simple people, we thought we'd get an educated witness. You, as far as I know, teach at a College. In addition, you will know how to deal with the paperwork, register the beginning of the demonstration, the first swallowed. Appear in photos, supported, smiling.

— I keep dreaming...

—You also deserve to appear." After all, you came up with the idea. I thought, I mean, we thought, of inviting a judge, Dr. Salvador. Rui takes care of the garden at his house —, but the “big guy”, proud, full of wind, as soon as I finished speaking, he already scolded me. He was all scared, asking not to involve his name “in this madness”. He even looked like I was inviting him to rob a bank. Big guy! When I insisted, trying to convince him, he almost threw us out of his house. I think Rui lost his customer.

Paulo knew he had to protest but he lacked courage. Unfortunately, he was born with exaggerated doses of kindness, curiosity and patience — how many defendants had he defended without charging anything? — and he didn't want to offend that mole in a skirt, who was thinking of making him head of the legal and marketing department for the grotesque project. Mainly, he didn't want to discourage the already discouraged Rui, who was watching him with humble anxiety.

 Paulo felt sorry for him. How to close that kindly frustrated person's access to do something never done before?

Very carefully, the lawyer explained the best he could do was to write a statement, signed by both of them, plus a list of witnesses — without putting his name, a lawyer, mentioning the specific purpose of the feat, then taking that statement to a registry office for registration. And, when the digestive feat was over, he could declare what he knew about its veracity. But he stressed that he in no way wanted to see his name associated with this kind of thing in the press. He insisted that if he had known that his name was being linked to such an “enterprise, he would not make a statement. And he would cut ties.

She nodded, somewhat surprised by this reaction. She expected more enthusiasm from him. Then the couple left.

No sooner had they passed the gate the lawyer was already repenting, sitting in the visiting room. Almost ran back to do something. But it stopped in time. He had given in, once again, to his “weakness” in the definition of his wife. She used to chide him for keeping his word on silly promises that no one even remotely felt obligated to respect. In this pledge-to-the-given item he felt a certain solidarity, or identity, with the kind gardener.

When his wife arrived shortly afterwards, he gave her a summary of the conversation he had just had with them.

—What madness! A wingless ostrich! was the comment between astonished and amused, perhaps still not entirely convinced of the reality of that intention. She asked jokingly: — Is he going to swallow dry? No little wine to push?

—She says that Rui will swallow it with milk, because it is healthier...”

—Very healthy! Of course!... Look, if you're arrested for murder, I won't even visit you in jail! You had to forbid it! Forbid! People can't have too much freedom! Can't you see this guy is kind of retarded?! His wife is nothing but an ambitious assassin!

—But how could I stop it?

—Saying it's forbidden! Lying, threatening to notify the police! And the noble scholar of law still had to write a “declaration!” She rolled her eyes and gestured, twirling her index finger around her ear, as if to say that her husband's intelligence didn't go much further than the gardener's.

Then the lawyer got fed up. He ordered to stop being stupid, presumptuous and other bad things. He questioned her competence as a teacher, saying that instead of studying harder to teach better — it was a counter-attack to her criticism that he read too much — she pretended to teach, organizing seminars where the “little donkeys”, the students, brayed superficial opinions or kicked at typewriters, while the wise teacher — sat beside, her thick legs crossed, the posture of a wise woman, satisfied with her own ignorance. The discussion was heavy. But in order to prevent him from remarrying, while she was still alive, the woman decided not to mention the matter any longer. She recognized that her husband's fault was being too good, something rare in the world, now and forever. He held his tongue, apologized and an hour later they were fine. Even in excess, without clothes, tangled up in bed, a domestic wonder conceived by humanity for the sleep and reconciliation of couples.

On the eve of the "big start", or "Big Swallowed" — as written on the extended banner — Rui came to the lawyer's residence, asking him earnestly not to miss and not to forget to write, on the same day, that statement, a kind of minutes of the works.

The lawyer attended the event without any enthusiasm. It was a Saturday, so chosen because the factory was not open on that day. Rui's twin brother, that rash baby diver, was also present, without his wife, showing off his new car, smiling condescendingly, discreetly implying that his brother was a poor devil in need of moral support. He had been invited against Rui's wife's wishes. There was an old rivalry between the two.

The news of the “departure” had caused a certain sensation in the neighborhood. The hero's wife just didn't charge tickets because the lawyer said that would be ridiculous and would greatly reduce the number of witnesses, making it difficult to prove the record later. She agreed, but disgusted at this waste of money.

Don’t say I exaggerate, but the swallower's wife wanted horn and fanfare. It was Rui himself who, in an outbreak of common sense, opposed it. Modesty was ingrained in his nature. He wanted to appear in that book, of course, to be famous, but discreetly, as befits a great man. Just her name, not her face, her person, something like a bearded circus woman.

The gardener's wife read aloud a short speech written by a bad student of journalism — the lawyer was relieved that he had not been asked to write the nonsense — stressing that her husband intended to be in the Book of Records, performing "a feat never before tried. She emphasized that, with this achievement, Brazil would appear a little more “in the concert of nations” and that they expected to finish the “enterprise” in a given month, calculating the intake of three hundred grams of Beetles per day. He admitted that the feat would involve some risk, of course, but that “the valiant human spirit” overcame all difficulties”. At that time the gardener's brother controlled his mouth not to laugh.

When the speech was over, a worker solemnly, aware of his high responsibility, an old friend of the couple, cut off a piece of the rear fender with an electric saw, the “inaugural bite”. Then he ground the “little beef” in a noisy machine, located a few meters away from the Beetle. Wherever the “surgeon” moved, everyone was glued to the back, curious or laughing.

The car to be digested was well washed. The tireless businesswoman who, preparing her usual salads, meticulously washed tomatoes and lettuce, could not have done otherwise, allowing her husband to eat unscrupulously clean metal or plastic. The only reason the Beetle wasn't waxed, she explained, was because the oily grease could attack the champion's liver, which has been sensitive to fat since his experience with eggs.

When the grinding was over, Rui swallowed the first spoonful. The metallic crumb was pushed down her throat with a glass of milk. Then he blinked, his expression frightened, fearing that some formidable reaction might occur. But nothing happened right away, and the small audience, about thirty people, seeing that he wasn't falling hard, clapped their hands and cheered. Except for the lawyer, who belatedly recognized his wife's correctness in her criticism of his omission in that festival of blunders. He could have aborted the thing early on, even lying if necessary. It was too late now. The “tractor” was in motion. Incidentally, the two two-legged tractors.

Three days later, the lawyer had a sudden turning point in his professional life. A great friend from college days, from a very wealthy family, presided over the family businesses in another state, far away, after the death of his father. Needing to reorganize the legal department of the companies, with directors investigated for financial crimes - headed until then by a lawyer who, lately, took more pleasure in living with the bottles than with the codes and files of the process - this friend asked Dr. Paulo to undertake this restructuring, which would take a few weeks. As the remuneration was very inviting, the lawyer accepted the invitation, temporarily moving to another city.

With this change, the lawyer lost contact with the gardener. He even forgot about the matter, thinking, no doubt, that soon the gardener, so sensible - and, fortunately, with a sensitive liver, at least to eggs - would give up the absurd project.

According to later reports, the gardener, a few days after the start, began to lose weight, acquiring a greenish color. He decided to give up, after swallowing the rear bumper — the car would be eaten from the back. Then, next there would be the frame, chassis and engine. But the gardener’s wife did not allow it. The most indigestible part of the competition, it seems, had been the tire. Despite the fact that rubber was a “food” much less hard than the engine — in terms of rigidity, it would be equivalent to a black pudding — there was something in its chemical composition that attacked the guts, liver and other digestive organs of the struggling Pantagruel.

After a month and a half without contacting the gardener, the lawyer returned to his city, discreetly, preferring not to know the progress of the great digestive feat, but three days later he received a visit from the gardener's wife at night.

She was quite wilted: — It's a zebra! was her first sentence. — He can't go on… Now, I'm the one who doesn't want him to go on… There was a moment when he wanted to stop, but I didn't let him. After all, after so much effort! Now it's the other way around. He wants to go all the way, but I can already see that he can't take it. Lost about twenty kilos and has one shit after another. All of a sudden, after he ate the first tire. I don't understand! A poison, those Firestones! They should be banned! Rui feels pain on the left and right side. At first, he only felt heartburn, but now he complains of “knots” that make him squirm in bed, moaning like a tortured person. He doesn't want to go to the doctor because he thinks the guy is going to tell him to stop everything... After so much struggle?... I think it was the damn tires that hurt him. For you to see: precisely the softest part, the filet mignon of the Beetle. Could you visit him? Who knows, maybe he hears you...

—Madam, you must stop everything immediately! What if he dies?

—That's what I tell him!" At least a month break, to rest his stomach and intestines! But he doesn't want to stop... He says it's not long, just a front tire and the seats. It's a lie, there's so much more to go! The engine is still there, I saw it yesterday! But maybe he hears you.

The lawyer decided to make the visit immediately. He told his wife that he was going out and left in his car, accompanied by Rui's wife.

The gardener's house was his own, modest and small, but clean and well-kept.

When they entered, Rui was half lying on a sofa, facing the television, with several bottles and boxes of medicine beside him, most of them antacids and medicines for the liver. There were also remedies against excessive gas and “digestive” remedies, made from herbs. He had lost a lot of pounds and his color was earthy. Even his hair was disappearing.

The lawyer tried to disguise his bad impression. He feigned optimism and unconcern. They talked for several minutes, that is, Rui almost only listened, talking, with a tired air, both about the reason for the absence of the lawyer and about the direction of the solitary “competition”.

—So, Rui, I think you need to stop. You have already accomplished a remarkable feat...

—But it's missing two tires and the bumper—" he interrupted weakly.

—You're a little down... No need to exaggerate..."

At that moment, the businesswoman interjected to say that, with the exception of a certain metallurgical worker, very petty, envious, who frequently supervised the feat — hoping that it would fail — few people checked the progress of the thing. So, it wouldn't matter if, on the days when the “bad inspector” wasn't present, it could be falsely mentioned that Rui had eaten a little more of the tire, without this being true. After all, she argued, comparing to the total of the Beetle, two tires was a “junk”. And this variation in the size of the rest of the Beetle would no longer be noticed by the now rare observers. Due to Rui's gastric crises — which lent a dramatic tone to the feat — no longer maintained a regular swallowing rhythm, as had occurred at the beginning of the race. In short, she saw “nothing big” in doing a “little trickster”, perfectly justifiable, given the size of the Volkswagen Beetle and the state of her husband's health.

— I do not agree! - shrieked Rui loudly, trying to get to his feet, staggering. The visitor had never seen him so fierce against his wife. Overall, the gardener was a wimp, dominated by his wife. "Either I do everything right, or I give up!" I will not lie! When I wanted to stop, you didn't let me! Now, I'm going to the end!

The woman still tried to argue, but the husband, unrecognizable in his indignation, swept the medicine bottles and boxes on the table with his arm. With the movement almost fell. The lawyer held him back, saying that he was right and that everything would be done just right. In a low voice, he advised the woman not to speak further. She withdrew with her head down.

— I do not give up! I do not give up! And I won't fool anyone! he shouted desperately so the woman could hear him too.

The lawyer waited for him to calm down and suggested that he just suspend the test for a few days, just for a health check. He explained that, even if there was a pause, the beetle would be eaten whole, carrying out the feat. It had never been promised that there would be no break. And he would write the report or letter to Guinness, explaining that everything had been done just right, without fraud. This argument that there would only be a “rest break”, not a withdrawal, seemed to convince Rui. He accepted a medical examination - which would even add credibility and drama to the feat. And the progress of the test was officially suspended for fifteen days.

The next day the lawyer talked to a gastroenterologist, his friend and very seriously explained what was happening. The doctor listened to the report, mockingly at first — as if listening to a long joke — but growing more serious as he learned of the competitor's bad appearance. He ordered an endoscopy and several tests, all paid for by the lawyer. A few days later, with the results in hand, he called him to tell him, regretfully, that there was no doubt that the gardener was in terrible condition, at risk of death. Mentioned cancer and other problems.

— All caused by the ingestion of the Beetle? the lawyer asked, remorseful that he hadn't stopped the madness early on.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders: — It must be! In the medical literature I found no studies — neither serious nor even “playful”— about someone “eating a car”, a crazy eccentricity. I could keep looking, but I don't expect to find medical studies on such bullshit. Humanity uses but does not eat automobiles. I have many patients who ate only the best of the best and died of cancer. But it would be rash to say that this extravagance of your gardener contributed nothing to this outcome. It is not part of normal human behavior to swallow cars. No scientist will waste his time studying and writing about the effect of metal, plastic, rubber, etc. To carry out a serious study it would be necessary to find guinea pigs, mice that would never eat metal, plastics. As for human guinea pigs, who would agree to such experiments? Do you know if he ate the battery too? That's pure acid...

“I don't know, I think so, but only the metal. The acid is not part of the car, nor is the fuel. What I ask you is: what can now be done?

— Effective, nothing. There are several foci scattered around: pancreas, large intestine...

— And the chemotherapy?

—…just to delay the outcome.

After that the lawyer went to his house. He felt morally uncomfortable, as if responsible for the illness of a mentally handicapped person. He didn't blame anyone else but himself. Not even the gardener's wife. After all, she was an ignorant woman. In fact, in this case, as the “German” said, freedom was an evil.

In the evening, talking to Helena, she, with her usual practical sense, completely changed the previous approach. She told her husband that there was no reason to feel guilty, as he had not taken any initiative. It had even discouraged the feat. But although from a strictly logical point of view he could clearly prove to himself that he was not responsible, the bad feeling persisted. I could, for example, have said that Guinness no longer accepts such records.

The problem now was to tell Rui that he was doomed to die soon. Or rather, hide the fact.     

A little less than a month later, the lawyer paid another visit to the stubborn couple. The gardener was even worse, but lying down, he proudly reported that he had completed the test. He had “accelerated” the work, eating “the rest”. The plate was the last course, symbolically. He had finished the task the day before, with a little party with sodas and snacks. Rui himself had eaten something, vomiting shortly afterwards in the bathroom.

        The lawyer did not reveal anything to the patient about the conversation with the doctor — he said that he was still studying the exams — and explained that the next day he would fill in the “record approval proposal”, which he would forward to the direction of the competent editor. At home, soon after, in addition to filling out the form, he wrote a long letter, highlighting the feat and even exploring the gardener's personal sacrifice. When the letter was over, he wondered if it might not be better to try to make personal contact with a lawyer who would look after the interests of the publisher of the Book of Records.

            After a series of phone calls, he learned that the company was no longer interested in publicizing such extravagances, which were very harmful to health. And even if this policy did not prevail, Rui's feat was neither the only nor the greatest. They had already eaten a “Cessna” plane, a television, a few grocery carts, a bicycle, a typewriter, and other movables.

Rui was now wasting away, in the final stretch, but always anxious for an answer. He wanted to know, after all, when he was going to appear in the Guinness Book of Records. When the lawyer visited, he received him with glassy eyes, already living with death. When his name would be in the immortality of things printed?

The pressure of those eyes drove Dr. Paulo to compromise with ethics and the Penal Code. The man had to die happy! So, he forged a Guinness letter addressed to Rui, saying that he had achieved the record he had set himself to achieve. The title would be The Man with the Stomach of Steel. Name and feat would be in the following year's edition. By then, the gardener's sympathetic carcass would be buried long ago. It was an ideological falsehood without any deceit. But even so, its author took care to obtain the prior agreement, in writing, of the gardener's wife. If he didn't, he wasn't sure that in the future he wouldn't be a defendant in a claim for damages, brought by the ambitious “businesswoman”.

            The gardener's wife read the letter to her husband aloud with solemn accents. Motionless, Rui was squeezing both arms of the chair, he was afraid of floating, he was so happy to be featured in the book.

Two days later the gardener died. The lawyer cried when he was told, something he hadn't done in years. His wife, the “German”, always cold, objective, just gasped, her eyes red. In addition to crying, Paulo had a very vivid dream: he “saw” the smoky soul of the unfortunate gardener ascending to heaven, being welcomed there by a smiling, bearded old man — it must have been Saint Peter —, who, lovingly holding his hand, forgave Rui for the peccadillo of vanity. So welcoming was the holy porter that he even joked, pretending to hide—behind his back—with his other hand the bronze key to heaven's door, preserving it from a saint's appetite.

 

THE END.

Francisco Cesar Pinheiro Rodrigues 
            Desembardor aposentado
            oripec@terra.com.br

Writer, blogger, novelist, short story writer, commentator of themes related to international politics and legal issues.

I am a retired judge (Justice of Law / Magistrate) from the Court of Justice in the State of São Paulo, Brazil.   

         Note: The present long tale — or is it a short novel? —is part of the e-book
         “Tragedy on the Greek Island”,

        Marketed -  by Amazon.com