Catch me in rye

I tried not to think about him, but how could I, given the fact that every time I turned around I could see his underwear on top of the laundry pile. I took a couple of sleeping pills and dozed off. At least, being unconscious for many hours would do the job and get me some peace. In the morning I might feel stronger. The morning came and it was ok. As always, I felt like sleeping longer, but I got up, got dressed and got into the car with my dad, headed for work. We talked about the real state market for a while and I think he couldn’t tell I was unhappy. At work, I sat on my desk and started doing all the boring office things I do everyday. I was calm. But I stopped being calm when I sensed a strong smell of strawberry yogurt and found out that a small pot of it had burst inside my handbag, making it all look like a disgusting female objects pink soup.

That’s when I lost it. I mean, I didn’t lose it, lose it. I didn’t go around screaming about how live sucked with my hands in the air, trying to choke the next person I saw. Politely, I took a couple of tissues and stated cleaning up my stuff. If you had saw me, you would have believed I was as Zen as a Buddhist monk. But inside I was dying of a burning rage.

I hate everything about my work. How the place smells like raw meat, the strong air conditioning that makes me cold, the boring frivolous people doing inventory on their computers and listening to tasteless music. I am only here for two reasons, the first is to please my dad, and the second is to make enough money to go to Uruguay or Spain or somewhere else where there is no resemblance of any rural landscape, or my native language. I want to have enough dough so I can give him his dream trip.

Did I mention how much I hate yogurt? I just hate it. And all other products that derive from milk. Except for cheese, off course. How can a person enjoy good wine without good cheese? And I am a pretty big fan of wine and other products that derive from alcohol. The only reason I had that yogurt in my bag this morning is because my mother keeps telling me how I need to eat it because its good for me, its good for my slow metabolism. So I just put in the bag and say “I’ll have it later”.

Sunday Night Television

O domingo estava acabando, e a menina, com medo de alguém querer ver TV, sugeriu ao namorado que eles fossem até o barzinho que ficava na rua principal. Lá era servida a mais deliciosa caipivodka de morango do mundo. Com certeza tinha algum ingrediente secreto. A menina lembrou da vez que o rabino lhe dissera que judeus não podiam comer sorvete, porque um dos ingredientes era pó de inseto. Aparentemente, a ingestão de pernilongos e mosquitos não era conivente com a conduta de qualquer seguidor do judaísmo.

Era uma noite quente de verão na primavera e os dois namoricavam em uma mesa ao fundo do bar, trocando sorrisos e promessas perigosíssimas de se amar para sempre. Foi quando os corajosos amantes surpreenderam-se com cutucões de um senhor careca, que usava óculos escuros de lente redonda, uma camisa branca listrada de azul claro com alguns botões abertos, mostrando os pelos grisalhos do peito. Ele parecia estar completamente bêbado, tinha um cordão dourado em volta do pescoço cortado de onde o sangue escorria pela camisa, pelo peito e os braços.

O sangrento senhor sentou-se ao próximo à mesa do casal e começou a dizer ao namorado que ele era um cara de sorte, pois a menina que o acompanhava era adoravelmente linda. Mas o namorado não se perguntava porque, dentre tantas pessoas, tantos pares, em tantas mesas, o velho teria escolhido logo ele para puxar papo. O namorado só conseguia imaginar em que momento o individuo sacaria qualquer tipo de arma para feri-lo e ameaçar a menina, que era realmente muito bonita. Tem gente que às vezes acha alguém ou alguma coisa tão bela que sente vontade de estragar.

O sangue continuava escorrendo em grande quantidade enquanto o rosto do velho ficava cada vez mais pálido. A menina achou totalmente previsível quando o estranho começou a falar que a mulher dele havia o deixado e bla bla bla. Enquanto o namorado se ocupava em se preocupar com a integridade moral e física de todos, a menina tentava desvendar através de reflexão introspectiva, como foi que o velho tinha recebido aquele corte. Garrafada na cabeça? Facada? Briga de bar? Briga com a tal mulher? Animal selvagem? Linha de cerol? Nunca se pode descartar a possibilidade do suicídio. E se o cara pensava que estava morto e não estava? Mais embaraçoso que morrer e pensar que ainda está vivo, enchendo o saco de familiares com assombrações, deve ser pensar que morreu e ainda estar andando por aí com a cabeça cortada pela metade.

O moço foi perdendo mais e mais sangue até que caiu no chão desacordado, finalmente morto, talvez. Parecia que ninguém mais estava vendo aquele cara muito louco de aparência aterrorizante. O namorado então chamou uma ambulância ou um carro funerário, ou o açougueiro, sei lá. E levaram o moribundo.

A menina mexeu o gelo da caipivodka com o canudinho algumas vezes. Bebeu até fazer aquele barulho de copo vazio que a mãe dela sempre disse que era falta de educação mas ela nunca acreditou. O namorado então lhe deu um beijo na bochecha e disse “linda!”. Ela chamou o garçon e pediu mais um drink.

Sinto sede de cores; só o vermelho satisfaz meus olhos. A intensidade e o calor, a paixão, o sangue, o ódio, a força, a hipnose, o destaque. Tudo isso sobre o fundo verde e frio na tela da vida. Sob o fundo azul e frio do céu.

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"Que seria cor, detalhe que fugia aos seus dedos, escapava ao seu olfato conhecedor das almas e dos corpos, que o seu ouvido apurado não aprendia, e que era vermelho nas cerejas, nos morangos e em certas gelatinas, mas nada tinha em comum com o adocicado de outras frutas e se encontrava também nos vestidos, nos lábios (seriam os seus vermelhos também e convidariam ao beijo, como nos anúncios de rádio?), em certas cortinas, naquele cinzeiro áspero da mesinha do centro, em determinadas rosas (e havia brancas e amarelas), na pesada poltrona que ficava à direita e onde se afundava feliz, para ouvir novelas?"
Origenes Lessa - As cores

The story of Emily Beerhouse

Emily Beerhouse was talking to her shrink about the fact that her mother wanted her to go on rehab. Mrs. Beerhouse was one of those mothers that tries to run her home like a headquarters, but it never really works out. Emily was always getting into all kinds of trouble ever since a very young age. As a kid, she would always pick up fights with the other children at school and as soon as the teen years hit her, she started drinking and taking drugs, which lead also to promiscuous sex.

Emily was an only child and her parents had split up right about the time when she started sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night to go to parties with older friends and boyfriends. No one really knows if her disobedient behavior is what caused her parent’s marriage crisis, of if it was the other way around. But I suppose one can always take a guess.

Her father has always been very protective of her, but known to let her get away with murder. That’s a figure of speech, of course, Emily never really killed anyone that we know about. She did try to kill herself a couple of times, over the years, unsuccessfully.

Once at the age of 15, Emily came home pucking her guts out from having drunk three full bottles of red wine. Mrs. Beerhouse was shocked and her first thought was that her daughter was vomiting blood. Emily was also shaking and couldn’t really say things that made much sense. Her stockings where ripped and she had all kinds of scratches on her arms and legs and on the side of her face.

Mrs. Beerhouse had the worse in her mind when she saw Emily like that. Maybe Emily had been attacked by a wild animal, or gotten run over by a car, maybe someone poisoned her drink and raped her and even stole one of her kidneys. Meanwhile Mr. Beerhouse took the girl into the bathroom so she would stop messing up the house with her red regurgitation. He told her it would all be just fine and gave her a glass of water, which she could barely hold. “Sip it, don’t skull”, he advised, “Tomorrow you will feel worse than you do now, and maybe you can learn not to do this again”.

The father sat on the bathroom floor and watched as his daughter hold on to the toilet bowl with such hope. His wife was out of control walking up and down the house screaming about how Emily was an embarrassment to the family and what could she have possibly done wrong as a mother. Again, one may feel free to take a guess on that one too. That night, Mrs. Beerhouse was so out of control that she kicked Doctor Mustache, the family cat, right into a wall. After that, he never had those sexy feline moves again.

Obviously, the next morning, Emily couldn’t remember a thing. Not even how she had been able to get home. He had lost her purse which contained two hundred Dollars (almost her entire monthly pay for working part time at a coffee shop), her mobile phone, her ID and the rest of her cocaine. After Mrs. Beerhouse insisted, a friend of Emily’s said that she left the party with a bunch on people to go skinny dipping at the beach, but after an hour or so, someone saw that she had fallen into a bush by the side of the road and just passed out over there. Timmy, this lovely guy with a lot of acne drove her home.