Anticipation of absence

 

Dona Maria, Lúcio's, is in agony. Also Luís de Beco. And the many children. The pains are not removed by the good will of men, by going to the pharmacy and the doctors say that it is a matter of time. The time of the black stain that will come, we don't know when, nor how nor why, choose our body to give the final axe. We want to cling to the age-old idea that an angel is waiting for us on the other side or that, on the other hand, such a stain will only appear when it has stained all the others, because we have been given the immortal eye on the mortality of others. And the weariness of agonies and the fear of the unknown fill the seconds, while the gaze of others scrutinizes ours and finds emptiness. You can't see fear, no shadow, no nothing. Because, in fact, we are at ease, in this apparent tranquility of acceptance. We accepted it because we didn't know any other way to experience this grand finale. 

 -What do you feel like today? A soup with old chicken? Or a baked apple? Drink it, drink that yogurt, it has vitamins. They say it can prolong life, it's Long life. Or Agros, what difference does it make? The cushions are adjusted for the fiftieth time. What are we to do with our impotence? We have to make use of it. The hands fall inert and the sighs come out bitter and long. Nonsense grows during this period. When you don't feel like seeing anyone. Not even being with you. 

 Lethal sleep will come without an appointment, and if sometimes you want it, other times you want it for others. Why me? It always sounds like an unleashed plague, without face or intention. It grinds his judgment, that he has to eat, that broken sack does not stand up. To see clean what is clean. And she doesn't even have the strength to scream at you: let the dust accumulate. Leave it. Look at me, because there will be little left to judge by what I feel in my guts. They didn't even want me for chemotherapy. Not even for study.

See who has sung and danced so much in this life. And you say I'm beautiful and you give me your hand, because youth still watches over you. Because you don't know what it's like to see the hope of participating in life disappear. That runs through your veins. That swells your hands in the summer. I'm afraid to leave. I'm screaming this fear at you, but you don't even realize it. Because on my lips you see the same yellow smile, faded and as worn as that cloth you carry everywhere.

I feel like telling you that I love you. That I will always be here even when the other one comes to pick me up and the funeral record is rehearsed. When you will say goodbye to me. And the others, all the others, that I have become accustomed to loving. Everyone else who has lived with or without me. Every day I lie in this same position, with the sun high outside, or the certain rain beating against the window pane. Every day while I watch you cooking, every damn day when everything hurts, I say goodbye to you. And even the birds and plants, which I miss. If you ask me if I still believe in God, I will tell you that I need Him to keep waiting. Because I want to yell at him. But I accept that God exists without time for all the faithful. It's just that the line where I find myself seems to not even move. Thankfully. Because from one moment to the next it will be me and, without realizing it, it will certainly hurt less. It's not fear of death. It's the stranger who arrives and doesn't bring a smile on his welcoming lips and doesn't even ask us what we think, if we're ready or leave something unfinished.And it robs us of the existence that was ours and also of others. And it takes us with no turning back. They say they see the light. In the meantime, they are already walking around the stove, almost on little woolly feet, as if the silence didn't bother any more than all the noises of life passing by! - I learn a prayer to say for you