Election Day in Tugoland

 

After a beautiful summer day, I went to bed early to rest, after having spoken to my mother, to give her a kiss.

I woke up early. 8.30am. I had arranged to stop by Paços de Sousa so they could accompany me to vote. We stopped at the bakery for breakfast, which was completely full. There was a small table in the corner with two seats and with some levity on my part, we took it. After our dose of caffeine and half of the nicotine dose (half a cigarette), we got on the boat to go to the polling station in Marecos "city". When we got in, there was no one there, except for the members of the voting staff and the people at the polling station. They said my name out loud, I heard them talking about the Ramos family, I knew they were talking about the Ramos name and because of me, I turned it off, picked up the ballot paper and thought: Wow, so many parties, I wonder if we could unite them all, could we achieve anything? Cynicism drew the usual wrinkle between my upper lip and nose. No one saw it. Only my father. I put my cross on my usual party and the image I saw was that of the people who represent it, that grid. Because when I vote, I insist on voting for people with faces and not for groups with interests. My utopia remains. I heard Tomás' name and, under one of the booths, I saw his sneakers and said: Tomás, I'll wait for you outside. I barely had time. I picked up my citizen's card and already had it by my side. We didn't talk about political parties, nor about the politics practiced by them. I heard him ask me: Mom, how do we know that any of those members who were there, if they are from one of the targeted parties, won't throw away or adulterate our vote? I explained to him, in my (still) utopian vision of humanity, that I believe there is ethics and morals, that there is some impartiality or exemption and that, in my opinion, there must be, in addition to the usual local vowels who are always present, someone randomly assigned to be present and, in some way, regulate and maintain the democratic principles to which all citizens are entitled, as well as the duty to provide clarification in case of any doubt. I am not exactly sure about this, son, but this is what I believe and intend to continue to believe. I bought two loaves of regueifa bread and a cornbread. We planned something for Grandma Eva's birthday, which is coming up. We talked about everything and nothing, between soliloquies and reticence. I kissed him and said see you soon. I left quickly. The cramps persist. Yesterday we met Nurse Júlia, my mother's non-blood sister, at my brother's house, where I've been staying, to accompany my mother. We arranged a few things and sorted out others. It's getting dark. When I went to vote, a few drops of tropical rain made me turn on the car's windshield wipers. Strangely enough, I received a message from the Paredes Health Center last night, that is, Saturday, rescheduling a family appointment (family doctor) for Monday afternoon. They forgot about my mother's appointment. We had scheduled an appointment only in May. I brought it forward to April, the 11th, when her tests were more than complete. On April 10th (the date of my father's death, in 1975), they called us to inform us that the appointments had been suspended because the family doctor was on sick leave. Now, that the same doctor is on sick leave, my mother's appointment has not been scheduled. And it smells like a scam to me. With my dear brother in the middle. As I am already used to scuffles (following my intuition) I prepare myself for the usual cleaning (no ethnic cleansing) that I do, every time my intuition calls me. I grab the cloths, the detergents, the mop and go clean, as I have often done, at my brother's house, from bathing my mother, cooking lunch, folding clothes, making my mother's bed, cleaning the verandas and washing a lot of dishes, which my brother believes he lives like royalty and cooks for an army, when there are only three of us. Separate trash. On account of his marquee, I remembered a woman whose name I forgot in a must-be who had a temporary boyfriend named Georg, a German who, when he saw her in the kitchen using containers and vegetables, and not separating the trash (this was in 90), threw herself to the floor, in a fit of APOCALYPSE NOW, which I found very funny, because his humorous remarks were always very funny and repercussion, since we were talking about German citizens from Virgo (mutable earth, those with a strong ascendant in fixed earth) and whose episode was never forgotten. People are like the regimes in which they live. A person can be or be based on a regime. Totalitarians, normally, can be analyzed in a simple scope and even, in a certain way, changed, if there is someone with Mercury, Uranus or even the Moon as ruler. How? By dismantling, through the communication of ideas, that is, deconstructing the previous idea or offering a new one with a date of realization or change. Georg was a totalitarian, he was the only one in charge at home, in his beautiful chaise longue, in his Turkish bath, in his private sauna, all inside his house, three or four kilometers from his parents, a man of forty who loved to spend his holidays, guess what, in Thailand, where he had, free of charge, a sexual paradise of minors. 

There are many totalitarian citizens. We have to open our eyes and shake them (shake their foundations), offering them a pass to a completely different world. Where they can be sodomized, instead of sodomizing. Of course, this is me talking to myself, in my Sunday monologues. In my family - the core group - there are totalitarian citizens. If they could, they would establish themselves as their own private regime, with a private paradise and a privatized hell. I don't advise them. But that's me, who is highly communal, as far as the world of ideas and practice is concerned, in my modus operandi. There are few like me. They should multiply. Dad tells me no. That rare jewels are very rarely appreciated by the rods. Understood, Dad. And now that I've had enough and overflowed, I'm going to lie down on my side, to see if I can get some sleep. I'd like the pain to subside. Tomorrow, I'll see a doctor. Good thing.