Dream by Carlos Mota - HTML preview

5-Memória

- The light has turned green! Let’s go in, come on! Quickly! Banana opened the door and entered, while the driver pulled Gustavo by one arm and they both went in, with difficulty, because they almost didn’t fit in the space.

- So, dear friend? Is everything all right with you? I am sorry you had to wait, but I had many things to take care of. Fortunately they weren’t matters like yours, they were more complicated problems. Anyway life is full of this, have you noticed, of waiting! We have to be patient. I once had a girlfriend who always used to tell me: love is waiting, or knowing how to wait! I ended up agreeing with her, she was a very important person to me, she taught me many things, like that for example. She taught me that love is often rejection, it is patience, the day-to-day courage, it is knowing how to wait, not waiting for the sake of it, but waiting because you understand that the Other, the one we love, needs us to wait, they have their own life, their own needs, their work. We can’t just think about ourselves; that is selfishness. Life is made up of waiting, even when it costs us, it is part of our brief existence, and what’s more, waiting often while our own existence passes by… I hope you are enjoying this, Gustavo; I feel inspired today. This speech isn’t bad, is it? Look, it’s not often I talk like this! Normally I don’t express myself very well, but sometimes I do think I say a few things. Oh well, it is what we can manage! For you, friend, I would always try something nice. Jorge, did you offer our friend something?

- Jorge? So that was Banana’s real name! It had taken so many years to find that out, and he had found out now in these bizarre circumstances!

- Of course, boss, I had someone give him a bevvy.

- Is that enough for you, Gustavo? I don’t want you to feel bad!

- It is enough… He felt stunned. He couldn’t understand anything. He thought about that sentence which had occurred to him, or that someone had told him, increasingly more “I don’t know what to think”. It turned out that the head of Surveillance, or the man who coordinated the control of the population was someone he knew, had known for a long time! He felt unnerved, exhausted, he felt like he had been betrayed by his own stupidity. He had trusted this guy and told him a wrong thought: his idea of leaving that place! The man had heard him. He remembered thinking that he was the only person who he could tell such a thought to and had done it, when possibly that man, who he now looked at from head to toe, should have been precisely the last person he could have confessed a wrong thought to!

Emílio turned to him, looked at him. He didn’t speak to him straight away. He took a deep breath. He didn’t seem to feel anger when he looked at him, or contempt, just curiosity. And it remained curious, because Emílio knew him extremely well!

- Don’t you know why you are here? Don’t lie, answer! I will try, Gustavo told him. Is it because I read the Gazette? Or because I told you I would like to emigrate, to leave here?

- A bit of both, Gustavo. But mostly because you wanted to emigrate!

- I don’t really understand any of that, Emílio! I didn’t harm anyone! What do you want from me? To kill me?

- That never! If you are here, Gustavo, it is precisely because we don’t kill anyone, I mean, only in circumstances absolutely