David Arioch – Jornalismo Cultural

The more I walked inside the shop, the more I felt like walking through Nell Trent’s grandfather’s antique shop

I walked to the back of the shop and showed her an old small brown wooden chest (Photo: David Arioch)

It happened in my town when I was 14 years old. As I walked down the street on Christmas Eve, the rain was thin on the busy downtown. I looked at the turbid sky and didn’t understand how the water that touched my body could be warm while it dampened my head in a solemn short cold interval.

I was intrigued and I saw a purpose. The drops that crashed against my scalp and my forehead, dripping between my eyes, sliding down my nose, and making the contours of my mouth before jumping from my chin to my chest, reduced my drowsiness and sent me warning signs, it demanded my attention where I walked.

Until then, I walked like a peculiar kind of incorrigible sleepwalker. I had slept less than five hours and I felt my eyes warm, tired and flushed. My reflection in the shop window revealed a tangled and abstract aspect. I heard acute, mild, severe and oscillating voices on all sides, but I couldn’t identify words. “Are they really speaking English?” This question protruded from my consciousness.

Mixed with rain, sometimes violent, sometimes calm, falling from the branches of trees that shaded the narrow sidewalk, the unexpected smell of wet earth in Mine Street inebriated me. The fairy lights colored the drops that returned to natural transparency when it released from its plastic and glass hosts. The truth is that I noticed just what glittered or amplified my senses.

People talked to me. I didn’t know who they were or what they said. Confused, I limited myself to smile as much as possible, without showing too many teeth. I felt very tired and my bleary eyes didn’t help me deal properly with human interaction that morning.

After a long walk, I scratched my eyes and stopped in front of a mirror of an antique shop. “Hmm, now I’m getting better. Soon I’ll feel 100%”, I concluded. A nice lady invited me to visit the place. The entrance was narrow, but the interior space was big and seemed so inviting and mysterious, that I had a sudden urge to spend hours there.

Fragrances of cloves, vanilla, amber, sandalwood and musk, distributed in various antiquarian points, leading the visitor to feel like part of a divided reality into fragments, with perfumes that enriched objects, the shop owner asked if I would like to see something special. I said no, and she left me at ease. Previously, she told me that she devoted many years of her life buying and collecting objects from 1910 to 1970.

“My father passed away over 30 years ago. He was a collector of things that people considered obsolete or of little value. ‘How something that marked a period and demanded days and even months of effort, may someday be seen as insignificant? There is nothing in the world that deserves such depreciation”, he told this to Martha, the owner of the antique shop before leaving to meet a client who was looking for a music box.

The more I walked inside the shop, the more I felt like walking through Nell Trent’s grandfather’s antique shop, immortalized by Charles Dickens. For a moment, it also reminded me of the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” by Frank Capra. Well, in my case and at that time, happiness could be purchased.  However, the reality was a destroyers desire. I opened my grizzly and battered wallet, counted the notes and coins which bobbed into my pocket, and I quickly made sure that nothing there fit in my budget.

The sadness hit me hard. It made me perspire, moistening my hands and the few notes of low value that I looked crestfallen. The coins have lost their luster, as if they were powerless, destroyed by circumstance. By far, Martha noticed the moment I quickly cringed to put money in my pocket and left the antiquarian.

She interrupted me and asked if I appreciated anything. I said yes. “Ok, then why won’t you take anything?” I hesitated for a few seconds. I felt trapped, like a helpless animal. Seeing in her face a comforting expression of benevolence, I just told her that I didn’t have money to buy anything in her shop.

“Why not? How much do you have?” Reluctantly, my hands were shaking when I took the notes and coins from my pocket. Marta smiled and asked me to show her which object pleased me most.

I walked to the back of the shop and showed her an old small brown wooden chest that cost more than double of my savings. “Who will you give it to? It’s a nice Christmas present! You have good taste!”, commented Martha, making me blush. I explained that it would be for my mother. Then she asked if there was something in my pocket. I took a piece of white paper that carried a little poem of mine called “Faience Child”.

Martha read it carefully, smiled and, to my surprise, declared that “my work” covered the rest of the amount. Before leaving, she asked me to autograph the poem and to help her put it in a golden frame of baroque inspiration . “Now we have a valuable framework,” she emphasized.

We said goodbye and she accompanied me to the shop’s entrance, where I saw her smiling graciously until the time that I disappeared from her sight. Excited, I walked through Vargas Street and I returned home watching the sun clearing the cloudy morning, drying the asphalt and illuminating the scene, vehicles, people and animals which were covered by the same warm and lilting mantle.

The following month, I took my mother to the antiquarian. When we got there, there was nothing, only a rent board. “A glimpse of passing faces caught by the light of a street-lamp or a shop window is often better for my purpose than their full revelation in the daylight”, wrote Charles Dickens in “The Old Curiosity Shop”.

Segundo a lei islâmica, a barba só pode ser aparada quando atingir o tamanho de uma mão fechada

Segundo Abu Darba, o profeta Maomé diz não ter nenhuma ligação com aquele que não tem barba (Foto: Reprodução)

No mundo todo, é grande o número de pessoas que não sabem o motivo pelo qual os muçulmanos usam barba. Foi pensando nisso que o Mufti Afzal Hoosen Elias, jurisconsulto e intérprete do Alcorão, escreveu o folhetim “Sobre o Comprimento da Barba”.

Nele, Elias explica que o uso da barba é uma forma dos homens sentirem-se mais próximos dos ensinamentos do profeta Rasulullah (Maomé). “Para aqueles que veem a barba como algo trivial, que Alá possa guiá-los. Mas para aqueles que desejam aprender e praticar o que é certo, tenho provas suficientes da importância da barba. E elas foram extraídas do Hadith, do Alcorão”, escreveu o Mufti Elias.

Nas palavras registradas por Abu Darda no Hadith 501, do Alcorão, o profeta Maomé diz não ter nenhuma ligação com aquele que não tem barba. Segundo os ensinamentos de Hadhrat Ammar Bin Yaasir, Abdullah Ibn Umar, Sayyidina Umar, Abu Hurairah e Jaabir, a barba deve ser cultivada longa. Somente durante o Haji ou Umrah, quando os muçulmanos peregrinam até a Meca, que eles aparam suas barbas, mas sem deixá-las menores do que o tamanho de um punho.

“Aqueles que imitam os descrentes e morrem nesse estado, se juntarão a eles no Dia do Qiyamat (juízo final]”, escreveu Hadhrat Abdullah Ibn Umar em referência aos que abandonam, por exemplo, a barba. Em relato de Ibn Umar, no Hadith 498, Rasulullah recomenda que os homens mantenham o bigode curto, mas deixem a barba crescer. Recomendação parecida aparece no Hadith 500.

Maomé diz também que nenhum homem sem barba tem direito ao perdão de Alá, de acordo com transcrição de Ibn Abbas. Além disso, a recomendação de Al-Tirmidhi, registrada por Ibn Umar, é de que a barba seja aparada somente quando ela atingir o tamanho de uma mão fechada.

No contexto do islamismo fazer a barba se enquadra como haraam, ou seja, um ato proibido pela fé islâmica. O Muwatta, uma das primeiras coleções do Hadith, escrito por Imam Malik, o primeiro sheik do Islã, diz que os únicos que não usam barba são os hermafroditas, ou seja, pessoas que possuem tanto o órgão sexual masculino quanto o feminino.

Para a Hanbali, uma das quatro escolas sunitas ortodoxas, referência em jurisprudência islâmica, o crescimento da barba é fundamental e cortá-la é pecado. Tal defesa pode ser encontrada em livros como “Sharahul Muntahaa” e “Sharr Manzoomatul Aadaab”.

“Um homem sem barba é um sujeito injusto e legalmente falando jamais seria concedido a ele o direito de ser um imã [um estudioso do Islã]”, consta na página 523 do primeiro volume do livro islâmico “Shami”. Para os fundamentalistas, muçulmanos sem barba não devem ter o direito de votar ou de se candidatar a algum cargo no contexto da Charia. “A chave para a felicidade total encontra-se em seguir a Sunnah e imitar a vida de Rasulullah no que diz respeito a tudo, incluindo sua maneira de comer, dormir e falar”, escreveu o Imã Ghazzali.

“Santo é o ser rodeado de homens com barba e mulheres com tranças”, consta na página 331 do terceiro volume de “Takmela e Bahr al Raiw.”

 Saiba Mais

Abu Darda era um dos companheiros do profeta Maomé.

O Hadith é o registro dos preceitos de Maomé.

Após o Alcorão, a Sunnah é a segunda fonte mais importante das leis islâmicas.

Referências

Elias, Agzal Mufti. From The Shari Length of the Beard.

http://www.islam.tc/beard/beard.html

Contribuição

Este é um blog independente, caso queira contribuir com o meu trabalho, você pode fazer uma doação clicando no botão doar:

EP contém sete músicas na versão CD

“Parceiros, Amigos, Amores” – Não tiro mais este CD do player do meu carro. Música da mais alta qualidade feita pelo brother Willian Mattos. Logo mais sai minha reportagem sobre o Kanis. Uma banda que merece ser ouvida e logo mais deve ocupar posição de destaque no cenário musical independente. Sem dúvida, uma boa surpresa paranaense.

Para quem quiser conhecer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jnd7eKuQWRk

It was 7:50 a.m., and the sun lit up the room with an intensity that relegated the lamps lit to uselessness

After having my chest pressed several times and in several positions, I left the examination room (Photo: Copy)

Today, I went to a clinic for an examination. Once there, I gave the health plan request to the receptionist and she asked: “Who’s the patient? Where is your wife?” I answered that I was the patient. Embarrassed, the girl apologized. For a moment, I wanted to laugh as I remembered her saying: “Where is your wife”, but I didn’t want to leave her embarrassed. Once she confirmed my data and handed me a pink badge written MAMMOGRAPHY, I understood why she asked “Who’s the patient? Where is your wife?”

With the identification of the examination in my hand, I walked to a quiet waiting room. It was 7:50 a.m., and the sun lit up the room with an intensity that relegated the lamps lit to uselessness. When they saw me, three women could not take their eyes off of my badge written MAMMOGRAPHY. And I was thinking, inert in a veiled smile and wordlessly: “Yes! I’m a man and I will do mammography. That’s it! Draw your conclusions. I can also have fun interpreting your thoughts.”

My pink badge sparkled even more with the warm incidence of the sun. It was aiming more strongly where I sat. No problem! It did not take too much time for the three women to be called to an exam room. Alone, I changed my place, because there was sunlight everywhere, warming my back, arms and face. I felt better when I could hide myself under a white wall.

I was standing there with my badge while the TV showed stories of corruption and cheating. I watched a guy saying that the electricity theft in Brazil corresponds to the energy consumed in the state of Paraná. OK! At that moment, everything seemed to revolve around energy, including the sun that was still sneaking in the window.

Soon the room began to fill, and no one avoided looking at my badge. “It’s all right! It’s all right! That’s right! I will do MAMMOGRAPHY”, I thought again. In the meantime, a friend, Rafael, saw me and came to congratulate me for my texts, which pleased me because it helped distract me from all the inquisitive looks.

I was at least 40 minutes waiting for my turn, which was unusual, since I saw people who arrived after me were being attended to before me. I got up, I went to the reception and I asked if it would take a long time for me to be attended. All around me, more people looked at my pink badge. In another waiting room, I saw someone pointing at me and commenting: “That boy will do mammography. That’s weird!”

They pronounced my name: “Davi”, not David, wich I hadn’t been called since I was a baby. I walked to the technical assistant in mammography and she apologized. She told me that the examination, in the way requested by the mastologist, required adjustments on the machine, explaining the delay. “Someone with breast cancer in the family?” I said no. I was there to make bilateral mammography with the intention to evaluate the disappearance of a mild gynecomastia.

After having my chest pressed several times and in several positions, I left the examination room feeling my marked chest and I walked to the exit. Before entering the streets, I heard a whispering woman close to the door: “I didn’t know men can also get breast cancer.” Without bothering to explain the reason for my visit to the clinic, I replied: “Well, lady, tell you husband and your sons to be very careful. The greatest danger comes when milk suddenly drips from the nipple. “Startled, she cowered in a corner with glazed eyes.

Foto: Guimarães Junior

Todo ano, minha mãe escreve uma carta que recebo somente no dia do meu aniversário. É uma tradição. Assim como tenho feito nos últimos anos, faço questão de compartilhar o conteúdo, afinal trata-se de um dos melhores presentes que um filho pode receber:

Sou mãe de três filhos maravilhosos. Já passamos por muitos momentos tristes. Perdemos muitas pessoas queridas, então me apeguei com Deus e meus filhos. Devo dizer que minha força vem da nossa união familiar. Aprendemos a ter gratidão por tudo, mas principalmente por aqueles que estendem a mão, semeando de alguma forma a felicidade.

Foto: David Arioch

Fui ontem na Vila Alta, bairro da periferia de Paranavaí, conversar com um amigo, o artista plástico Luiz Carlos Prates de Lima. Na ocasião, ele e outros moradores me relataram que nas últimas duas semanas apareceram vários candidatos a vereador, que até então nunca foram ao bairro, alegando serem os responsáveis pelo asfalto que existe naquele lugar desde o ano passado.

Na realidade, toda a malha viária da Vila Alta foi feita através de uma reivindicação dos próprios moradores, e com recursos do PAC. Ou seja, tais candidatos são basicamente mentirosos e picaretas querendo levar vantagem sobre os mais humildes.

Vão a bairros pobres para tentar enganar os moradores. Depois me perguntam porque é desanimador votar hoje em dia. É esse tipo de gente que mais briga para ocupar um cargo eletivo na atualidade.

She was an artist and a work of art, a platter author who has learned to be guided by the wind

Dark and tiny, she seemed free to do whatever she wanted in her current world

On a mild climate day I got home late in the afternoon. I saw the garage and the clothes on the clothesline covered with soot from the burning of sugarcane. The way she moved through the air gave me the impression that I was in front of the remains of a tortuous and dirty storm.

The soot moved by air in a mocking way. When I tried to touch her, she dodged nimbly and fixed on something that I naively struggled to protect. There was dirt everywhere. Without constriction, the soot smeared all along the way.

She was an artist and a work of art, a platter author who has learned to be guided by the wind. It could be touched in its thoroughness, but never possessed, because after that it was born to nobody else. Dark and tiny, she seemed free to do whatever she wanted in her current world.

My white and clean car was blackened when he met her. Unable to move, he witnessed the specious wind carrying so much soot that made the sun disappear behind the massed shadows of filth. The brightness of the bodywork was gone, misted by sovereignty of false plumbago.

I rubbed my finger on the hood and I noticed a mishmash of ash and low-quality graphite faded under my right forefinger. To my surprise, she still preserved the smell of burnt sugarcane.

Resting in a dry place, and when she was clinging to damp or wet, the soot dissolved, creating designs not always incomprehensible or empty in meaning. In the center of a white shirt that brandished on the clothesline, I saw the hooked shape of a tiny, striated hand. She had bitten nails, and some were more grimy than others.

Maybe it was the most derogatory Phoenix, since she was reborn from the ashes and almost like ashes without the right to turn into something beautiful, good and fruitful that people could enjoy watching or aspirate. Bud of sugarcane straw,  she was born ugly and without existential motivation.

Gestated in ember, soot went through dozens of miles to reach their destination – urban area homes, including people who do not know she existed. That was her fate, the short life of those who emerged stubborn by fire. I don’t blame her for indiscipline. It must be horrible to wake up feeling something hot forcing you to leave.

I dove into my mind and watched her first flight, shy and languorous. Sent away, obeying without question the order of things. After all, she felt the remaining freshness of green that was extinguished ten meters from the ground. The soot struggled to cry, seeing herself as blurred, uniform and insignificant. She writhed in the air, but it had no effect. Relegated to a sterile existence, she was drier than the most tenacious droughts.

Angered by not having any rights, and aware that she would have no more than hours, and with lucky a few days, she rebelled against her fate. She made a deal with the wind, promising to revere him as a god if he would help her go as far as possible in your rumpus. He agreed.

After turning into storm, the wind carried her. With his nimia and ruling force, he condensed all the soot of the cane fields, creating a small and blurred replica of the moon. In dozens of kilometers of route, the ball fell apart and fragments followed by the most different directions – through pastures, fields, villages, districts and cities around my hometown.

On that day, the soot invaded John Kennedy Street, crossed the sky of my house and left hundreds of unwanted traces, accompanied by a gurgling sound that mimicked the clink of knives. The sugarcane smell still lingered. While I decided what to do, soot got into my nose and I inhaled. Later I felt a burning in the chest. I had the impression that something unusual was alive inside me and moving.

I went to the doctor the next day and in the same week I made some tests. He showed me that there was a strange stain that distended on one of my lungs. I don’t deny I felt a mixture of worry, anger and sadness. “I’m pretty sure are traces of nitrogen monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon dioxide and ammonia. We need to take care of it, because otherwise it can quickly turn into asthma, lung cancer or even penile cancer”, warned the pulmonologist.

“I felt death smash up against my head, as if a meteor had fallen from space and just chose my skull as a airfield,” wrote Campos de Carvalho in “The Moon comes from Asia.” In the second and third battery of tests, carried out in the next month, showed me there was nothing left in my lungs. Then I remembered that 15 days before a prolonged sneezing gave me an odd sense of relief. What came out of my nose was not clear as water, but cloudy as the void of nonexistence.

Arriving home, I lay in bed and, looking through the window, I realized that on the other side of the wall there was a new soot stain. It looked like a burning bush. I fell asleep, thinking only of another passage of Campos de Carvalho. “At night the moon comes from Asia, but can not come, which shows that not everything in this world is perfect.”

“Arrisquei fazer os primeiros textos poéticos. Gostei, continuei e senti vontade de escrever textos corridos”

Renato Frata com seus 16 livros publicados ao longo de décadas (Foto: David Arioch)

Foi na puberdade, quando se apaixonou pela primeira vez, que o escritor e advogado Renato Benvindo Frata, de Paranavaí, no Noroeste do Paraná, rascunhou alguns versos. Influenciado pelo pai e pelo irmão, assíduos leitores, ele descobriu na leitura um dos maiores prazeres da vida. “Então arrisquei fazer os primeiros textos poéticos. Gostei, continuei e senti vontade de escrever textos corridos”, relata.

O primeiro conto, “Pá de Polenta”, foi premiado na década de 1990 no Festival de Música e Poesia de Paranavaí (Femup), 20 anos depois de escrito. “Produzi uma extensão maior desse conto e o transformei em um livro que retrata parte da minha infância. Depois vieram outros. ‘Reflexão dos Cinquenta’, por exemplo, foi a primeira obra de um escritor de Paranavaí a ser publicada por um projeto da Secretaria de Cultura do Estado do Paraná”, conta.

Em 1999, Frata escreveu o conto infantil “O Sapo Chorão”, lançado pelo projeto Aluno Especial, da Secretaria da Educação de Paranavaí. “Fiz o texto e ele foi ilustrado por alunos de classes especiais. Fiquei muito satisfeito porque uma garotinha de Graciosa [distrito de Paranavaí], que tinha dificuldade de memorização, conseguiu captar a intenção do conto e o ilustrou de forma bastante singela, limpa. A obra foi editada com os desenhos dela”, informa.

Em 2009, o escritor lançou o livro “O Cavalariço e a Rainha Roxa”, que recebeu o Prêmio Clarice Lispector no 7º Concurso Literário Internacional da União Brasileira de Escritores (UBE), no Rio de Janeiro. Na história, há um confronto entre a cultura e a condição financeira dos personagens. “Ela era uma rainha triste e ele era um cavalariço sonhador. E através de sua capacidade intelectual, ele consegue conquistá-la. “Fiquei muito feliz com esse prêmio porque a UBE é um expoente literário e trabalha em parceria com a Academia Brasileira de Letras”, comenta.

Frata publicou também “Quarto de Solteiro”, que traz 60 crônicas da época em que saiu de casa para sedimentar a vida profissional,  além de outras 40 crônicas sobre o cotidiano. É uma obra que o marcou muito, com histórias que remetem às décadas de 1960 e 1970. Na sequência, vieram “O Ipê Amarelo”, conto que garantiu outro prêmio no Femup, e “O Azarinho e o Caga Fogo”, premiado em Paranavaí e em Curitiba. “O trabalho com a literatura infantil é complicado porque a cabeça da criança é muito diferente da nossa. Não é fácil”, argumenta.

Escritor ladeado por alguns de seus certificados de premiação (Foto: David Arioch)

De literatura infantil, Frata cita ainda os livros “O Sapo Chorão”, publicado em duas versões, “Coração Alegria” e “Gato Tiziu”, escrito em parceria com o neto. Na semana passada, o escritor lançou “200 Microcontos…e mais alguns” na 3ª Festa Literária Internacional de Maringá (Flim). “Um verdadeiro desafio. Eu nunca tinha feito isso. Foi um exercício estafante porque o livro saiu em menos de dois meses. Mas fiquei contente pela receptividade. Algumas professoras de Maringá me convidaram para ministrar oficinas para alunos do ensino fundamental. Sei que há coisas a se considerar, mas parece-me que saiu um livro gostoso de se ler”, avalia, em referência à obra em que cada microconto tem cerca de 140 caracteres.

Depois de 16 livros lançados, o escritor mantém-se animado. Confidencia que está editando mais dois livros de contos e crônicas. “Vamos fazendo por diletantismo. A minha motivação é a vida e uma família que, graças a Deus, segue inteira, sem nenhuma cisão. Sou casado há mais de 46 anos e minha esposa Helena me ajuda muito nesse processo”, pondera o escritor que possui sete Barrigudas, troféu-símbolo do Festival de Música e Poesia de Paranavaí, além de premiações em Maringá, Cornélio Procópio, São Paulo e Rio de Janeiro.

Frata recebeu o Prêmio Clarice Lispector, concedido pela União Brasileira de Escritores (UBE), no Rio de Janeiro (Foto: David Arioch)

Sobre a inspiração para escrever, Renato Frata esclarece que suas obras surgem a partir de suas memórias ou relatos de amigos e conhecidos. “Tudo vem de um intercâmbio de ideias. Eu gostaria de editar todos os meus trabalhos. Tenho uma quantidade razoável de obras que rendem pelo menos mais dois ou três livros de contos e crônicas”, revela.

O escritor qualifica como muito gratificante as ocasiões em que é reconhecido pelos seus textos literários. Um dia, visitando o túmulo de seus pais, um senhor o abordou e disse que era seu fã. “Falou que guardava todas as minhas crônicas que saíam em jornais e revistas. Uma experiência que faz o trabalho de um escritor valer a pena. Para quem escreve, leitores sempre serão mais importantes do que qualquer prêmio”, enfatiza.

No dia 27, o livro “200 Microcontos…e mais alguns”, de Renato Frata, vai ser lançado às 20h no 1º Sarau da Academia de Letras e Artes de Paranavaí no Lions Clube. “Na mesma noite, serão premiados os vencedores do concurso de microcontos e poemas que versam sobre a doação de órgãos. Recebemos mais de 600 trabalhos. Foi uma experiência muito interessante”, declara Frata que é presidente de honra da academia, atualmente presidida por José Cauneto.

Microconto “Infância”

À beira da calçada, o copo com água e sabão e a haste de arame envergado faziam sonhos, felicidade, magia. Todos assoprados nas bolhas de sabão. (Página 3)

Saiba Mais

Renato Frata já publicou 16 livros de contos e crônicas. O escritor nascido no interior de São Paulo se mudou para o Paraná com apenas cinco anos, então se considera paranaense e paranavaiense.

Frase do escritor Renato Frata

“Simpatizo muito com trovas, porém não tenho o hábito de fazer. Acredito que me dou melhor com a crônica.”

I was surprised to see in the yard a small hawk perched on the branch of a brazilian grape tree

The little one loved living at home, going through every space he pleased or instigated his curiosity

I was eight or nine years old. I got home and I was surprised to see in the yard a small hawk perched on the branch of a brazilian grape tree. He was so young and my mother found him injured near a vacant lot. She took care of him and soon he recovered, but he didn’t want to leave.

The little one loved living at home, going through every space he pleased or instigated his curiosity. His plumbeous feathers contrasted with the clear sky on hot days. I said he was the lord of the rain because his plumes were gray as the misty sky. Whenever someone asked me why Diodon had orange feathers next to the right foot, I repeated the same story I made up:

“In a day of little clarity, he flew so high that the sun got angry and suddenly appeared just burning a small portion of his plumes. The shock was so big that even his blue eyes changed color – an endless memory of his stubbornness.”

Dio was quiet and silent, but he didn’t like to interact with other animals. He only watched them from a distance, as if from the branch where he rested, he observed the vassals of his kingdom. He had an inquiring look and at the same time simple and pure. He couldn’t hunt, so the responsibility fell on us to feed him with ground meat plus calcium carbonate powder.

The first time he went up on my finger, I felt a tickle. When I started to laugh, Dio opened his beak and screeched. I had the impression that he wanted to answer my laughter in his own way. As Diodon grew, my fingers became insufficient to safeguard him, and he decided to nest in my arm and shoulder, especially around the neck, where he learned to poke me subtly with his claws. Over my shoulder, Dio always called the attention of onlookers in the center of the town.

From time to time, he opened his wings like a fan, reaffirming its grandiosity. His popped eyes gave me the impression that his painstaking vision contemplated all around him, like his hearing. Nothing went unnoticed, not even a solitary leaf swept by the breeze into a manhole.

Occasionally, he cowered in the presence of strangers, hiding part of his body behind me. I was tickled and laughed when his grizzly beak poked my head. Then he moved his feet to the left, to touch my deltoid, and watched me carefully, since ignoring the visits that he regarded as intrusion. Despite the estrangement that lasted months, he no longer saw the poodles Happy and Chemmy as threats. By analyzing them, his behavior has changed considerably. I remember when I caught the fond Chemmy licking Diodon’s feathers. Silently, the little hawk was aiming the nozzle towards the indigo sky in contemplation.

At late afternoon, after the restless Happy came to lick his beak, Dio wasn’t positioned to peck the dog’s nose as usual. The truth is that he didn’t care. The little hawk may not have noticed what happened and continued admiring the celestial vastness, abstracted from the earth and released to the heavens where he floated under soft dreams as his feathers.

Happy thought that Diodon’s passivity was strange, and examined with exultant and ensnared expression. The poodles retreated when the little hawk flapped his wings and walked toward the brazilian grape tree in the backyard. Climbing from branch to branch, he reached the top and hesitated for nearly a minute before he jumped with open wings.

During the flight, Dio squealed with excitement that caught the attention of neighbors and strangers who passed through Arthur Bernard Street. He was happy and even the most inattentive person realized it. It was as if the cloudless sky gained a new owner, a young animal which discovered that the breath of life also exists in the concession.

Every day in the afternoon he flew at the same time. I was finding it curious and I started to time the duration of his flights. One, two, three, four hours. Each week that passed I noticed that Diodon spent less time at home. That’s when I realized that his home was no longer a place, but a space where his wings bobbed with the purity of a winged horse.

The last time I met him at home, he gently pecked my head. His feathers were more vibrant as well as their glittering eyes of citrine that conveyed me cunning and conviction. Diodon was no longer the small hawk who came home wounded, malnourished and with few feathers. Although he didn’t like hugs, he allowed me to involve him quickly between my arms, without even pointing his long, sharp claws. I let him, and he played the same way he winched the first time that he came up on my finger. Within minutes, Dio left and never returned.We didn’t try to seek him because there is nothing to find when the departure is motivated by the untimely desire to fly.

Foto: Reprodução

Querubim ouviu tiro de espingarda seguido de miado. Lá fora, na rua de terra arenosa, Ranulpho nem se mexia, estatelado sobre uma porção de folhas miúdas de sibipiruna. A boca continuava entreaberta, denunciando que a dor da morte não poupava nem os mais inocentes.

Com receio de parecer sentimental demais, o menino engoliu o choro. Fez tanto esforço que as quentes lágrimas que ameaçavam escorrer dos cantos dos olhos desapareceram. Nem conquistaram o princípio de liberdade. Encolerizado, Querubim observou Matias sobre o pé de manga, sorrindo e mirando a espingarda em sua direção. “Você quer também? Dou em você, trouxa!”, avisou o moleque. Querubim não disse nada. Só coçou a cabeça, sem se importar com a nuvem poeirenta que se formava ao redor de sua cabeça, como névoa alaranjada.

De costas para o assassino, o menino agachou e fez carícias na barriga do gato que já não sentia suas mãos sobre o pelo claro. Onde havia um par de olhos azuis, restaram pequenas massas disformes. Duas lágrimas caíram pejosas, umedecendo a boca seca do felino. Era tarde demais.

As horas passavam, e a natureza sepultava Ranulpho, cobrindo seu corpo com o solo arenoso, pouco a pouco transportado do bosque pelo vento sul. “Ô Querubim! Leva esse bicho daqui. Já vai começar a feder”, diziam. Ele só acenava com a cabeça em concordância, sem sequer mover as pernas alinhadas sobre o meio-fio.

Quando a terra arrastada pela aragem invadia a boca do gato, o menino se aproximava e a limpava usando uma toalhinha umedecida com água. No final da tarde, tentou enterrar Ranulpho no canteiro de plantas de sua mãe. Foi repreendido enquanto cavava a terra com a colher de pedreiro de seu avô. “Tá louco, menino! Aqui não é lugar de enterrar bicho!”, reclamou o avô.

O velho pegou o gato morto pelo couro do dorso e o lançou dentro de uma sacola grossa e escura. Parecia um saco para cadáver em PVC. A pendurou no guidão da bicicleta de aros tortos e pedalou até o lixão do bairro mais próximo. Retornou sem dizer palavra. Entrou na cozinha, tomou um gole de café amargo e deitou na rede.

Querubim assistia o velho, querendo saber o que ele fez com Ranulpho. Sem coragem de perguntar, lembrou de uma lei imposta na Vila Paraná na década de 1970, quando três cães de grande porte mataram dois bebês. “Ninguém mais pode entrar aqui com animais. E se alguém matar, não pode chorar nem enterrar, senão vai se ver comigo”, declarou Mandino Conselheiro, a quem a população recorria sempre que surgia algum problema no bairro.

Sob um pé de mamão, Querubim observou o avô até a hora em que o velho dormiu na rede. Chorou e gritou com a mão na boca. Também açoitou as próprias pernas e costas com os galhos do mamoeiro. Ninguém ouvia. Os vergões se multiplicavam. Ele não se importava. Deitou na terra e sentiu gosto acre na boca, misto de terra e sangue.

Amanheceu no seu colchão velho, enrolado num lençol branco encardido e cheio de furos. Pelo buraco no teto, o sol mirava pacotinho de ração ladeado por tampa com água. Querubim levantou e correu até a entrada do barraco onde vivia com a mãe e o avô. O casebre ameaçava cair há anos, porém resistia.

Sentou no chão e usou pedaço de graveto para desenhar Ranulpho. Quando terminou, cochilou com as costas escoradas na cerca de madeira e arame farpado. Em sonho, ouviu um ronronar que lhe arrepiou até os pelos que não possuía. Abriu os olhos e, sob sua mão esquerda, Ranulpho marcava território mais uma vez, esfregando o pelo sujo e macio.

O odor de lixo passou despercebido, não o miado de fome. Chorando, Querubim tomou o gato cego e derreado nos braços. O levou para dentro de casa e de lá não saiu mais naquele dia. A história de Ranulpho e Querubim mudou a Vila Paraná no final dos anos 1990: “Quem não vê amor num animal, não vê amor em si mesmo”, disse Neto Conselheiro, filho de Mandino.

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