TEXT

Rubilota

The sun has not set on the horizon when the evidence of a great storm were noted. Even mutts sought shelter in a safe place. The streets were deserted in an instant. The kids that messed fronts of commercial houses or local homes that denounced a good point for some change scattered like smoke in the wind. Apparently Rubilota was the only creature who seemed indifferent to fear that had taken hold of the population of that prototype city. It was a city almost unknown to the rest of the country.


The rain began. While everyone tried to hide, seeking shelter as children fearing the dark, Rubilota took to the streets jumping like a monkey busy and grimacing like a lunatic. In fact, he had always been treated by the population as a lunatic. Was even hospitalized several times in the city's mental hospital, but, as was generally docile and playful, it was not enough to receive shock treatment, which was common, according to one of the employees of that establishment. For children, he served as a living toy. Whenever he passed where there was group of them, Rubilota had to dance the dance of the rope: two children, holding each one end of the rope, chasing him for a good path, with the rest of the gang behind shouting and laughing, and poor jumped lanky until the kids got tired. That happened a first casually, then turned usual. Whenever gathered more than three children, one of them soon sought somewhere a rope, hoping to make the party with the poor, if they find him. Children shyer were afraid of him. In these, the parents could instill fear of the creature through the threat of bad behavior, "Look, boy (or girl) if you disobey Daddy or Mommy, Rubilota come get you."


The city was an island surrounded by generous waters from a very famous river, which flowed into an ocean in whose waters could penetrate, from the local port, after two hours sailing in common boat. Delayed, but when Rubilota was angry, after knocked door to door asking for food and getting in the face buckets of water from housewives or pounces on his back from men, cursing the city and the residents, ensuring that the water would be too angry and would swallow everyone.


The more the big storm was manifested, more Rubilota rejoiced. They called the police quarter asking to arrest urgently the lunatic, as the inhabitants of the little city unanimously believe that Rubilota was responsible for the nature fury and believed that, at time he would be sedated, staying calm, the storm also would be calm down. The commander of the police even tried to run the desire of citizens, but the storm came with such vehemence that soon destroyed the pavilion where he was. The quarter had been built near the banks of the great river. And so this followed the fury of the waters, tearing down homes, barracks, government buildings (there were not in the city building with more than three floors) and all were standing, including a fortification of overlapping stones built at the time of the slaves and whose foundation of more than half of its area served as a breakwater. The rain broke down the back of every living or inert body and the river became the giant waves and destroyed from end to end of town. There is nothing left. Not anyone. Except Rubilota that, for unknown providence, was found on the beach of another town stretched naked with her buttocks exposed to the sun, digging, with his snoring old car, holes in the sand.


The testimony of one of the swimmers who took him to hospital was that the castaway was sleeping the peaceful sleep of a baby. As soon as he regained consciousness, Rubilota began to narrate the feat of nature in your town. Everyone pitied him. The story he told was immediately believed by listeners, because they also felt the shock of heavy rainfall in that period. He became a respected man by the local community and honored by writers, who saw in their narratives inspiration for new literary works. We do not know how, but the city simply disappeared from the map. Rubilota became the only historical document of its existence, while they gave him credit. So much so that a team of archaeologists came from another country to see if the city existed a day or not. At the end of arduous years of research, the finding: the city never existed. He ceased to Rubilota pampering. Irreproachable citizen and intellectual honored, now considered a demented, that why insisted that his city once existed. Scorned by friends and disbelieve by the boss, who worked as a proofreader of texts, Rubilota returned to streets shabby and clumsy. It was admitted to a clinic for the mentally ill and there died of boredom.


Two centuries after his death , on the banks of the largest river in the world , ruins were found a strong and some debris of a city that would have called Rubiland and would have drowned as a result of a tragic encounter between a storm and a tidal wave.


Father passed to son, as the old stories, the myth of the only survivor, Rubilota, seethed in modern press for a long time, but could not be proven scientifically because there was no record of his existence or in registry offices, or in police departments, or in hospitals, much less in asylums ... There was only reference, an ancient literary work, a whimsical character who would have survived a flood of great proportions. Rubilota now survives only in literature fantastic stories.

Do livro (Des)Aprisionamentos: crônicas e contos (Janete Santos)
Tradução: Kerlly Herênio
Email: kerllyyahoo.com.br

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The convicts

Of unparalleled beauty, she was an exceedingly bold princess for the time. The fun that the most consumed was disguise herself as a dancer and walk among the people, reveling in vulgar pleasures. The prince from a neighboring kingdom devoted her an excessive passion by knowing her as his betrothed since childhood, seeing her for the first time in early adolescence. But the reciprocal was not true. He was not the man's profile that wished demanding women. Superstitious, he lived frightened by a prophecy whose prognosis accused him, in the future, sentencing to death his own son, resulting that the division of his kingdom.

One time he puttered through the streets, accompanied by his accomplices nothing commendable - both dominated by wine - , the princess, who had been cursed by his mother because of her cheeky behavior, was raped by an actor without popular theater prestige. Feeling breaking her cycle, she despaired and told her mother what had happened to her. This was sorry by having cursed her, spent a sleepless night, between lamentations and calculations to support her daughter, avoiding becoming public the suffered ignominy. The king used to see the queen insomnia, nothing unusual had noticed.

The next morning, mother and daughter decided it was the appropriate time to bring the union between the neighboring kingdoms. The king was convinced that it was time for his daughter to be betrothed, so he contacted the other royal family, whom was happy for the merger of the two countries: the prince and the princess were only children. The rapist was exterminated without any fuss, at the behest of the queen.
In the consummation of the marriage, the prince had a unforgettable wedding night. In the morning, the princess virginity was proven to satisfaction of all who have spared, who no expense for a dignified ceremony of the heirs.

Before the nine months, the princess gave birth to a little prince, but had not survived to the childbirth. All had to accept that, as the child had come before time, or her or the his mother would be subject to a fate like that, which was common at that time.
Prince only had close contact with the his princess on wedding night, because on the next day, his country was in the final stages of a war with another kingdom, and there was the need for their presence in one of the battlefronts, even against of his father will, who was the one who should have gone, but as the son worshiped him, took his place decidedly.

Upon returning, almost a month later, the pregnant was already suffering the natural airsickness and one was her husband. He, who loved her so much, endured with patience the situation. When the sickness passed, the taboo about intimate relationships with pregnant woman prevented the contact again. The passionate heart of the prince once again was willing to wait, between patience and anxiety, for new nights of ecstasy as the first time, after the birth of the child.

The death of princess left him very depressed and embittered. He remained single, contenting himself with concubinage. Drowning his pain of loss in love and inordinate care for the child, both also intensified by the fear of prophecy. Still, when grown, the son does not demonstrate a decent cradle character with that life bestow him. He would be spoiled and buck, if impatient hard and easily with those who did not make his wills.

To take the throne of the two kingdoms, turning them into one, the widower prince, now the new king, became austere, severe and almost ruthless. He does justice with an iron hand. Brooked no suspicions or insurrection confirmations, which were becoming more frequent, all effect among some of the kingdom that belonged to princess. The culprits caught were punished with extreme rigor. The king, unforgiving, not touched with the whine of the plebs.

A father, angry with the king, told him some "blasphemous", and immediately killed by the royal guard. Still, the parents of the accused persisted in pleading for the children, at the palace door. Among these there was also a peasant, whose son had been arrested unjustly among the insurgents. Without a husband and without conditions, she had in his favor only the clearance to express an unusual form what ailed her heart.

Desperately asked for an audience with the king to plead for her son, which failed soon, since the king had no time even for her gender, much less the "inferior race" as wearisome peasant.

On the day of execution of the group in witch was the son of a peasant, the king was also present, in order to speak to the people that would be the judgment of all the rebels. To withdraw, he was approached by the distraught mother who, with great difficulty, managed to stick to guard that separated the king of the plebs. Fallen at the feet of the king, she began to say the reasons why your child should be spared:

- Oh king, save my son from this cruel fate.

The king, very unwillingly, but given the political reasoning of one of his advisers, decided to respond personally to the woman's cry to demonstrate a measure of tolerance and some popularity, as it is interesting, according to one of his counselors, to take the opportunity to fix in the mind of all the right to order him to put those insurrections.

- Woman, why would save me, an insubordinate who joins to those that try to dethrone me?

- Oh king, what father or mother would survive to see the son of their youth and the only one who had been kidnapped of life ahead of time?

- Woman, do not you consider that you would be kidnapped me to the people from whom I take care as I was elected by fate and lineage and your son is one of the alleged kidnappers? Yes, because, to join those who try to dethrone me, does not he want to take me the kingdom before the time?

- O king, consider the love of a mother and let her take the place of his son this unjust condemnation!

- Women, already wearied me with your prayer similar to others that come to me, all coming from parents who denied proper education to their children, not teaching them to respect their king and ultimate authority. Go away from here now. Your son has committed a crime and he is who should pay.

- Lord, my king, if you can hear my story you will know that to my son more thing was denied, and the fault is not only mine, but yours too, because, as noble as you are, you have power to make the fate of your subjects better or worse. My son is not an insubordinate, just trying to defend the friend who was being mistreated by your guards Your Majesty.

- Sassy woman, accuse me for thy negligence as a mother ?!

And the king, turning to his guard, commanded:

- Kill her and her son, now!

But the woman, without flinching, even now being dragged by the guards, went on shouting, in his argument:

- Sir, sir, what a monstrous father would kill his own son?

The king shuddered, remembering the prophecy. And questioned the woman:

- What do you say, woman, are you crazy?

And, desperate, he sent the guards wait, ordering to verify whether it was not the prince, his son, who was gagged and hooded mistakenly waiting for death. He was informed that his son was hunting in the woods as usual and that the man under the hood was not the prince, and the king was further ungry against the supplicant. But she begged him, with abundant tears, to hear what she had to say in favor of the child. The king gave way to feel relieved of the prophecy does not confirm. The woman continued:

- Oh king, I know you loved your wife once, and that day she conceived your son. However, Oh king, this story did not do well in those terms. You Know, Oh king, the woman who was with you that night was not the princess, your wife, but a young peasant, virgin and beautiful, which was forced by your mother to pass the princess, otherwise, her father, peasant debt, would have her two children sold as slaves and the small plot of land where he lived would be taken to the kingdom.

The king interrupted abruptly, nearly buffeting her, contain himself, however, by remembering the princess requests on their wedding night. She had enough wine, and kindly asking you before waited under the sheets, and blindfolded, still demanding that there be no light, because, as it was her first night, she was shy. Thus, rehashing the memory and sitting dazed, he said to the woman: - continue your history, and she continued:

- I'm sorry Your Majesty, but the woman who married that night was me, and my son whom you command to kill is also yours. Your only true son, Oh king. If you have doubts, you must go and look at him and see that his features bring considerable marks of yours.

There was a moment of thunderous silence. The king, with a lost look, stared at the woman that cried. This, seeing his perplexity, still managed to cast off some explanations:

- If you want to know why the princess had acted this way with you, oh king, probe the oldest and most loyal adviser to late queen, which, lucky for me and your son, still lives, and you will understand why.

At that moment, one of the guards comes stupefied and whispers to the king's ear, which widens his eyes, stands up and shouts desperate, falling then stunned on the throne:

- Damn! Damn! Damn! The prophecy, the prophecy, the… prophecy ...

One of the guard, carousing friend of his illegitimate son, realizing the "danger" established by revelation, came forward and ordered to go forth to obey the word of the king, killing without mercy the accused. So, father and son could not escape the sentence imposed in absentia.

And from that day on, the prince, along with the rebels, cunningly worked and managed to divide the kingdom, assuming that that had belonged to the princess, his mother.


Do livro (Des)Aprisionamentos: crônicas e contos (Janete Santos)
Tradução: Kerlly Herênio
Email: kerllykyahoo.com.br



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Drummondiando curious verses 


Why are poems still written? 

Why are poems still read? 

Why are there still poets?

Would poems be a return to the lost link
Where man is rather subject than object?

Would readers be capricious readers of useless things?
Could poets be of a schizophrenic type
Always scribbling parallel worlds?

If you have the answer and happen to be a poet
Answer me with your verses 

If you have answers but are no poet
Start being one by telling me what you think 

Because 

These days 

( such as yesterday, the day before yesterday, the … ) 

Writer and reader 

Still
Poet



(Drummondiando vesos curiosos - poema do livro MOSAICO - Janete Santos)

Translated by Valéria Medeiros 
Profession, translator
E-mail:  valeria.medeirosyahoo.com.br

(drummondiando [drummonding] is an extracted neologism of the brazilian poet's name Carlos Drummond of Andrade)

Existential contract

I live the phases
Life has 

Wear the faces
Life offers 

Speak the voices
Life says 

Die the deaths
Life buries

(Contrato existencial - poema do livro MOSAICO - Janete Santos) 

Translated by Prof. Dra. Valéria Medeiros 
Profession, translator
E-mail:  valeria.medeirosyahoo.com.br




TRIPS (short story) 

Bidding farewell in a simple trip may be painful or not. It greatly depends on who travels, where to and how. A vacation trip, for instance, does not bring a lot of anguish, once it sounds like a prize, especially for who is departing. Travel, spend a few days away and then return quickly is certainly something good. A long-term trip for study or work purposes produces some distress. A trip which means definitive relocation hurts. It hurts deeply. But, for sure, the last trip, the one for eternity, is the worst of all. At least for most cultures. 

The trip I’m about to tell and from which I participated as a historical observer was a historical trip indeed. And very painful. It didn’t concern the last trip. Earth’s population had already surpassed the limits of what the planet could bear. It isn’t just about tolerating. It’s really about bearing. In several aspects. Corruption had attained frightening proportions. Governments had united themselves in order to try to stop the ever-increasing proliferation of crime in every field of activity and human relationship. They were even trying to stop it in the big corporations which controlled the planet. Besides, there wasn’t enough work for everybody, nor food, nor piece of land, nor space for building more skyscrapers. There was urgent need of decreasing the proportion of people breathing the same air. 

As technology was quite advanced, scientists were finding palliative solutions as well as conclusive ones to diminish and abolish pollution. Nevertheless, it was actually necessary to decrease the number of planet users and parasites. 

The project of developing colonies in the Moon was a reality already, but the trip in the space buses equaled the excursions on the old ships through the Atlantic. The structure system built in the moon, filled with oxygen, in a cosmic cocoon shape nailed into the arid soil, was still been tested. So it wasn’t as easy to go back and forth as some might imagine. Only the authorized crew, whose members had accepted the mission of living, in a certain way, as space priests, had the chance of making periodic trips between the two places. The danger of contamination in the cocoons was a problem. So, those who would live inside them went through a sterilization process. After this, leaving the cocoon would mean not surviving, for the organism was restructured in order to adapt to the new world. This happened through an advanced transformation process in which the metabolism was artificially boosted. There was no reversion. After the sterilization, people’s organism became too fragile to live on Earth, preventing them to have further contact with those who had remained here. This process allowed the cocoon inhabitants to share the limited oxygen production Science had been able to create and to process the new chemical food. 

The “space priests” would give their lives so that the moon inhabitants could survive until the previously appointed time which culminated with the evaporation of their bodies, since somebody needed to do the repairing services of the facilities, industries and communication sources, and to recycle the moon garbage, despite of the cocoon’s highly advanced computer system. The crew would undergo an organic mutation which allowed them to enter and leave the cocoons without contaminating the environment or dying suddenly. But they were aware that they couldn’t get along normally with the others on Earth and that their life span was reduced due to their new metabolism. This task was similar to a war enlistment, in a smaller scale, with a more demanding selection. 

A trip to the moon didn’t function as a prize, as a vacation getaway. It wasn’t even possible to lighten the pain thinking of it as a long-term trip for work or study purposes, which means a certainty of regress. It wasn’t similar to a definite relocation either, as moving to another city or country. It was worse. It was like the last trip, the trip for eternity, like death itself. Only even worse. So there was a selection of who was the population that needed to be urgently sent there, in order to diminish the problems around here and to allow the growth of birth level, already reduced to a minimum. All women went trough a surgical procedure in order to not have more children after the birth of the first child. Those considered socially unadjusted, politicians who were viewed as agitators or who were suspects of corruption, citizens blamed for all sorts of crimes and some innocent parasites whose only fault was poverty or sickness were among the large list of those selected to abandon the soil they felt they belonged to. 

When I arrived to witness the departure of the condemned to the cosmic exile, I was notified that this wasn’t the first or the second time an event like this was taking place. Many other people had already been sent there before. I was assigned to register the farewell – the unique moment when those who were about to go to the moon confinement could say good-bye to their beloved ones. I tried to fulfill my mission with impartiality. But my soul was torn within me, grieving with the anguished expression – a mix of numbness and despair – that was stamped in those eyes which I looked with apparent indifference. I was by the door of the space bus seeing the last passengers who went in and forth, wanting to look back, but escorted by the launching base security staff. I believe that, no matter how hard I try, I won’t be able to describe what I capture in those countenances and the feelings the encounter with those people brought me. The relatives of the exiled-to-be looked to their endeared ones as if they had just died. The expression of those who stayed was that of a powerless father, suffering the offenses the son endured without the authority to do a thing. But the greater pain was seen in those who departed. I could almost touch their pain, their despair, their passion arisen to the highest degree – so strong it was that it felt to me I could grasp it. Passion from someone who looses everything in a single moment. They weren’t loosing only the right to live in their own nation. They were loosing the right to breathe natural oxygen, to enjoy earthly flavors, to be human as everybody else, to visit the grave of their beloved ones, to believe in a future encounter with those they endeared. They were loosing, while alive, the right to abide in the planet they were born. They were loosing their identity. They were actually experiencing a preview of death, whose bigger pain is the clear consciousness of definitive and irreparable separation of the world they loved so much. My pain wasn’t any smaller. I earnestly desired to prevent that departure. I wanted to deliver them, to save them. I loved them as I love myself. And I felt how excruciating it is to love and not be able to protect those you love. 


(by Janete Santos) 





Translated by Cecília Eller Rodrigues Nascimento
Profession, translator
E-mail: ceciliaellerhotmail.com