Books

Peter and the Machine
Repair Heads

Peter, the main character, lives in a distant future in which humans do absolutely nothing to live. In this future there are machines that do everything. It's a perfect world to think about. For those who are not happy living in it there is a machine that fixes the brain and leaves everyone quiet. Is that so?
 
Albertina in the Kingdom of Rats
Albertina, also known as Maria, lived in London when she was abducted by a bunch of rats and led underground. Then you know a Portuguese mouse who explains why she was kidnapped – helping rats in a plan! Does the plan work? Can the girl get out of the hole and find her way home?
 
 
My Friend Wolf
Written one morning in London in 2018, this is a tale that takes us to a distant place in Portugal where wolves still live. However, more than a story about wolves, this is a story about what is difficult to be human. Is it better to be people or to be a wolf? What would we choose if we could choose? In this final tale, we find again a reference Pedro and Albertina, also friends of "my wolf friend".

Excerpt 1

— Yeah, you live in a dictatorship. You're not free, but you think you are. — Or don't even think about it. The best dictatorships — explained my father — It's the ones that keep men from thinking for themselves and make them believe what they're told. Your government says it wants you to be happy and that it's protecting you and the planet from all the evils in the world. That's why they burden you with machines and entertainment that supposedly satisfy all your needs. With this, humans become an obedient and controlled species that does what is told and does not cause problems. That's you.
We, on the other hand — continued —We left this world to be free and think for ourselves. But for that, we need to study, read, write and all the other things. So we have the knowledge to reinstall technologies like phones, electricity, water supply and everything. But there are people who do not want it, because they fear that what remains of the free world succumbs again to the will of some. It's an irony. You have the technology, but you don't know how it works; we know how it works, but we don't use it because we're afraid to become slaves.

Excerpt 2

It's not like that! Up there, no one would be able to exert a controlled destruction like the one we want here. Well, I don't wish anything... I just want to go home!
The use of poisons or chemical weapons could endanger the entire ecosystem, poison the sewer network and destroy the entire population. That's not what you want. Furthermore, there would not be enough funds to invest in such a solution. Then you could start a war if you knew rats were poisoning other rats. In small doses and over time, no one sees anything; but in a scenario such as what is intended here, it does not work.
Well, an open war for them wouldn't be a bad thing. — Those above us wouldn't even care. The problem is, with the power that weapons today have, you never know what that would lead to. You could catch them themselves, who knows?
So it was decided to arrange a decoy: a Portuguese girl, known to kill rats, escapes the Portuguese mouse's tutelage, arrives at the Zoo and releases the jiboa.

Excerpt 3

— According to howls, more advanced beings than humans and foxes, such extraterritorial beings, have enough civilization not only to modify the place where they live, but also to experiment in other territories. When my great-uncle told the story, he was talking about «other territories» Just. We don't have that planet thing. We have territories and enough!
— The interesting part of the story wasn't foxes ruining the planet. — or the territory — with your civilization, your little hands...
— You don't? Hair and tail foxes, but with high heels, snout and lipstick sounds funny. I don't say interesting, but it's funny!
— What will panther civilization say when someone tells them that one day there was a civilization of naked monkeys?
— It's your joke too!
— Yes! Laughing is the best medicine!
— So tell me, who were these more civilized beings than the civilized ones?
— They were beings who didn't use hands to transform the world.
— Don't you?
— Nope.

The Fall of Paradise

With the addition of a new chapter that makes a complete historical review, but, hopefully, not boring, this is a collection of thoughts that portray a little of my emigrant life in London between 2015 and 2019. This is also a testimony of time, although it is a very personal testimony.
Between 2011 and 2015 there were thousands of Portuguese who had to emigrate to find work, in an outbreak comparable to the 1960s. Some, as was my case, were journalists. The financial crisis that began in the United States in 2008 was added to the newspaper crisis that did not find an effective strategy to survive the free online content competition, started a little earlier. These were the historical contingencies of my emigration, but not the truly human contingencies that reading the book can convey. With parts to laugh at, others not so much, this was a way to live a difficult phase that would not trade for staying in the same place forever. Never.

Excerpt

I was also very confused the first time I got on a highway. The kid forgot his uniform coat in tennis class. It was a headwind, and I still am. Two heads in the air together can't work. The camp was on the other side of the village, but there was a lot of traffic around the center at that time. We've resolved to bypass the outer circular pathway! It went well, except for the kid's starting part yelling at me "get on the left lane, get on the left lane!" Yeah, for a minute, my brain fooled me and I leaned right thinking that was the slowest track. I'm glad my seven-year-old copilot was behind to correct me. (It was a cute one who died for a pallet of sugar and a savour of vinegar, all things forbidden among cut, small Indians, for success.) After a few cars whistled and passed me on the left, I blinked and leaned to the left and everything went well. There's always people in this world rushing to whistle for everything and for nothing!
All this happened in 2015. I was in Wimbledon and already knew how to lead English to the thousand wonders of that year's tournament. A little rain fell on the day of the male final between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer. Serena Williams and Djokovic won and I ate a veal chop after days and days the utra-picante food and giving to the vegetarian.

EnglishenEnglishEnglish