Amid loneliness

Lucas Coppola

Date: April 6, 2069

This is Lucas Coppola's diary, and it would be a lie to say that I write out of psychiatric obligation. Who dares to go to one, when they have a deadly disease out there?

Okay, I think I should start by explaining things that came a long time ago, long before I was born.

It was the year 2021, and everyone was talking about one thing. Impending doom, but they didn't know which side he would come from. Then they talked about machines, forces of nature, diseases, massive coups, the Third Great War ... And in the end, they were conspiracies, except for the Virus.

They called it EP16-877. At first it was the flu, but the genome was evolving, becoming a bird plague, and then, when it was rare to have birds in the sky, the simple touch could kill you in a few weeks ... All activities closed, gates were closed to avoid agglomerations, and all activities from that moment on had to be carried out by just one person. All of our information was recorded individually between their families on cassette tapes ... And yes, I did say families, because the latest scientific discovery was that under 21, everyone was immune to the virus, so minors lived with one of their parents until they completed their majority.

We usually lived with the fathers and not with the mothers, because it was difficult to give birth alone, so they died after having the child or asked for help from the father, but one of the two had the Virus itself right after ... It was one of the main reasons of couples having their children in their teens and divorces no longer have bureaucratic norms.

Cassette tapes, they are important. Each family recorded what they thought was important, such as hunting, biomedicine, problems in the house in general (even if changing houses was the easiest thing to do), cooking, how to maintain technologies, such as the generators that were essential for the houses and each family I bought yours ... Or rather, stole or assembled with parts from large generators. I still had a little bit of culture, sports, arts and a lot more, which just depended on how many tapes you could keep at home and what was essential to you.

I live with my father, my mother, unfortunately, I was not able to meet. She died in childbirth, but I don't know how to feel sad for someone I didn't know. My 21st birthday will be in April next year, but in January I already received my gift. As a precaution we live one day at a time, as if there is no tomorrow, because in reality there is not ... I think this is a quote from some ancient philosopher, but it is common to hear it from the elderly, they are not affected by the EP, but there are many other illnesses to worry about.

I got this diary and a leather bag that Seu Valdemar de Brito, my neighbor, made for me. He said it was inspired by a movie he liked to watch when he was a kid ... I think it was called "Indiana Jones", or something.

It's been 20 years since I was born, right here in Bauru, and even learning to hunt, plant, maintain the operation of machines and some automobiles, all with nature around ... Things are very monotonous here.

It has been years since we were released from our quarantines, (More than I have lived in years) and I see life becoming more and more depressing. And I always think about how much it hurts me to just live. Sometimes I go to the local asylum to talk to the elderly who lived at that time, when all this started and before the big virus, the psychological was the main concern ... Or, according to them, it should be.

They help me with my psychological issues, and I notice how strange it is that no one else goes to get it.

There, I made a friend who was Mr. Enzo Pallestrinni. He gave me a walkman with some voice messages and songs that he said were 100 years old: from Chuck Berry and Tom Jobim, to Imagine Dragons and Titans.

In fact, many of the elderly people I talked to gave me tapes, and in that my expectations for life improved, because once a philosopher said: "Life without music is a mistake", and I had lived wrong until that moment

In that environment, I started to erase philosophy and art in general ... From time to time, I would go there just to watch some sport from years ago with them and we would vibrate with all our energies. That day we saw a guy named "Ayrton Senna" running in the rain, and how magical that was in the look even for those who did not experience it.

A gentleman there, always made analogies of sporting events telling epic adventure stories, and the story he had told me was the fable "The Vultures". In this fable, the following happened:

"Every year, animals across the forest and warriors, who only had wildness from animals, vied to get better food ... every year, four fell and four entered the arena. There were several ways to fly to earn better food , but the best of all was to cross the world, but for that they would have to defeat everyone. ”

“The vultures had not seen their grand prize in their forest for 10 years, and flying over the continent they had not seen the prize for 38 years, so they expected something better in this, since stronger ones had arrived to help their king vulture, but they didn’t they were waiting for the devastation that a fire in the nest had caused and they had lost their young. They should go on, even with the sadness accompanying them. They flew to Oruro, to defeat the Armadillos, which didn’t hurt them so much and then returned to their homes in the beaches near Copacabana, and they stayed there for three days, defending. ”

“First, the Ecuadorian University men came with their machines, but the Vultures soon afterwards would have to deal with a ferocious onslaught by the Uruguayan Tigers that eliminated one of their strongest, but soon all those birds left, with only damage, and saw the Oruro Armadillos enter their territory ... the home territory of those with black feathers ... and attacked without mercy and six times marked their claws on the intruders' hooves.”

“After that, they went up to Ecuadorian altitude, above a tower, to then face the University Embroiderers, and even with the defeat, there were no injuries, and then they went to Uruguay, where the Tigers made no more than a draw, and so they rested. ”

"After their rest, they saw the Horizon and saw Vultures coming from Europe with their King Vulture. They had exchanged everything for a dark caravel and a Portuguese Vulture arrived as a new king accompanied by many others of weight, strength and faith in the conquest. Chile, where the Lions waited for them, and received them very hard, and on the beaches of Rio, returned them in the same measure, received the Sacis of Southern Colorado, and discounted two attacks, then went to the icy beaches of the South of the country and maintained a tie , and in the South they stayed to face Musketeers of Blue Grenal who felt like time lords. ”

"For five times the noise of the birds seemed to have been frozen in time, but even so a Vulture went up, not with its claws, but with its head, tied the game. Then they returned to Copacabana, where five times the Musketeers went to Its leader knew the game, its defenders accused that the abyss was looking back until then, the captain of the Vultures, had long since flown, landed and his wings reflected the Light. ”

"After that they went to face the Argentine Roosters in Peruvian soil, and the Vultures no longer cared about the Fish that came to the land. They took villages and shot ... Much less cared about the Green Pigs of the São Paulo capital."

"In Peru, the Roosters of the Rivers of the Plates discounted first, but in 3 minutes, Twice the Vultures descended, and so it remained until the end. The Vultures would now fly to the Middle East, to face the English Rooks of Liverpool that conquered Europe. "

That was the story that Mr. Barbosa had told me, of how 42 million people stopped to say that that day, a Vulture would attack ... Today I don't even know if there are so many people in the country.

While writing this story, I heard my Walkman, and I heard a voice, saying coordinates ... I didn't understand them at first, they seemed like mere random numbers, but in a few hours I was able to understand the real meaning of it all, and where was the location of that pattern .

            At dawn, I ran to the Asylum, with a quick farewell to my father, and went to meet Mr Pallestrinni, but I did not find him there.

I went to his room, and he wasn't there, I asked a nurse where he was, and she pointed to the cemetery behind the asylum, where I saw only one girl, and a priest at the Asylum, who was my grandfather, Frank Coppola. I think I forgot to mention him on the last few pages, right? A man who was always proud of his color, as I was of mine, he kept saying that racism, discriminating against our color was common, but today we are a majority, almost 88% according to what I have heard, and today there is no so much racism, not when your biggest concern is to wake up alive tomorrow ... I even think that a pandemic makes us see that we are all the same and the same color inside.

I went to what was Mr. Pallestrinni's Funeral, there were only three people, and right after reading Psalm 23 in the bible, my grandfather asked if anyone had any tribute to pay, or tell something. A girl lowered her head and started to cry, so I started to sing one of the songs he had given me on one of the tapes. I don't remember why he did that, but it seemed to be something he would like to hear.

The name of the song is Epitáfio, Titãs. I remember the commotion of the few present, especially because it was too early, but it was raining, just like that TV race.

Some time passed, a few cups of coffee, and then the girl arrived and handed me a blue wooden box. and nailed to it was the recipient for Lucas Coppola.

Me? But why?

When I got home, I saw that he had a key, with a piece of paper on his keychain, written: "follow the coordinates". And a note with two VHS tapes that said: "here's how the stories end, tape 1 is Barbosa's story, and 2 is my story, you will understand".

Tape 1 was "História do Barbosa - Flamengo Vs. Liverpool 2019"

I watched the entire game, narrated by Milton Leite, with commentator Mauro Betting.

Tape 2 was already written: "1994, the end".

In this tape, Senna was running normally, there was no rain and he was certainly going to win, I felt that, the glow was there, even with a newcomer named Michael Schumacher, I felt that, but like the Vultures, I felt Victory, and defeat came. In Galvão Bueno's voice and weeping, Ayrton Senna's beat was dramatic, my mouth was open and I couldn't move, I was in shock, and I immediately started to cry.

Why am I crying for someone I didn't know and died almost a century ago?

Seeing more I realized that the blue box had a false bottom. I took it with the tabs on the sides and there was a small energy conductor and a letter that said: "you already know the end that your heroes took, write yours ... take that key and the conductor to my house, in those coordinates ".

It was late at night when I was leaving for my old friend's house, and my real father, as sad as he was, knew that in a few months, he might never see me again, so if I disappeared from time to time, it was a way of preparing your own tears.

I took the key and the driver, and left it inside my jacket, got a flashlight and a hunting pistol in case there was a threat and my backpack. I tied it with some electrical tape, a kind of GPS to my arm. They were old things that I found, I worked on repairing them, so I put together a keyboard, a terrestrial leveling radar and a compass. I have no idea what I did, but it must have worked for something.

I arrived in front of a mansion, the side window half open with footprints next to it. I went around until I reached the front door ... To my surprise, it was open and with earth marks and it was not my key that I should open there.

I went around again until I reached behind the house, in a closed basement, and the house was close to a line of train tracks that I didn't notice at first. Covered by grass.

I opened the lock that secured the chains that closed the basement. After opening the doors I went down the stairs, looked around and there was no picture of any force there. First of all, I went to the side of the stairs that entered the house and took off my shoes full of dirt, I jumped the railing trying not to make a noise, and there I opened my backpack, putting on other clean shoes to get into the house.

Investigating little by little, I discovered where the power board was, and it was already open, with four other drivers. Mine obviously went to the missing space, and the lights went on, which made my flashlight useless. I found myself at the entrance to an octagonal room with four other people inside, they were pointing their guns at each other, leaning against the octagon walls made of glass. I was the first to ask for names, while showing redemption and taking my gun out of its holster to drop it on the floor. Soon after I said my name, and that I had been invited by Mr. Pallestrinni.

In the room there was a boy with curly hair and a sweatshirt with colors of the American flag, clothes that Mr. Pallestrinni had. Some nurses told me that he liked fashion, but he didn't talk to me that much. He himself said that it was not fashion, just an extravagant jacket in the colors of another country's flag.

A guy there looked to be my age - maybe older - and a golden cross next to his wrist. Priests were a mere formality at the time, but a golden Celtic cross? I heard that Mr. Pallestrinni was not religious, but he did appreciate art related to Catholicism. Just like everyone he thought he had good taste with "incredibly beautiful arts" according to him.

There was a blonde girl who looked younger with piercings on her face, reamers and a book "Murder on the Orient Express" in her pocket. I knew that Mr. Pallestrinni did not like piercings and extensions, but I had worked with it when I was young, before the illness. I also loved to read.

Girl over there must have been my age. Brunette like me, smoking a Cuban cigar after everything is calm. Mr Pallestrinni did not smoke, but he was a collector of cigars as I recall.

At that moment it became clear to me, so I surrendered. Everyone had been invited by Mr. Pallestrinni and the house would only work with five people, it was not meant for someone to live alone, otherwise Mr. Pallestrinni himself would be living there.

From here, we started to write the story together in that same notebook, you will understand over time, so don't be surprised by the format change.

From now on, while I am looking at them, remembering the way here, I write these words. I say this because I am entrusting this notebook with you, the reader, to keep it safe.

Lucas: I was invited by Mr Pallestrinni. You too ... My name is Lucas, but who are you? (I remembered him saying it very slowly, as if organizing ideas about the situation)

The brunette girl dropped the gun slowly and said: I expected no less from Mr. Pallestrinni - she gave a light laugh - my name is Julia ... Yeah is it true that you sang Titans at Mr. Pallestrinni's funeral?

Everyone started to drop their weapons slowly, so I stopped and said: let's close the house and then introduce ourselves ... Could it be?

The five of us run. The windows and doors were closed. I ran to the basement and pulled the chain outside, and noticed something moving.

A jaguar from the woods, near the trail, and she moved towards me. I was lying on the steps, reaching out to pull the chain with a padlock, I managed to reach it and saw a figure jump in front of me, followed by the sound of a gunshot. I saw the animal's body lying behind me.

I looked at the back stairs, and Julia shot her dead between the eyes.

I pulled the chain and locked the cellar door from the inside.

The five of us went to the living room, gathered around an "L" shaped sofa. Close to a giant TV, bigger than any I had seen, and suspended in a Hack, and around, shelves filled with various VHS tapes in an arc format, separating sports tapes, films, documentaries, animations and anything else. to do with art and culture. On the sides were cabinets with glass doors, which held vinyl records and cassette tapes, and below the TV was an open compartment for a record player / tape player.

We all left our weapons on the glass table with the platform.

The boy with short curly hair said: My name is Charlie, Mr Pallestrinni called me here through a kind of inheritance.

The blonde girl said: My name is Giovanna, I think it makes sense that we are not here for us to kill.

The guy who seemed to be older showed a certain weight in his words and said: Well, my name is Antony and I never had a home, since I recognize myself as a human being I lived in that asylum, and my parents must very well have died.

Lucas: did everyone receive letters? Or were they gifts to carry around? - I said in a tone at least indignant, because everyone had bigger memories of him, and I had a key and a driver.

Everyone looked at each other without knowing what we were talking about and Charlie said: did you receive a letter? What did she say?

I read it out loud, and they smiled at me as if I had won the lottery, I without understanding, I was explained by Giovanna why all those strange facets staring at me, even though they only realized it by a body signal: You knew, he told you what he had most valuable ... His past, and gave you heroes who guide you to write your new gift - she smiled as if she were part of Mr Pallestrinni - you did not receive a gift, but yes the opportunity to shape one's own.

The conversation had gotten good since then, and we were losing suspicion, we took a wine from the cellar and drank while watching a football game ... I think it was Rams and Chiefs of 2018. We cheered on something so old and it was beautiful ... but right after the game, we heard knocking on the door, Antony and I left the bowls on the table, took the weapons and went to the door, with the hidden weapons and the knocking that they did not access. I left the door half open and asked what it was about and we were surprised by the answer.

The man in black claimed to be from the post office, carried a box and said that I was the recipient, but not just me, he quoted everyone's name inside, left the box on the carpet after we confirmed it and left. We took the cardboard box and opened it hoping we didn't have a bomb. It was more of a VHS tape with a lot of styrofoam covering it.

We went to the living room and Giovanna, seeing the tape in my hands, asked what it was, I said it was from Mr Pallestrinni and put the tape on the device. There was a video of Mr. Pallestrinni saying: Hello, Antony, Lucas, Julia, Giovanna and Charlie. I gave you access to my home, because you were kind enough to come here to visit me, and my own family never came - and paused with a heavy breath - I lived in an age where art and culture made millions happy, and today almost nobody sees ... Because this shit disease - his expression for a second, just showed pure hatred, but it returned to normal - closed everything, nobody could be together, not even to do the things we did without TV or Internet, which it is much older than me. People don't have time or the like, they just work and do it alone - he paused again with a cough this time - and when the job requires more than one, they need to keep a distance that no human should.

We stayed focused on the video and he continued to say: I want you to live well, live together, so live in my house, there are rooms for Five, a recording studio, great TV, even a small amphitheater. This is my real gift, a new life for you ... If you want to forget that this disease exists - he smiled before finishing - I heard from doctors that until next year the virus may suffer some limitation, and who knows you take advantage of this and become the first immune to coexist?

Then the video ended

Charlie took a look at all the cassettes and VHS tapes, and vinyl, turned to all of us and said: I think before we do, we should stop a little and do what has been taught to us for a while - he he paused briefly, but then came back - studying all of it.

Everyone agreed, we spent the next three months in that house, watching, and when some slept, the other who couldn't sleep well, always separated into topics of who was talking when he took the diary and wrote things he thought essential ... I didn't know you could still be trusted, it was a risk to take, but if you couldn't, they would have shot me before. The disease created more peaceful people on the streets here in Bauru ... The biggest danger is inside the houses, that's where the precept of prejudice lives.

I think in those three months I realized, I had friends, and I felt comfortable and warm with them, and the blood that flowed through my veins pulsed hot, it was as if the gray days had never existed.

After those three months, we agreed to come home, just to explain, and we would go back to the mansion often, but we didn't intend to live there forever, when we turned 21 we had to hope that everything was gone, and we could go back there.

That night I was coming home, and when I snuck up, without making a sound, I saw that it was no use, my father was there in the kitchen, sitting, watching me come in ... I got scared, but he got up and came in a tone threatening with too many questions: "where have you been all this time?", "do you think you can get in like this?" and "do you need a little extra responsibility to live these days kid?"

It was when he said that last sentence that he pulled me by the arm and asked me why my blood was so blue?

I realized, from everything I studied in those years, when someone is with the virus and about to die, his vision sees color pigments in a vibrant tone, and right after that, my father gave a voice stop that was noticeable by the sound that came from your throat. He fell forward, where I prevented him from falling, and proceeded to carry him by the arms. I kicked open the door to my own house carrying him, shouting through the streets, hoping for help, and when I noticed, on the sides, in the houses people closed their curtains with crooked looks.

I saw a person on the street, and I screamed for help, he came running. It was Julia. She helped me carry my father to the nursing home. Near the entrance, Antony came running to us ... The nurse insisted that we get my father out of there so as not to infect the employees, so Mr. Barbosa got up, put him on the stretcher and took him to an emergency room and tried to use a defibrillator, along with a steam mask. And there we waited for hours, until Charlie arrived with a leather bag and accompanied by Giovanna, he looked at me, and I signaled the direction from where he was so he took a bottle out of the bag and ran over there.

Charlie

I remember the day that Lucas' father was in bad shape, I arrived at the Asylum to try to help, but if the man tried to live, life would be made up of greater uncertainties than any other. I went to the room where Senhor Barbosa was, and opened a bottle with a medicinal liquid, and I thought I could help.

Senhor Barbosa questioned me what was in the bottle, before handing it over, and I was sincere in answering: "Distilled heroin". He asked me if it was serious, and I only confirmed how serious it was. He said it might work, but it was dosed, so he injected it into the serum, and put it in his arm.

I saw the father of one of my only friends wake up astonished and traumatized, and soon after he passed out, Senhor Barbosa asked me to leave, but not so gently. So the Five of us waited, and Mr. Barbosa went to Lucas

Lucas

I saw Mr. Barbosa bend down in front of me to say the news, it was already 6 am, Julia was leaning on my right shoulder and running her hand over my leg to calm me down, Charlie walked from side to side, all the time drinking coffee, Giovanna was standing next to Senhor Barbosa, and Antony was sitting on my left, covering his face with his legs and my face was paralyzed.

His funeral was behind the asylum, near the grave of Mr. Pallestrinni, my grandfather was there, as a priest and as a father, and his tears pierced the valley of the shadows of death, forcing him to close his bible so as not to keep watering, my body collapsed in sadness, in Julia's warm embrace, I apologized for wetting her shoulder with tears, and she said that everything was fine, that I had arrived at the "shelter", and so it remained unceasing, in Mr. Pallestrinni's house, the silence lasted for days.

The silence ended in the middle of a night, and I remember well, Julia went to my room, because everyone noticed how I was during the nights. Then she lay down next to me, and I turned to face each other, in each other's eyes, and there my last tear fell on my father, my breathing became light again, thanks to her gaze, and with a kiss, the silence that bothered us ended. While our lips met and our clothes disappeared, we were ending the former state of mourning, so that we could have a moment of euphoria, while everything happened.

The next morning, the house already had signs of joy coming back, so we decided how we would do Mr. Pallestrinni's suggestions, we decided to write Philosophy, tell more fables of sporting events, record new and authorial songs, or re-record some old ones, take old cameras and record theater plays, with a bit of sound design, pretending we had an audience, painting, drawing, writing poetry, even dancing would go into that, and at the end of it, we would put everything in a tube that was in the house (in that order), it was a cylinder, with a circular tip, all made of copper, and with an entrance ... We would leave it as a time capsule, for the next generations, generations healed, and when we finished, we would travel the world ... We were hopeful that the disease was going to end next year.

So we started by adopting pseudonyms to name ourselves in the works. We chose personalities between the 1940s and 1960s, more than a century ago: Antony chose Tommy Thompson, Quarterback of the Eagles in the NFL titles in 1948 and 1949. Charlie chose Frankie Valli, a singer who was successful between the 50s and 60s, mainly with the song "Can't take my eyes of you". Julia chose Audrey Hepburn, an actress who was successful between the 50s and 60s, mainly with the film "Minha Bela Dama". Giovanna chose Jane Austen, perhaps the oldest among the references, since it was more than two centuries old, but her writing had a great artistic appreciation in cinema, especially after the 50's. And I chose Friedrich Nietzsche, who was recurrently cited for much of history, even though he died at the beginning of the century.

We met in the room every day during debates on everything we had read, to put together theses, but which everyone wrote their theses in that notebook, after debates, and always, regardless of what we said, we fell on Descartes, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle , Nietzsche, Pondé and even some figures from other areas, such as Vinicius de Moraes, Gonçalves Dias, Einstein, Tesla, Newton, Armstrong, Darwin, Martin Luther King Jr, Carl Sagan, Hawking, Jesus, Gandhi, Elon Musk and several other names .

It was close to August and we had already started the re-recordings. There were more than 1000 songs, so we could record, but a special day in early August made us stop recording.