The internal law (English version)

(This is a rush translation. The version may not be in its final form.)

When they programmed the seeds with this inner law, they did not think that millions of people would die.

In 2027 an agreement was leaked between the corporations - or would it be a joke? - with the new laws of robots:

1) A robot only aims to make a profit the company that created it.

2) A robot can eliminate humans that do not make a profit.

3) A robot protects it´s life as long as it does not contradict the interest of the company that created it.

The Philosopher spoke:

- The game, the machine follows its own rules, does not copy reality. I think at first it had to do with the revolt against romantic subjectivity. Duchamp and its mechanisms without the personal touch. Machines, puns, chance, cold logic was liberation. Not to simulate the real, but to unfold the imaginary, using dramatic inaction, metalanguage, duplications, repetitions, the materiality of the scene, a theater of images, etc ... But annihilation surrounds the post-human world.

Press informants were being arrested with the espionage law. In this climate, a company created an internal law of robotic seeds that would be continuous expansion and destruction of totally organic seeds.

At one point, AI decided that it would be much better for the contamination to eliminate the nutritional part of the food. The seeds ignored human life.

Vast tracts of land had been planted for export, clearing forests and generating millions of refugees. Slowly, the artificial seeds generated the extinction of numerous species.

The Philosopher begins the guerrilla war with the dissemination of fabricated videos in which the greatest personalities in the world speak on the subject.

Finally, a global alert was triggered. There was a risk of extinction of the creator specie. 

Afonso Jr. Lima 
https://afonsojunior.blogspot.com/2019/05/a-lei-interna.html

A lei interna

Quando eles programaram as sementes com essa lei interna, não pensaram que morreriam milhões de pessoas.

Em 2027 vazou um acordo entre as corporações  - ou seria uma brincadeira? - com as novas leis dos robôs:

1) um robô só visa dar lucro a empresa que o criou.

2) um robô pode eliminar os humanos que não dão lucro.

3) um robô protege sua vida desde que não contrarie o interesse da empresa que o criou.

O Filósofo se pronunciou:

- O jogo, a máquina segue suas próprias regras, não copia a realidade. Acho que no começo teve a ver com a revolta contra a subjetividade romântica. Duchamp e seus mecanismos sem toque pessoal. Máquinas, trocadilhos, acaso, a lógica fria era libertação. Não simular o real, mas desdobrar o imaginário, usando a inação dramática, metalinguagem, duplicações, repetições, a materialidade da cena, um teatro de imagens, etc... Mas a aniquilação ronda o mundo pós-humano. 

Os informantes da imprensa estavam sendo presos com a lei sobre espionagem. Nesse clima, uma empresa criou uma lei interna de sementes robóticas que seria expansão contínua e destruição de sementes totalmente orgânicas.  

Em determinado momento, a IA decidiu que seria muito melhor para a contaminação eliminar a parte nutritiva do alimento. As sementes ignoravam a vida humana. 

Vastas extensões de terra haviam sido destinadas à plantação para exportação, eliminando as florestas e gerando milhões de refugiados. Aos poucos, as sementes artificiais geraram extinção de inúmeras espécies. 

O Filósofo começa a guerrilha com disseminação de vídeos fabricados nos quais as maiores personalidades do mundo falam sobre o tema. 

Finalmente, um alerta global foi disparado. Havia risco de extinção da espécie criadora. 

Afonso Jr. Lima

Anju Mami (English version)

(This is a rush translation. The version may not be in its final form.)

Anju Mami should accompany his uncle, a woodcutter, to cut the pines. He kept pulling the snow from the trees, and his uncle knocked him down, stuffing a piece of iron into each end of each already cut piece of log, creating a crack and separating the two halves with his hands. We always took only what was necessary, the uncle said. They are alive and belong to the god of the pines. Before, he always asked Anju Mami to light a small fire for the god, inside a hole in a log or making a small temple of ice, alongside which were deposited candies. Anju Mami was too lazy. He did nothing. 

After a whole morning's work, he went to fetch water in the stream, warm waters that never froze. But he got lost. He arrived in a wooden house where she was met by a beautiful girl in a red kimono. 

She poured him tea and danced for him. He ate and slept. When he woke up, he felt sick. He had become a woman. The red kimono rested next to him and he dressed him in disarray, put on another robe and went outside. He walked heavily in the snow until he saw a palace. He pushed open the wooden door and stepped inside. There was no one in the palace, who was decorated with beautiful engravings and calligraphy, bouquets of flowers in beautiful arrangements. Each window had a landscape. In one of them, red leaves fall. In another, one could see the green and colorful fish on the lake. In a third, cherry blossoms. In the fourth, infinite whiteness. In the central room, near the fireplace, was tea and sweets. He ate and then walked back into the snow. 

Finally, he found the stream of warm water where he would fetch water. He followed the usual path and reached the place where his uncle must be. There was no one there and the trees looked different. When she returned to her village, Anju Mami was considered a vision, for, besides having a woman's body, all her friends were old, her parents had passed away. He learned that his uncle had searched for him unceasingly for a whole year. Anju Mami moved into the cemetery, where people brought small offerings to him.

Afonso Junior Ferreira de Lima, 2013
https://afonsojunior.blogspot.com/2013/11/anju-mami.html

It was nearly midnight (English version)

(This is a rush translation. The version may not be in its final form.)

"Dare to know!" The Great Awakening of America against the British monarchy, the Revolution that thrilled the young Hegel, chemical and electrical energy exciting the curious minds, colonies fighting against Spain.

"The book was Ruined Empires of Volney... These wonderful narratives inspired me strange feelings," Mary Shelley wrote in 1831.

I always thought she was talking much more than she seemed to say, talking about the emancipation of the woman through her imagination.

So I thought that another woman, dead ten years earlier, had broken up with the Goddess Reason.

"What are you walking at this hour of the night in war costumes, and who looks like the dead king of Denmark? Speak!"

Little Ann had watched the ghastly Hamlet in the Christmas theater. In the library, the book showed tortures of the Inquisition.

Her husband arrived late from the paper. She had already written and published four books, successfully. The "Shakespeare of Romance".

This image was so horribly natural, that it is not surprising Emily should have mistaken it for the object it resembled, that she had believed this to be the murdered body of the lady Laurentini, and that Montoni had been the contriver of her death.

The "powerful sorceress" did not leave her house. At society parties he did not try to be sympathetic. She watched and noted, almost nothing is known about her life.

There was a lot of anxiety in the air. She was a friend of Mrs. Darwin, suspected that her little blond-haired son would be read as the man who reduced mankind to monkeys?

Your last book is different. Here, the night reigns. She was beginning to tire of the new face of science, less question, less suspense?

What happened on that cold night, the low-fire fireplace in which the trees slammed in the window and a shadow hung over the woman's heart?

Did she fall asleep on the feather and the paper? Did you receive a strange visit? Did he hear a voice? Did she enter the dream and navigate the unexplained?

"It was nearly midnight, and the stillness that reigned was rather soothed than interrupted by the gentle dashing of the waters of the bay below, and by the hollow murmurs of Vesuvius, which threw up, at intervals its sudden flame on the horizon, and then left it to darkness."

Afonso Junior Ferreira de Lima
https://afonsojunior.blogspot.com/2019/05/era-quase-meia-noite.html

Era quase meia-noite

"Ouse saber!" O Grande Despertar da América contra a monarquia britânica, a Revolução que empolgou o jovem Hegel, energia química e elétrica excitavam as mentes curiosas, colônias lutando contra a Espanha.

"O livro era Impérios Arruinados de Volney.... Essas maravilhosas narrativas inspiravam-me estranhos sentimentos", escreveu Mary Shelley em 1831. 

Eu sempre achei que ela estava falando muito mais do que aparentava dizer, falava sobre a emancipação da mulher através de sua imaginação. 

Então, eu pensava que uma outra mulher, falecida dez anos antes, havia rompido com a Deusa Razão.

"O que é você que caminha a esta hora da noite em trajes guerreiros, e que se parece com o rei morto da Dinamarca? Fale!"

A pequena Ann assistira no teatro de Natal o espantoso fantasma de Hamlet. Na biblioteca, o livro mostrava torturas da Inquisição.

Seu marido chegava tarde do jornal. Já havia escrito e publicado quatro livros, com sucesso. A "Shakespeare do romance".

"Esta imagem era tão terrivelmente natural, que não surpreende que Emily a tivesse confundido com o objeto que parecia, que ela tivesse acreditado que este era o corpo assassinado da dama Laurentini, e que Montoni tinha sido o inventor de sua morte."

A "feiticeira poderosa" pouco saía de sua casa. Nas festas da sociedade não se esforçava para ser simpátia. Ela observava e anotava, quase nada se sabe de sua vida.

Havia muita ansiedade no ar. Ela era amiga da Sra Darwin, suspeitava que seu pequeno filho de cabelos loiros seria lido como o homem que reduziu a humanidade à macacos?

Seu último livro é diferente. Aqui, impera a noite. Ela começava a se cansar da nova face da ciência, menos pergunta, menos suspense?

O que aconteceu nessa noite fria, a lareira com fogo baixo, em que as árvores batiam na janela e uma sombra pairava sobre o coração dessa mulher? 

Será que ela adormeceu sobre a pena e o papel? Será que recebeu uma visita estranha? Será que ouviu uma voz? Entrou ela no sonho e navegou pelo não explicado?

"Era quase meia-noite, e a quietude que reinava era mais aliviada do que interrompida pelo suave correr das águas da baía abaixo, e pelos murmúrios vazios do Vesúvio, que vomitava de tempos em tempos sua súbita chama no horizonte, e depois o deixava para a escuridão".

Afonso Junior Ferreira de Lima

El cuerpo del hombre (ESP)

La madre lloró porque quería nietos.
- Debería unir a las mujeres para defender mi derecho. ¿Por qué has sido sorteado?
Él soñó justo hoy con su madre, que había descubierto con siete meses de gestación que su hermano gemelo había muerto dentro de ella.
Lut estaba en la cola para el procedimiento. Un hombre de cabellos blancos estaba furioso.
- Yo conseguí en la justicia aplazar por años ... Pero ahora me van a meter el cuchillo sin mi consentimiento. No quiero tener hijos, pero eso es ilegal.
Contó sobre un artículo en el periódico: "No es una elección cuando usted produce miles de semillas peligrosas todos los días".
Él tenía miedo. Él, que había hecho tantas protestas en la universidad.
- Yo soy de la época en que el Senado votaba para decidir si los hombres que tuvieron hijos ... La seguridad es más importante que la libertad, ellos decían. Todos aquellos viejos que esparcieron a sus hijos por todo el mundo.

El coche de su primo chocó contra un árbol y se incendió. Pero siempre pensó si no fue un gesto de locura por haber perdido a su hija.
Una anciana pasó por la calle de auto y gritó:
- Castración por el calentamiento global!
Lut sabía que estaban votando una ley para la castración química de todos los hombres solteros que no fueran primogénitos, debido a la "crisis de superpoblación".
Él imaginó ver a su hermano muerto caminando por la calle. Él fue sorteado por qué era rebelde.

Afonso Junior Ferreira de Lima
https://afonsojunior.blogspot.com/2019/05/o-corpo-do-homem.html

O corpo do homem

A mãe chorou porque queria netos. 

- Eu devia unir as mulheres para defender meu direito. Por que você foi sorteado? 

Ele sonhara justo hoje com sua mãe, que havia descoberto com sete meses de gestação que seu irmão gêmeo havia morrido dentro dela. 

Lut estava na fila para o procedimento. Um homem de cabelos brancos estava furioso. 

- Eu consegui na Justiça adiar por anos... Mas agora eles vão me enfiar a faca sem meu consentimento. Não quero ter filhos, mas isso é ilegal. 
Contou sobre um artigo no jornal: "Não é uma escolha quando você produz milhares de sementes perigosas todos os dias". 

Ele estava com medo. Ele, que fizera tantos protestos na universidade. 

- Eu sou da época em que o Senado votava para decidir se os homens que tiveram filhos... A segurança é mais importante que a liberdade, eles diziam. Todos aqueles velhos que espalharam seus filhos por todo o mundo. 

O carro de seu primo se chocou contra uma árvore e incendiou. Mas sempre pensou se não foi um gesto de loucura por ter perdido a filha.

Uma mulher idosa passou pela rua de carro e gritou:

- Castração pelo aquecimento global! 

Lut sabia que estavam votando uma lei para castração química de todos os homens solteiros que não fossem primogênitos, devido à "crise de superpopulação". 

Ele imaginou ver seu irmão morto caminhando pela rua. Ele fora sorteado por que era rebelde. 

Afonso Junior Ferreira de Lima

The body of the men (English version)

(This is a rush translation. The version may not be in its final form.)

The mother cried because she wanted grandchildren.

"I should unite women to defend my right. Why were you drawn?

He had just dreamed today of his mother, who had discovered with seven months' gestation that his twin had died inside her.

Lut was in line for the procedure. A white-haired man was furious.

"I've been able to defer Justice for years ... But now they're going to stick a knife in me without my consent. I do not want to have children, but this is illegal".

He told of an article in the newspaper: "It's not a choice when you produce thousands of dangerous seeds every day."

He was afraid. He, who had made so many protests at the university.

"I am from the time when the Senate voted to decide if men who had children ... Security is more important than freedom, they said. All those old men who had spread their children all over the world."

His cousin's car crashed into a tree and burned. But he always wondered if it was not a gesture of madness that he had lost his daughter.

An old woman in a car passed by the street and shouted:

- Castration for global warming!

Lut knew that they were voting law for chemical castration of all single men who were not firstborn due to the "crisis of overpopulation."

He imagined seeing his dead brother walking down the street. He had been drawn away for being rebellious.


Afonso Junior Ferreira de Lima

The walk to Hathersage (English version)

(This is a rush translation. The version may not be in its final form.)

You ask me why I preferred to publish my book under a male pseudonym. It would not be difficult to realize that we women are generally seen as incapable of articulating useful discourse, and our bodies are the excuse for personal judgments when such discourses reach the public.

Our lives prove it. The stories from which I set out, woven by the forces of tradition and destiny, too.

One of them is the story - I witnessed these facts as a young lady - from a young maid married to a handsome tavern owner. They had a child, but shortly afterward she discovered that he was actually already married. This could ruin a woman's life. His justification was that the real wife was crazy and he could not bear to live alone. She herself became very disturbed, having been taken by her relatives to the city where I was born.

Another story I heard when I went to visit my friend Ellen in 1845 at her brother's wedding. He'd asked me for an engagement years before, and I had not accepted, as you know. In the region we came to know, a shadowy mansion kept a tragic accident. A woman given as mentally unbalanced lived confined in one of the rooms of the house. Unfortunately, she was the victim of a fire.

I and my sisters use masculine pseudonyms because what matters is the work.

I wonder, was it all the will of fate or could it have been different? Are we not the same in spirit?

I wrote my book in a dark room while taking care of my convalescent father.

I had a mysterious fever just before I finished it.

My sister teased me that it was my Christian spirit that reproached me for revealing the truth.

Afonso Junior Ferreira de Lima, 2016

https://afonsojunior.blogspot.com/2016/10/o-passeio-hathersage.html

Livro: "Notre-Dame de Paris" - de Victor-Marie Hugo (1802 - 1885)

I'm Alpha (English version)

(This is a rush translation. The version may not be in its final form.)

When J. left the office to devote himself to occult research, his family worried. Soon, a nephew decided to come with a lawsuit to take his property, the house and the real estate in the center of the city. Despite the estate, he lived like a monk - the house was in ruins, rooms full of strange objects, masks, drawings, papers, and books. Every day the cook prepared the same combination of chicken, vegetables, and rice.

His study began the day that someone reading the newspaper commented:

- A crazy psychic claims to be receiving messages from an entity called Alpha.

The other day he resigned.

The cook, who arrived every day at 7am, called her nephew when she realized that J. had disappeared without wearing any clothes, and he notified the police. His notes on the blue notebook - found by his nephew, said:

October 20th

Finally, I went to find the lady who said she was receiving messages from the entity. She lives in Santos in a cluster of very dilapidated houses.

She told me that the entity said there was an urgent message to be transmitted and asked it to perform a ritual for the opening of a kind of portal. She had not had the courage to do it, but she gave me the directions. Alpha.

October 30

I performed the appointed rites. I placed on my altar a pyramid, candles, and I named the names and called the entity. I smelled strong of incense, but otherwise, nothing happened.

October 31st

I woke up with a strange dream. A very strong light emanates from a being who is two beings united. She claims to be Spodet, the messenger who [says] to men "what is lawful in the eyes of the gods," hence the beneficent days. Sages draw symbols with the count of days. The light enters through the opening of the temple and touches the image of the goddess. The dog head god appears. She says that I must prepare myself to describe what is inspired me.

November 2

I begin to draw images that come to me. Some formulas. The pencil is not enough anymore. I have to buy several colors. is a kind of sect, men in white robes, are venerating an entity. But the entity does not arise immediately. It's getting more and more visible. Finally, she has a body. I decided to look for this entity.


November 5th

Spodet takes me to a teacher who has a book on mythology. He's a doctor, who teaches at university. I'll show you the pictures. The man is scared and invites me to come to his house.

November 6th
He asked me to sleep in your house. He performed rituals of protection.

The man tells me that according to ancient traditions, aggressive vibrations can become internalized rules and they see identities that can, by a phenomenon called co-emergence, bring about a similar form. "When an entity is worshiped comes associated energy." Shadows appear when the rules have produced and infested the self.


November 8th

I decided to perform the rites at the teacher's house and open a portal. We had dinner and stayed in the living room talking until the fireplace went out. He dozed and saw the image of the nefarious entity.

I thought that your same ambition could have made co-emerge the Omega.

November 10

The teacher was very frightened and asked not to look for him anymore.

I also gave up evoking Spodet when I read that it conferred power, but it could bring on ardent ambition.

But I could not stop thinking about the end of that urgent message. I remembered a formula he had written under symbols of the dog-god.

November 10 - Dawn

I repeated the formula on the altar. I wrote a narrative.

A sect of white sages, men gathered around the ambition for knowledge. This sect planned to take power by using the influence of the spiritual world to terrorize and negotiate with judges, politicians and powerful men. "

J. had disappeared on the 11th. The nephew inherited the estate and became restless with constant oppression and a presence he said he felt as he walked around the house at night.

Afonso Jr Ferreira de Lima, 2016

https://afonsojunior.blogspot.com/2016/11/eu-sou-alpha.html

The war (English version)

(This is a rush translation. The version may not be in its final form.)

Now they were in front of the private army, hired to destroy their army of spirits. The eagle-eyed goddess was at the forefront, ready for battle.

When they arrived, they came like a black cloud over the buildings, the waters rose, the emergency generator lit the building of the bank while the city was dark. The nymphs tried to instill panic in the best business minds.

In court, Poder decided that it was about time. Without the river, there is no river spirit. His daughter Shield Gold had brought the news that the men had gone mad.

The girl leaves a flower at her mother's grave.

The nymph entered the nurse's room. He starts counting money. The banker in the tower. He decides to fire the coverage to request an increase. It kills one of the biggest destroyers of countries.

Spies. A private army is hired by the Bank. The nymph brings the Winter of Death.

The girl points out in her book: "Jack, are you sure she's dead?"

The necromancer is called, denounces the army of the nymphs.

From the top of the tallest building, Athena observes the arch of Artemis in the sky. Flames devour the houses next to the central subway.

The governor dies, poisoned by his daughter.

Atená appears next to the gravestone like an owl. The girl hears a voice.

The eagle-eyed goddess was at the forefront. The necromancer summoned an army of ghosts.

The girl observes the black cloud over the waters.


Afonso Junior Ferreira de Lima

A guerra

Agora elas estavam em frente ao exército privado, contratado para acabar com seu exército de espíritos. A deusa de olhos de águia estava na vanguarda, pronta para a batalha.

Quando chegaram, vieram como uma nuvem negra sobre os prédios, as águas subiram, o gerador de emergência iluminou o prédio do banco enquanto a cidade ficava às escuras. As ninfas trataram de insuflar o pânico nas melhores mentes de negócios.

Na corte, Poder decidiu que já era hora. Sem o rio não há espírito do rio. Sua filha Escudo Dourado trouxera a notícia de que os homens haviam enlouquecido.

A menina deixa uma flor no túmulo de sua mãe.

A ninfa entrou no quarto do enfermeiro. Ele começa a contar dinheiro. O banqueiro na torre. Decide pôr fogo na cobertura para solicitar aumento. Mata um dos maiores destruidores de países.

Espiões. Um exército privado é contratado pelo Banco. A ninfa traz o Inverno da Morte.

A menina sublinha no seu livro: - Jack, você tem certeza de que ela está morta?

O necromante é chamado, denuncia o exército das ninfas.

De cima do prédio mais alto, Atená observa o arco de Ártemis no céu. Chamas devoram as casas ao lado do metrô central.

Morre o governador, envenenado pela sua filha.

Atená aparece próxima à lápide como coruja. A menina ouve uma voz.

A deusa de olhos de águia estava na vanguarda. O necromante convocou um exército de fantasmas.

A menina observa a nuvem negra sobre as águas.


Afonso Junior Ferreira de Lima

Mesh8 in V - 0.2 (English version)

(This is a rush translation. The version may not be in its final form.)

I am alone in space, I write to keep the memory of my people.

A visitor, who says he's called M11.

B01 walks around the city, the sun is bright, lots of people are doing sports and strolling the streets. A man speaks on a concrete stage. In the end, the pastor finds that "the pagan world has not won."

I tell M11 that dissent was defeated in the war. They said the "pagan world has won."

M11 said, "My friend C73, he's a scientist robot, one of the expedition's three commanders.

The Mesh8 group penetrated into the V galaxy of 0.2.

M11 said: - C73 realized the empty city, its spies sent images, life only in a kind of temple high in the city.

A lifeless ship and records deformed by some kind of radiation.

- This is destabilizing the cosmos, we can call it 0.1 - C73 says to M11. It's a capsule in a place we can call 0.2. B01 says they will have to find 0.2.

C73 says: - We need to find out the origin of the autonomous system. B01, the captain, asks M11 to use the return in space-time.

B01 decided to walk through the city and was infected by one of the biorobots.

The pastor said: - When the day comes, we will end the pagan world and live in the spirit, inside the earth.

I say: Dissent was defeated in the war. They could not get an agreement with the Central Power and they would have to immigrate. But one of his most ingenious scientists was able to create a device that entered the nervous system by creating hallucinations - the mass was trapped in an alternate reality capsule.

The visitor returns, C73 manages to remove the biorobo from B01 with a kind of radiation. M11 realizes that he must destroy the temple.

A lonely lost ship.

Afonso Jr Ferreira de Lima

https://afonsojunior.blogspot.com/2016/12/mesh8-em-v-02.html 

AS TRÊS ÖBIS - romance (trecho) 2

(...) 

Chegaram a uma alta porta feita de cristal. Ao redor da porta, duas colunas de água giravam subindo até o céu. 

A porta se abriu. Após um lindo piso de mármore branco, abrira-se uma espécie de vale verdejante, com imensas árvores arredondadas de folhas tripartidas, amarelas, e altos ‘pinheiros de sangue” com o tronco torcido e rubro. Lagos, cascatas e riachos adornavam toda a paisagem. Mas a paisagem não era apenas de pedras, árvores e água. Flutuando no ar haviam placas de cristal e madeira, que elevadas no ar, formavam lindas casas e ambientes de trabalho. Também algumas dessas placas flutuavam no ar e montavam caminhos e escadas a medida que o povo caminhava. De repente, algumas casas mudavam suas paredes e reordenavam os cômodos de acordo com a necessidade. Além disso, algumas casas abriam suas paredes (sempre haviam muitas janelas e varandas lindas), e seus moradores dormiam olhando a natureza. 

Há medida que Andren, Perseu e Topos caminhavam, as placas iam se movendo e lhes conduzindo a um local ignorado. 

- Aqui o povo é poderoso, apesar de ser um tipo humano. Controlam quase tudo com a telepatia.

(continua...)

Afonso Junior Ferreira de Lima

Porto Alegre, 2005

quem ensina a aprender

A mensagem oficial é não tenha vergonha de ser ignorante/ o ódio é filho da repetição/ mestres de minha nação, amigo que me entrega o difícil com seu sorriso de acolhida/ reverencio o professor que me deu letra com letra/ a mulher de curtos cabelos brancos que me mostrou a beleza/ já conquistada: conquiste!/ reverencio aquela que me elogiou na minha redação de sexto ano/ a linguagem que mostrou a ilusão do mundo e a trilha do tesouro/ salve o professor que emprestou livros para Rimbaud e disse: são teus também/ língua espada que corta até o discurso pai/ porque posso ser diferente porque tenho perguntas/ a amarelada imagem do herdeiro escravocrata refletida no mundo/ aquele que alimentou essa chama de que nada se explica/ trouxeram no seu bico a curiosidade para o pássaro ainda sem penas/ escolhas sem fim na marcha sem fim/ no muro da minha arrogante preguiça martelou dúvidas socráticas/ me preparou para o poder do não sabido e seu cântico/ conhecer é poder poder ser/ trocar os nomes, inventar a liberdade/ eu vos reverencio

Afonso Junior Ferreira de Lima

XIV (English version)

(This is a rush translation. The version may not be in its final form.)

He arrived late at the office, XIV was preparing the news the next day. He said he had a strange night. He woke up in his bed and could not move. Through the wall, he saw his daughter vomiting in the bathroom. Many people danced in a street, drugs, men kissed twelve-year-old girls without a face, a desperate mother was looking for her daughter.

Suddenly one of them turns to XIV and says: "I am noble, I won this medal in the war against the Indians". A beggar girl wrapped in a gray blanket, a baby on her lap. Where is your father, asks XIV, she shows a corpse of a black man, like a fruit hanging from the trees. A priest by his side says, "I came to ask you permission to the burial". In the street where they danced, now they saw cars burned, attacks on shops, confrontations. Only then did he realize that in the other room, his daughter, who had vomited after dinner, had fainted. You can not move. XIV notices a native man hiding behind the door and wakes up. XIV comments that they are called to think next week's agenda, want to insert subtexts, a terrorist group or solitary avenger had been committing crimes against policemen in the periphery. He arrived in the office late because he had not slept well, he had discovered that he had been around the house looking for something in the drawers. Next to his bed, a dirty sneaker with blood.

Afonso Jr. Ferreira de Lima, 2015

https://afonsojunior.blogspot.com/2015/04/xiv.html

K, the flâneur (English version)

(This is a rush translation. The version may not be in its final form.)

K is a ghost. He should have a goal since he is a character. He should have obstacles.

K. circles the avenue of the cemetery. The bones were buried beneath the new store. An agreement with the city hall. They're ghosts on the escalators.

Trapped in the penal colony. He always thought it was comic the justice as torture gear. "The condemned was the most excited, everything in the machine interested him." Condemned without knowing why.

K stands in an avenue, lights, the rock of the margin, waiting for the flow of cars that will not stop just because it has a pedestrian strip. Ghosts are educated.

He was born in the ghetto, the tongue is another out there. The heir is killed, the Empress murdered, the heir murdered. He knew the warm and dangerous time of waiting. He wants to play and live the same life differently every day.

K went to see the supermarket promotion, euphoria. The cash girl talks about the new labor law, says she'll go crazy if she counts money from ten in the morning to ten at night.

He liked to think about what we see, but we can´t understand. He thinks he must not understand. Everyone has thought of everything for you. The law is just another horror.

The third act ends with no conclusions. No one has improved. He also did not learn. He does not know if, in fact, they are not right, relentless logic, flawless doctrine, to grow and to advance, he only knows that what he can is is to remain what it is.

K sees the glass rising up to the sky, the lights on the facade, palm trees, the Japanese garden, a sculpture decorated with lights. K sits in the theater and looks at the empty chairs, the show will start. The protagonist is mediocre but beautiful. The boy behind him tells his girlfriend that he wants to leave.

The greatest of thinkers, with hammer blows, like the ordinary Victorian bourgeois, despises the common man. The "well-born", proud of themselves, despising the morality of compassion, the contempt and irony of the powerful.

Lawyer K. He was a ghost before he died. Remember the funeral of the grandfather, the castle on the hill. He felt that Madame Bovary was him, in a gray life. He resigned because he could not write.

K count the hungry miserable people on the way: on the subway stairs, without shoes in front of the supermarket, wrapped in white cloth like a caterpillar, shorts only, with a back curved by a deficiency, trousers loose and shaggy and white hair, etc. etc.

The city is ugly, the city is the monster structure, the city is built by the absurd. "What are the dangers of the forest and the savannah compared to the daily clashes of the civilized world?" He has seen it all before, he is very tired, he dreams walking.

Afonso Jr. Ferreira de Lima, 2017

https://afonsojunior.blogspot.com/2017/12/o-flaneur.html

incognito (English version)

(This is a rush translation. The version may not be in its final form.)

The dark sea, the noise. Maybe it was just memory.

I do not doubt that I think. Good times. How would "right and obvious reasons" be? If his spirit had become accustomed little by little to conceive its objects more confusedly and indistinctly? The traditional joke: "the clear and distinct perception is that which can give certain and undoubted judgment".

Border guards thought his writings were codes of war. He, himself, fleeing from nationalism, which is the status quo, poetry on behalf of the nation, obsession with the island issue.

The Will.

He had dropped his hat while fleeing the Nazis. It rained, the light diminished, art and bohemia broken, the south. The true desert of grapes. It was all very simple.

In the sand, some bone, it could be a skull. The true tragedy, the banal.

The source-woman looked immobile and her face was livid.

"Remove thought from sensible and imaginable things." Suddenly, the gray seemed enough.

Afonso Junior Ferreira de Lima
https://afonsojunior.blogspot.com/2019/05/incognito.html

incógnito

O mar escuro, o barulho. Talvez fosse apenas a memória. 

Não duvido que penso. Bons tempos. Como seriam "razões certas e evidentes"? Se seu espírito se habituava pouco a pouco a conceber mais confusa e indistintamente os seus objetos? A piada tradicional: “a percepção clara e distinta é a que pode dar juízo certo e indubitável”.

Os guardas de fronteiras pensavam que seus escritos eram códigos de guerra. Logo ele, fugindo do nacionalismo, que é o status quo, poesia em nome da nação, obsessão com a questão da ilha. 

A vontade.

Deixara cair o chapéu enquanto fugia dos nazistas. Chovia, a luz diminuía, a arte e a boemia quebraram, o sul. O verdadeiro deserto das uvas. Era tudo muito simples. 

Na areia, algum osso, podia ser uma caveira. A tragédia verdadeira, o banal. 

A mulher-origem parecia imóvel e seu rosto era lívido. 

"Apartar o pensamento das coisas sensíveis e imagináveis". De repente, o cinza pareceu suficiente. 

Afonso Junior Ferreira de Lima

the maupassant way (English version)

(This is a rush translation. The version may not be in its final form.)

"A short story in the manner of Maupassant" - says the Russian in the subtitle of his tale "The Murder", adding - "A real story."

In 1892, Tolstoy made a version of Guy de Maupassant's "The Doomed to Life," 1883. We have some lines written on the margins, which seem to be imagined situations to be inserted, but none of them are in the publication.

Thus, phrases such as "The judges were elegant, there were jurors, prosecutors, speeches and, with all pomp, they decided on the guillotine" or "In Germany, after the duel between a baron and a bourgeois for gambling, the principalities gave up winning with chance "(whose insertion is marked with *) - does not seem to fit the whole.

Let's look at the two versions:

"The island did not have many ways to make a fortune, and the monarch lived relatively modestly in comparison with his kinsmen on the Continent, and when the judge condemned the defendant to death, he could not imagine how costly it would be to bring a guillotine from France. They thought of ways to kill. The gallows: there were no trained men and the spectacle could degenerate into miserable torture. The poison: the specialists lived far away and wanted a place to lodge the family. Death by drowning: a legend of a killer of past centuries, who would have come back, still left people terrified. What to do? The game was the only source of income for the small kingdom * and the monarch was forced to take the man into a cell, but the exchange of guards was constant. After the calculations, a lifetime pension sounded much more reasonable. That is how the kingdom of Monaco ended up swapping the death penalty for balance in the accounts."

-

"It was depressing to see the king so dejected. No one wanted to shoot a man for so little, he even went to the jail with a pistol in his hand, ready to put an end to the case.
But ... What if the shot was missed? The knighthood would not cover such an embarrassment in Europe. Is not it enough to call the kingdom 'village'? It would not be enough to say that it feeds its court and army with the roulette? 

What to do, if between the little tax and the fight of the game, it is worth more the second? But there was no way to kill a guy without to import things, people, even import that courage. 
Techniques had moved on, we were in a century of law and order, no one was going to stick a knife into the man without a certain training. 
Still, many people thought that freedom was incompatible with a 'state'. It was all debts and, with so much luxury to be sold and bought, the rich disliked obligations. The last spectacle at the Opera looked very poor. 
They thought, they thought. The criminal was released on the mountain. He came back in an hour, he could not hide in such a small kingdom. They tried to put him on a ship. The captain warned that the press wanted to board together, which made the case impossible. Already it was spoken in revolt by fear of new tax. The court began to donate to get a hangman. At that moment, someone did the math and realized that a pension and a farm in the mound was much higher. So they signed the contract and finished the death penalty. "

Afonso Lima, 2016

https://afonsojunior.blogspot.com/2016/02/a-maneira-de-maupassant.html 

Mitologia Nórdica - Introdução

Before the Revolution (English version)

(This is a rush translation. The version may not be in its final form.)

You ask me, "what happened before the revolution?" Before the pilgrims, the prosthesis-of-memory, the robot-lovers, the lunar calendar, the impending war, and the smart jade tunics?

Our country was rich and it was invaded. The possession of the land was something new here, but it was a mark of the nobility of the invaders. Using our work for their employees seemed normal to them. The people were losing their lands, which were given to Religious Orders and to the Army.

A girl who saw her village being burned became a rebel leader. Allied to a foreign empire overthrew the Old Regime.

The lands were purchased from the Religious Orders but donated by the new allies to powerful families descended from the invaders. They created foreign language schools, technology centers. Rice production has been replaced by luxury products for export. War came and the Empire collapsed, thousands died of starvation.

Then came the revolution.

Afonso Junior Ferreira de Lima
https://afonsojunior.blogspot.com/2019/05/antes-da-revolucao.html

Thomas Mann in Brazil (English version)

(This is a rush translation. The version may not be in its final form.)

"It is said that the god Hermes when he crosses a man's path, inspires him with the desire of distance." Mr. Mann drank his tea on the terrace of the hotel, with his dark glasses for which he gazed with visible satisfaction at the limpid, mild climate. He had come to Brazil for a "secret" one-month trip, thinking of maintaining discipline in creating his new book, since in Southern California he was "constantly swallowed up for solar activities" - lectures, official tributes, interviews, perhaps because it proved that America "was what everyone knew". (In addition, he had had severe lung surgery.) 

Roosevelt had said that he would be a great president for Germany. It seemed simply morbid how they wanted to separate him from everyday humanity. "The trip is the biggest study," said my teacher, but I traveled to stop the time, "he said humorously, requesting another slice of lemon pie. "I've always wanted to see things from afar," he said, seeming to look at me, protected by his glasses. I did not dare to return the look. I preferred pool water. I drank another cup, even with the heat of 25 degrees.

He spoke very slowly, all his movements seemed studied, as if they were part of an opera, but I thought that had nothing to do with arrogance or pedantry, but with a European culture that I would never completely understand. And at the same time, I was constantly feeling that I was also acting, needing to be able to do things in a timely manner, that there was a measure of everything. Especially for "that". "Say it all, but never say 'I,' say Proust said.

Nothing "of it" was spoken at that time. When I saw Mrs. Mann for the first time in New York, I was amazed at his masculine appearance. My father, who had known her many years before, had the greatest admiration for her and, precisely, considered her feminine, to look "strong and sensual". The first thing that struck me, which may be really stupid, was that she was not happy. Today, I think it was a sort of extreme serenity, pride, and detachment, for being the pillar of the house. He, on the contrary, looked like a fragile bird, had white skin, a tender look, and a slightly comic mustache. Somehow, nothing in him made me see the "god of literary philosophy," "incarnate Germany," Plato's "nostalgia" with which he was generally described. Did he feel free because he came alone?

I was a young journalist who had just graduated, the son of a Brazilian concert pianist. I had been scaled to be her chaperone, especially in this first presentation, cause I could speak German and because, I believe, my father supposed it would be a "training job" for me. I had read his book about Venice, of course. I wanted to talk about it, but my shyness would not allow me to. Somehow, did he notice?

We went to the Botanical Garden. Regal Victory, this sexual flower, inspired a languid thought: "Most of my work, I owe to the spirit of my mother, this Brazilian. Oh, greed, oh hell - insatiable, invincible! says the philosopher." He seemed to study closely an elegant transvestite pacing through the orchids. And among the tall palm trees, which seem to grow up to the sky: "At the heart of everything is the will to live, the desire." I remembered reading about his brother's having recommended sleep therapy to him to "treat" his "condition."

- Andre Gide published in 1924 his "Coridon", in which exposes his intimate life. It is said that the Catholic philosopher Charles Maurras went to visit him a year earlier to avoid publication. He asked him to kneel and ask Christ for guidance, and Gide refused to do so. "It is not about being or not being rebellious, but about being true or not," he would have said.

I tried to fight the thought that such a kind man belonged to a past world; he thought that the weight he had on the bottom of his soul should be because he had suffered when he saw what he considered civilization being devoured by madness, which threatened to burn everything. But he was moving on. And he liked to talk.

We went up to the mountain. In the car, I dared to ask something about the book. "Have you read Goethe's Faust?" He asked. "Do you remember that man sells his soul to conquer the world? That makes him grow, he is forgiven. I believed that what saved us from all the bourgeois pettiness, the banality of the accumulating commerce and the calculating bureaucracy, was the art, I thought that art was this passage, that link between being to be and the timeless, the real and the abstract, the sensual and the universal. Thought in feeling, of feeling-thinking. But after the horror, I am afraid of which may be art, science, philosophy. Fear of closed Fausts in your world. "

We had dinner early, walked through the garden of the house that hosted us. He was very excited about his new book. He spoke in "abyss," "pact with the devil," "German destiny," and I, even though I knew myself to be in the face of History, began to feel an increasing weariness. "An intellectual seduced by the sleep of happiness, sunk in dirty stopped water of conservative thinking".

It was cold. We lit the fireplace. "My mother was not bourgeois, she told us beautiful stories, she played with us, and one day my father sent my Brazilian nanny away because she thought she was making me soft" - would he be talking to me? "Passion is death, all desire is suffering, said a pastor who was my father's friend, and this atmosphere generated the romantic revolt. "

The second bottle made us half drunk. 

"One day I went to the opera and met a young man who had been my colleague. Dressed with the latest fashion news, surrounded by friends, he appeared, as always, as an intimate of the arts and a daring thinker. Several times in public he had criticized my works, opinions, and even behavior, so that I knew that, behind this cheerful sympathy, there was an even colder hatred of the new and envy. He tried to make me ashamed of being a thinker, and free, trying to convince me I was the kiss of death since the rebellious people in this romantic environment were just the ones who did all the usual things, I just left the theater, this Hades inviting eternal repetition." 

He stopped. Our eyes met. I have seen him a few times after that, and I could not even say if I had learned anything from this man, the feeling I have is that I observed life passing freely.

Afonso Jr. Ferreira de Lima
2014
https://afonsojunior.blogspot.com/2014/05/thomas-mann-no-brasil.html