XXXIV - Walking the City

As he walked through the city, Leonardo couldn’t help but notice how little had changed since he had last been there. Lisbon was like always, like it had always been, at least to his knowledge; Big avenues clashed against narrow streets, uneven and dirty. Modern buildings contrasted inelegantly with old, late nineteenth and early twentieth century classic constructions. Historical monuments, nearly glued to ugly, modern, giant malls. Luxurious condominiums built in poor neighbourhoods. The concept of urbanism in the Portuguese capital appeared to have been masticated by a triturating machine and sputtered all over the city’s famous seven hills. 

Walking around in the midst of the chaos, Leonardo notices that the whole thing sports an uncanny resemblance to school portraits, the kind you will find in any regular school year book – every student has a unique expression; most of them smile, some of them choose to make funny faces instead, some just look up or down and in some cases, the class rebel or rebels might discretely slip an obscene gesture into the otherwise civilized picture.  The evoqued nostalgic picture puts a slight smile on his face, there was something comforting about yearbook portraits. Maybe it reminded him of simpler times, or maybe it just reminded him of some old friends that he hadn’t send in a long time and maybe would never see again. Or maybe, it was the thought of a time when he truly belonged to a group what had made him smile.   

            But every once in a while, a few gems shine through the confusion of the city, shedding a special class of raw urban beauty into the metropolis, conferring it that sort of charm that you can’t quite describe. Those rare, hidden places are where the essence of the city can still be truly experienced; Viewpoints form which you can admire the splendour of the river Tagus. Or green gardens, carefully groomed, where it’s almost impossible not stop for a while and take in the beauty and tranquillity transpired by the bushes and flowers. Sometimes it’s an old church that has been there for so long that the city just grew around it, engulfing it, and ended up forgetting it’s there. Or a lovely café, the like of which Pessoa would write his poetries at. Traditional shops frequented by nice people. Restaurants where you can taste traditional dishes from Lisbon. Those places, relics of a bygone era protect Lisbon against its own psychosis, a city that is a thousand years old and yet pretends to be modern, wants to be something it’s not.

            Curiously, Leonardo’s destination that day was precisely the opposite of those places that he so much revered in Lisbon. It was instead, one could say, one of the many new accessories the old city decided to acquire in its desperate quest to feel young; a Planet Starbucks, located in the “baixa”, one of Lisbon’s most traditional and touristic neighbourhoods. He could have taken a cab, or the subway, but he preferred to walk that day. This was a Sunday after all, a day to rest, to take your time doing things.

            He also liked walking, whenever he had the time to do so, because walking helped him to think. That day, not unlike many other days, he was thinking about the direction his life was taking. From an objective point of view, things seemed to be going in the right direction, thanks to Manuel who had been able and kind enough to find him a good job or internship in any case. And yet there just wasn’t something that wasn’t right about it. The proof of it was that he was starting to entertain the thought of not going back to work the next day. Realistically, he wouldn’t do that. It would be embarrassing to Manuel, and it would get him into a whole lot of trouble with his family. His mom would even maybe kick him out, after telling him for the hundredth time that she didn’t want a bum for a son. No, he would go back to work and he knew it, but the thought of not going back was a nice one to entertain nevertheless.

            As he walked down the Avenida da Liberdade, the most expensive and majestic part of town, Leonardo passes by a big group of northern European tourists, deeply concentrated whilst looking at their maps, probably trying to figure out the location of some nearby monument or famous square.  As he walked pasted them, one of them looked at him and for a second Leonardo though he was going to ask him directions, but then, probably because he was a little bit shy, he turned his sight back to his map and tried to figure it out by himself.

            A few meters ahead, Leonardo came across a bunch of posters, advertising Toni Carreira´s new concert. Toni Carreira is basically the Portuguese Julio Iglesias, only much worse; more pathetic, more depressing, more painful when you have no place to run to and you’re forced to listen to his agonizing music. As he looks at his pseudo Don Juan face, and sees the fake smile, Leonardo almost feels sick.

            ‘I can’t believe this guy is still around’, Leonardo whispers to himself, genuinely surprised.

            Leonardo starts to think about all his fans; desperate housewives and housekeepers, in their forties, fifties and sixties, turned fatter and uglier by uninteresting or hard lives, neglected by their husbands, abused by their estranged sons who became drug addicts, or otherwise victims of depressing events. Life has taken its toll. There they are, eager to scream and jump and sweat, all together at the concert of the great Tony Carreira. They sport fifty-euro-perms and wear five euro fake shirts and blouses and they all sing hysterically, in unison, the most famous chorus produced by the great Tony. There he is, on the stage, the suburban Portuguese pop star, in flesh and bones, clapping and singing along with his most dedicated fans. The choir of house wives is in flames, they can hardly believe it! They’re going crazy now. Some of them can’t resist the emotion and end up fainting, while others reach the ultimate ecstasy and you can see how vaginal fluids run down their varix-ridden, celluloid-dominated white legs as they jump and dance and shake with pleasure… This mental, deprived suburban fable is getting too graphic, so Leonardo forces himself to push the eject button, and continues to walk towards the low part of town (“baixa” in Portuguese).

            As kept walking forward, the buildings and streets started to become progressively less familiar to him.  Leonardo had no sense of direction to speak of and his memory had always been terrible for most useful things in life, so in his life getting lost was pretty much a very common occurrence. As he now looked around, he assumed that that was the case once again.

            The Avenida da Liberdade now laid more than 250 meters behind him. Starbucks, if David’s instructions were correct, was supposed to be right there. Leonardo took a good look around. He was now in the middle of a square and, looking at the buildings attentively, he was happy to recognize one of them. He’s been there a couple of time before. It’s the theater D. Maria II. Right next to him he notices a fountain, gushing water all around it, sprinkling a group of tourists that were busy taking pictures. On his left side there was a subway stop. Leonardo thought it was probably “Rossio”, although he wasn’t sure. Right behind the station he saw the big yellow M: a Mc Donald’s fast food restaurant. He takes a few steps in its direction, planning on asking the employees for directions, since one of them would surely know where the Starbucks café was located. He changed his mind almost immediately though when he realized that the two companies probably competed for clients in this are of town. If he took their word for certain would probably end up in the river Tagus, he thought.

            Meanwhile, a dodgy looking chap walked by him and whispered ‘You wan’t Haxixe? Marihuana? I have coke too if you wanna?’

            Leonardo stared at him in bewilderment. Not because he was selling him drugs – anyone would quickly realize after looking at the guy that he was up to no good – what shocked him was how the dude thought that just by whispering he would somehow go by unnoticed, as if by miracle the act of whispering could make him invisible. Before answering, Leonardo couldn’t help but wonder how that guy hadn’t been arrested yet, with so many policemen patrolling that part of town.

            ‘No thanks,’ but uh… do you by any chance know where the Stabucks café is?’

            The drug dealer looked at his quite surprised, although not more surprised than Leonardo himself, who wasn’t quite sure why he had asked the drug dealer, out of all people, for directions. Maybe his job was starting to melt his brain or something.

            ‘Bro, you see that old building with the big clock? That one there made by fucking Arabs or some shit like that’, he said, pointing at the building. As he did so, Leonardo looked horrified at the collection of needle marks and wounds displayed.

            ‘Yeah… I see it’, answered Leonardo, trying as hard as he could to disguise the repulsion that he felt.

            ‘Right. Bro that’s the Rossio station. The ‘Tarbucks is inside. Now, are you gonna buy something or not?’ the petty drug dealer asked, smiling slightly, showing all his rotten and missing teeth.

            ‘Thank you, but I think I’m okay. Thanks for the directions’, answered Leonardo darting away from the little man as fast as he could.



* Written by my good friend Goncalo Barbosa as a favor to me.

XXXIII - "What is Wrong with Me?"

Leonardo was finally living the life that he was supposed to lead all along. So far, all his existence had been but preparation, 25 years of preparation to be more exact. Now, the moment of finally integrating society as a full member had arrived.

          At last, Leonardo had a job. This was, after all, the natural sequence of things, to finish university and find a job. That’s what everyone does.

          As the weeks went by, his work, at Publico’s editorial room, situated in the Viriato Street in the Picoas neighborhood, became increasingly familiar. Most of his time there was consumed by the reading and translating of British and North-American newspaper articles. Three years spent in a renowned English University had, it seemed, transformed Leonardo into a glorified translator. Some times, every now and then, Leonardo was lucky enough to be assigned a different task like doing some research or even, exceptionally, writing some insignificant article about some irrelevant subject that would only probably be of interest to a handful of readers.

          It comes as little surprise that all those menial tasks had contributed to lower Leonardo’s self-esteem considerably. As a student, first in Spain and later in England, as he suffered through all those law, politics and philosophy books, Leonardo had truly believed, perhaps in a naïve fashion, that it would all pay off since he would some day have the opportunity to play some sort of important, relevant role in society. When he accepted the job, or rather the internship, at the newspaper he thought that that moment had arrived. Now, however, he was starting to realize that things were not quite as simple as that.    

          It is true that, after all, it was only an internship. As such, the true goal of it was to prepare Leonardo for the real thing. If he worked hard enough, and persevered, after three months hopefully he would have a real contract on his table. He would finally be entitled to a decent salary, and would probably be given a little more responsibility in the editorial room. That was to be the beginning of a long path, towards achieving the status of respected journalist. Maybe then he would be allowed to write interesting and important pieces on the key events shaping modern Portuguese society in is different facets: sports, the arts, politics, economy, justice, crime, etc…

          It seemed than, that in spite of the initial difficulties and frustration, Leonardo had finally found his path. After twenty plus years of studying, now was finally the time to start making a difference (hopefully). Apparently, fate had wanted for him to become a journalist after all, even though he had never studied journalism at university. He had committed himself to the study of law, politics, philosophy and even a bit of economics, but he hadn’t had a single module on journalism. Yet now there he was: a journalist to be. He couldn’t help but thinking that the whole thing was a little bit ironic.

          And so, as the weeks went by, Leonardo worked hard to fight against the powerful tedium that threatened to take over his whole being, holding tight to the idea that soon enough the internship period would be over and things would start to get better. This was only the beginning. Bigger and better things lay ahead. But wasn’t that what he had been telling himself his whole life?

          When November came, Leonardo had been working for a whole month. It wasn’t exactly a long time for most people standards, and yet to him it seemed like forever. It was as if he had gone back to his middle-school days when every week seemed to go by slower than the last one as the semester progressed.

          ‘Leonardo, there’s nothing you can do… except getting used to it. It will probably get better in time, it probably will. Just hold on tight and sooner or later you’ll see that it’s not so bad after all’, Alexandre had had told him to make him feel better.

          ‘What about in your case? Did it get any better with time?’

          ‘Well, yes and no… but in my case is different. No matter what I do in my job it’s always gonna be the same really, I’ll keep having to tell people elaborate lies in order to convince them to buy shit they probably don’t need. Your job, in theory at least, has a little bit more dignity to it at least…’

          In a way, that cheered Leonardo up a little bit. Maybe being a journalist was better than most of the boring, menial jobs that most people have to endure throughout their whole lives. Perhaps it was that kind of special job that actually gives some meaning to your life. Now, as an internee he wasn’t doing anything he could be proud of, but maybe in time he would be given the chance to really do something that could make a difference for society and give meaning to his life in the process.

          And even in spite of those happy, cheerful, hopeful thoughts there was just something wrong with the path he was taking. He could feel it although he couldn’t quite explain it.

          A distinct claustrophobic feeling was making way into his everyday life. As November neared completion, the feeling was increasingly intense. It was like a fist closing around him, like an invisible force that he could feel but not explain.

          There was something wrong but… “It’s going to get better, this is just the beginning”, he kept saying to himself.

          ‘Leonardo, you think too much,’ was what Romeo, his dear friend, a young and promising sales executive of a big multinational company, used to tell him. ‘You gotta chill man, enjoy life, savor the small, good moments spent around your friends and family. You have a good job now, you’re much better off than most people. You’re even good looking. What are you complaining about? What more do you want?’

          What more did he want? The one million dollar question.

          ‘Leo, you make me jealous,’ his other good friend David had told him while they were having a beer together. ‘There you are, you just graduated and you already have a decent job. I’m tired of studying, I hope I can graduate this year at last and find a job, hopefully a decent one too.’

          There were even people telling him they envied him!

“What is wrong with me? Why am I incapable of felling happy?” was now the question in his mind. Maybe that was the one million dollar question after all. 

XXXII - The Darkest Dawn

‘From the moment we stopped being monkeys and became men, with the capability of questioning the meaning of our lives, we felt the sharp urge to find ways to explain why we are here, to make sense out of chaos. Our intelligence is indeed like a double-edged knife, both blessing and curse. On the one hand we are capable of transcending our natural limitations through our enormous capacity to learn and to evolve, and on the other hand, our greatest asset of all, critical thinking, permits us to ask questions that we cannot answer like the meaning of our lives. We are hunted by contradictions, sadistic paradoxes linked to our privileged condition of rational beings. We know that we will die, but we are unable to prevent our deaths. We know that every fact is preceded by a cause, and yet we don’t know what precedes existence. It would seem then, that we are too smart for our own good, and that our ambition is also our blight.

           It is a not hard task then, to imagine the relief or our distant ancestors, hunter-gatherers, cave-men, dressed with clothes made out of the skin of bears and wolves, when they first got a glimpse of the early gods. Gods of thunder, and rain, and fire, and fertility and even death… Sublime beings, transcendental, capable of explaining all the mysteries that eluded men, even death itself, even after-life, capable of attributing meaning to the short, hard lives of those primitive ancestors of ours. Yet here we are now, millennia later, abandoned to our own fate once more. We walk alone into the darkest dawn, enlightened by the lights of the modern era.’

          Leonardo penetrated the night with his words, his friends observing him, listening carefully and yet not entirely sure of what he meant precisely. They are certain however, that those obscure words painted visceral, primitive truths.      

          Romeu’s expression, however, was one of unmistakable shock. Although he admired Leonardo’s unusual thirst for knowledge and enlightenment, so rare amongst most men, especially young ones, he was incapable of refraining from abhorring the friend’s words as blasphemous rants. His upbringing, molded in a traditional Portuguese framework of which religion was a vital component, didn’t allow him anything else, but to be scandalized when someone attacked the dogmas that had been so carefully and indelibly carved into his mind and soul.

          David, who was an atheist himself, listened to his friend in a condition of frank amusement. He hadn’t spend a lot of time in his life worrying too much about the mysteries that Leonardo was now discussing, but listening to the narration of the Death of the Gods, and watching Romeu’s reaction was without doubt something worth watching. He couldn’t understand how Romeu could be so offended, this was the twenty thirst century, who still gave a damn about God and the church after all?

          Alex, out of the three, has always been the one who was more inclined to make an effort to understand their eccentric friend, when he went on one of his existential rants, which tended to be even longer and more passionate when they took place at night and under the influence of alcohol. In this specific case, Leonardo’s words hit him with unusual intensity. He understood, with strange clarity, the tragedy that Leonardo was narrating. He too, in solitude, had cried the Death of the Gods, although he wouldn’t have called it that then. In fact, he had become an atheist long before Leonardo had decided to rebel against religion, so he had had more time to consider the implications of such a decision, and be exposed to its intrinsic hardships. Hence, he knew all too well what Leonardo was talking about. He had experienced the loneliness, the feeling of being alone in the universe, forced to carry on his shoulder the terrible responsibility of finding his personal meaning for life. He too, had endured the terrible pain. He too had felt how the angst of existence burned his insides and corroded his soul.

          ‘Leo,’ he said, ‘what exactly do you mean by the darkest dawn? It seems to me that either you are contradicting yourself or you are referring to a specific contradiction related to what you call “the Death of the Gods”.’

          ‘A contradiction, no doubt, if not consider this. At last, Mankind is prepared to overcome centuries, no, millennia of superstition, and finally rise above the mysticism of the past and pounce into the discovery of wonderful phenomena, which we can now hope to unveil by means of science, and reason and logic. There is no doubt in my mind that such a step forward is absolutely necessary, in humankind’s voyage towards greatness. This is a huge step towards utopian era, enlightened by reason, where we can finally fulfill our potential as a species.

Yet, by parting with the past, and welcoming our tomorrow we will find ourselves in the midst of a morning made of lights as well as shadows, and under the bright sun of knowledge we will shed tears of profound sadness. For the way that lead to truth is covered in thorns and the price to pay four our freedom is certainly high.

 Under the light of truth and freedom, we must walk without the shadows of the god, without their protection and console, without their sweet promises of paradise, without divine ethical mandates, without the things that used to guide our actions and confer meaning to our lives.

Following The Death of the Gods is the Darkest Dawn, and shadows and tears, and godless men and the endless desert of existence. We must walk along those sands, until the end of time, as penitence for our infamous crime, the assassination of our divinities.’

‘Blue pill or red pill, knowledge or happiness,’ completed Alexandre, referencing a favorite film of both of them.’

‘Exactly!’

Like so many times before, the friends carried their conversation well into the night, until the night became dawn. When the first beam of light shed clarity into the city, they had swapped the streets of the Barrio by the comfort of Romeu’s car. The young executive, on the wheel, drove for two, three hours, maybe even longer, as they talked and observed, from inside the vehicle, the quiet, moving streets.

Through the partially tarnished car windows, they saw how the young men and women of Lisbon walked the streets, drunk and cold, in unsteady paces, after a hard night of partying. They walked those streets, ample and narrow, dark, cold, at times dangerous. Stepping on the tiles, made of white stone, that paved the side walks of the whole city. Those streets, hot in the summer, cold in the winter, through which the people of Lisbon passed day after day, on their way to their homes, to a bar, to work, to the movies, to the shopping mall, to the supermarket. All of those people, walking busily towards their destinies, together playing the mundane comedy which is life, making their way from birth to death. All of them walked those streets day after day, thinking trivial things, everyday things, but how many times did they dedicate time to the great mysteries? How many of them, Leonardo wondered, shared his existential doubts?

Driving around the city at night Leonardo and his friends were able to enjoy her in a way that would be impossible during the day or during the early hours of the night. Gone was the rustling and murmuring of the day, and the wild, savage, uncivilized shouts of drunks of Lisbon’s night-life. This was a city asleep, made of deserted streets, and empty horizons. Only a deep sense of calm transpired through the car windows, oozing from the dark avenues, alleys and squares. Here and there they would see some lost ones, prostitutes, petty delinquents or drunkards. However, they would drive past them quickly, and in a blink of an eye they were again immersed on the ghost city, on the silence of the urban dark, on the nocturnal void of the metropolis.

When dawn finally came, it did so, surreptitiously, quietly, gently, slowly. Romeu, Alex and Leonardo were talking still, now sitting in front of the latter’s apartment building. David was already home, he had been the first to be left at home by Romeu. Now was Leonardo who was saying goodbye to his friends, after the long night. ‘See you tomorrow boys,’ he said finally, as he walked towards the building’s entrance, tired and sleepy.

The dawn was yet dark, illuminated only by beams of light so thin, that one would think that the Sun had become shy from one day to the other. The beams would later grow thick however, and they would deliver on their promise eventually, as the great fiery star rise high in the sky, roaring with heat and energy, claiming his throne from the darkness and inaugurated a new day.          

XXXI - The Death of the Gods

´Can you imagine the world of times past, when the Gods yet lived amongst men? In that time, almost gone from our memories, myths and legends and gods and demigods were part of our world, their actions having impact in the lives of mortal men. Those gods of old murdered men and raped women, moved by their desires, entwined with our own. Can you fathom such a world, filled with mysticism and the fantastic, a world populated by unicorns, minotaurs, trolls, vampires, angels, demons and many other fantastical creatures? Yore such was the world of men, mixed, almost indistinguishable from the world of the Gods. That was before we had computers, and cars, and airplanes, and the internet, etc, etc, etc.’   

          Romeu, the evening’s designated driver, had meanwhile temperance and traded his beer for a Coca-Cola, which he now drank as he listened to Leonardo’s words, which he attributed to the effect of alcohol more than anything else. David and Alex, unbound by similar restrictions, showed no such restraint, and had stick to beer and shots of vodka, which had now clearly taken its toll. They listened to the occasional shouts of drunken people, scattered across the narrow, dark streets, muffled by the music oozing from the several bars that crammed the Bairro.

          They had decided to set camp in front one of those little bars, in front of which a few tall tables had been placed, and where they had rested their drinks. There were no chairs outside, like it was customary in the Bairro Alto, where most people just stand on the street drinking, socializing and listening to the music coming from inside the tiny bars, usually too small to accommodate more than a handful of people.

          ‘Tell me Leonardo, that world you speak of, do you think that it has actually existed in real life? Even in this tiny country of ours, located at the end of the world?’

          ‘There’s not a doubt on my mind dear Alex, that the gods once walked and ruled this world of ours, and that their influence reached all the corners of the world.’

          ‘Tell us then what happened to those mighty gods, for they’re no longer amongst us. How is it possible that they disappeared without a trace, if they were indeed real once?’ asked David, taking a gulp from his cup, in mocking tone.

          ‘Without a trace? You’re wrong my friend, I assure you. They might be gone from our world, maybe forever, but their shadows still glide above us. Even here, in this place that was once thought to be the end of the world by the great men of ancient times.’

          ‘Shadows? I see no dangling above me!’ joked David.

          ‘The shadows, friend, are all around us. You can grasp their reflections in our history books and while listening to the tales that we inherited from our ancestors. They even give shape to the language we speak. They are the superstitions of our elders, absurd beliefs, forged throughout the centuries, bathed in innocent blood spilled in the name of the divine. 

          And even now, in the XXI century, the superstitions of the pass are still indented in the minds and souls of the new millennium. Even the young generations, of which we are part, who grew up amid technological miracle, enlightened by the revealing light of science, even in our ranks there are many who remain slaves, bind by the shackles of superstition and religion.

          More than a century guy, that great prophet of modernity, the crazy genius, the philosopher Nietzche, announced the Death of God. And yet, more than a century later here we stand, so many of us still unaware of that cataclysmic event. Even though we can see the traces left by the gods, they remain but traces. Modernity has revealed itself as the true and ultimate Ragnarok, the death of the gods, and the beginning of our era. The future of man is a future without the gods.

´Leonardo, I might not be very religious, but even I think that you’re probably going too far by saying something like that. Don´t you think?’ asked Romeu, who came from a traditional Portuguese family, with strong ties to the Catholic Church. To him, the notion that God was dead, or even the concept that god could be killed by mortal men sounded outrageous, almost as much as it would sound blasphemous to your regular elderly resident of Alfama who attends the mass every Sunday at the local church.’

          ‘Am I?’ Leonardo asked rhetorically. ‘Alex, do you believe in God?’ he then asked, obtaining a quick negative answer. He then asked David the same question, prompting him to nod his head in negation. He then looked to Romeu and said, ‘See Romeu, I don’t think I’m mistaken at all’.

          ‘That doesn’t prove anything! Just because they don’t believe in Him, that doesn’t mean that He doesn’t exist!’

          ‘You see, I think you’re wrong about that, since God cannot exist outside of the mind of Man.’

          ‘But GOD CREATED MAN!’

          ‘Well, it just so happens that I think that the truth is the exact opposite of what you just said. Not only Man created God, it also killed Him.’

          ‘Leonardo I know that you are drunk but really… what an absurd notion. How the hell can men kill gods?’

          ‘Well, I tell you, and you David, and you Alex, that men killed indeed their gods. Without pity, or mercy, we are responsible for their deaths! We killed not only one, or two or three gods, but a legion of gods and goddesses, spread across the corridors of time. It is no overstatement to claim that the history of mankind is tainted by rivers of divine blood.

          Not only have we killed the gods, they have spent almost millennia slaying each other, producing a succession of ragnaroks, apocalypses and divine coups. Chronos swallowed his newborn sons, only later to be defeated by Zeus and have his throne stolen and be imprisoned for all eternity. The Norse exterminated each other on the field of battle. The Romans, in consort with the Jews flogged  and crucified Jesus Christ, the son of the Christian God, the same god who brought the end of the ancient divinities of Rome and Greece. Centuries before that, the Roman gods had been responsible for slaying and extinguishing the gods of the Celts, the Egyptians and many other peoples. Finally, let us not forget how the Christian God, thirsty for blood, consumed the gods of the Aztecs, and the Incas and the Mayans, as they guided Hispanic swords and bullets into the throats and hearts of the savages that had once worshiped the Old American Gods.

          Oh, the Christian God, what a powerful divinity, indeed the most powerful of them all; the Divine Apex Predator, the God of Gods, the Creator and the Destroyer, Merciful and Merciless at the same time. And yet even He has collapsed under the weight of Logic, and Reason and Science and Time. For when men stop believing in their gods, they cannot survive. The modern era is no time for gods. It is the home of atheists like me, like David, like Alex. You are worshiping a dead God Romeu, but not even your feeble prays are enough to resuscitate him. He is gone. This is our era. This is the era of men. We, sons of modernity, stand orphans in this world, condemned to wander the world in our blind quest for new meaning in a meaningless universe. Let us pray together then, friend, the Death of our Gods.’           

XXX - Bairro Alto

When they finally left the restaurant, they had a tally of five beers each, which nevertheless didn’t discourage Romeu from driving. Luckily enough, he had a robust physique, which meant that even after having drunk a great deal he was still able to drive (almost) as well as if he was sober.

            The boys set their course towards Bairro Alto, the honorary home of all self-respecting bohemians in Lisbon. After parking the car in the Largo do Chiado, one of the city’s most famous squares, they walked up the steep streets that gave access to Lisbon’s dying liver.

            Leonardo, who was not as used to the place as his friends, due to his long periods spent abroad, paid more attention to the local fauna than his friends.

In the Bairro Alto (High Neighborhood), the citizens of the night gathered under the shimmering stars and the silver moon. There is no place in Lisbon where you can see such a wild diversity of people, and yet all of them are united in their will to escape the boredom and the difficulties of everyday-life through alcohol and music. Together, they give birth every night to one single creature, at the same time beautiful and monstrous, intense, violent and insatiable. It is the beast of the night, prey only to its inner instincts and avid devourer of the monotony of daily life.

There were a great deal of foreigners, probably more than you would find in any other place in Lisbon at night.  Many were Erasmus students, hailing from every corner of the European continent and starting to get the city which would be the their home for the next six or nine months. Others are tourists, most often than not British or North-American, eager to hop from one bar to the next, screaming, drinking, dancing, enjoying Lisbon’s mild climate, allowing themselves to forget decency and good manners and give free reigns to their hedonistic tendencies.

Most of the locals are also young, especially on a Friday, although some people are in their thirties or their forties, or even their fifties at times.

The oldest are usually more prudent and less gaudy, more interested in enjoying the moonlight, the music, the drinks and talking with their friends, than in surrendering to their most animalistic instincts.

The young, on the other hand, are more willing to let themselves go, but amongst them it’s easy to distinguish between several sub-groups. The chavs are more interested in smoking weed and provoke fights with anyone that crosses their way than in doing anything else. The punks drink more and consume more drugs than most and, obviously, relish in listening to punk and alternative music. The gays and lesbians also hang out with their own kind, and have their own bars. The posh kids, like everywhere else in the world, think they’re better than anyone else when in fact they’re the most ridiculous of the bunch. Finally, there are those people who failed to fit into a pre-defined group, who are just normal, that don’t follow a ready-recognizable pattern of behavior or dress-code. Leonardo and his mates made sure to be amongst them, and to avoid the zones dominated by any of the other groups.

In Lisbon, there aren’t any better places to have a beer at night with friends, which meant that every time Leonardo was in town, he would go there with his friends.  Sometimes you get your occasional low-life, small-time drug dealer, passing around near you and whispering something like ‘Do you wanna buy Haxixe bro?’ or something stupid like that. And sure, every time you have to listen to drunk people screaming stupid stuff as they pass you by. And as said before, there’s a bunch of chavs roaming around the place. Yet, usually, those things are rather minor hindrances and don’t detract too much from the experience.

So in that night, like in many previous nights, the four horsemen chose the Bairro as the setting of their soirée. They walked around until they found a nice place to settle in and then they gave sequence to their bohemian ritual. They drank of course, as they talked about the past, the present and the future.  As they did so, sometimes Leonardo would look around, carefully observing th animals of the night walking past them. Maybe I’m the strangest of them all.

There they stood, the four childhood friends: David, an engineering student, Romeu, a member of a rich, traditional Portuguese family; Leonardo, a young-man without a country and Alex, a frustrated worker. They had shared many nights like that one in the past, talking about trivial things, discussing philosophical issues, enjoying the warmth of friendship.  Old friends, they stood together, throughout time, mutually witnessing the physical and psychological changes that slowly shaped each one of them into the men they were to become.  

XXIX - I Wish I Thought Like You

When Leonardo, Romeu and Alex arrived at the Japanese restaurant, they found David already waiting for them. He was sitting inside, and was about half way through his second beer of the night. ‘I got here earlier than I expected, so I got started without you guys. Come on now, you gotta make up for the lost time and start drinking!

‘A cheers to the return of our estranged friend who has finally come back home!’ Said David, half an hour and a beer and a half later, prompting Leonardo, Alex and Romeu to clash their beers. In the meantime they had managed to catch up with David, and were already feeling the effect of the hastily consumed alcohol. 

‘Holy shit, this raw fish is really good!’ said Romeu, with his mouth still filled with salmon.

‘It’s not raw fish Romeu, it’s called Sushi,’ corrected him Leonardo.

‘It’s not raw fish?’ Romeu asked visibly confused.

‘I mean… yeah, but it’s called Sushi.’

‘Whatever, Sushi, raw fish, it’s all the same, I just know that it is pretty good. But anyways, tells us about your adventures. Why did it take you so long to come? You said you went to Morocco? Man, you gotta tell peoplethe places you go to, your mom even called me at some point to ask me if I knew where you were. Didn’t you tell her?’

‘No… I sort of needed some time to think, whithout anyone bothering me.’

‘To think about what?’

‘I don’t know, about live I suppose.’

‘About live? What about live?’

‘Everything I suppose. The meaning of life, why we do everything we do.’

‘Holy crap, that’s deep stuff man. I can’t imagine you found too many answers.’

‘Maybe not, but I think that I got to some answers.’

‘Like what?’

‘I realized, when I was standing alone in the desert, that I am like a grain of sand, carried by the wind from one place to another, small and insignificant.’

‘I’m sorry Leo, but that doesn’t sound like much of a discovery.’

‘You don’t think so?’

‘Not really, if you ask me.’

 ‘I don’t know, maybe you’re right, although I don’t agree with you.’

‘Can you tell me why?’

‘Well, realizing something as simple as that made me change the way I see my life and the word around me.’

‘How so?’

‘Before I used to think that, somehow, in some way, everything I did had a meaning and a purpose, but when I found myself looking at the desert sky I just realized how arrogant and stupid I was. The truth is that every path leads to the same destiny, which lies six feet beneath the ground. Not even the stars are eternal. Everything is constantly moving towards the end, one day at a time. That’s probably why society, religion and our families have tried so hard to convince us that the things we do are meaningful and important, the only problem is that it’s just not true.’

‘Yeah, but what do you conclude from all that?’ asked Romeu, slightly upset but engaged.

‘I’m not sure yet, but for starters, I know that there is no one path that I must follow. Nothing is written on the stars because not even the stars last forever even they are destined for destruction. Our time in this earth is limited and insignificant. So having a job, be part of society, do what my family tells me to do, obtain financial security, buying a house… everything is insignificant at the end. I’m willing to do most of those things, if not I probably wouldn’t be here right now, yet I know that it ultimately doesn’t really matter.

In comes society trying to make sense of everything and so a bunch of things are introduced in order to make sense of things like money, laws, religion, jobs, etiquette, ethics, social norms, careers, social status and so on. Yet the truth is that we’re all the same and we’re all going to the same place eventually. It’s all a castle made of sand, just waiting to be blown away by the wind. And if tomorrow I decided to turn my back on all of that, to turn my back on society, the world wouldn’t end, the gods wouldn’t get mad. It’s all constructions of the human mind, designed to give meaning to what is in fact meaningless.

‘So why did you come back?’

‘Honestly… I came back because I’m not sure about what to do with my life, so for now I prefer to believe in the lies again. I couldn’t resist the string pull of inertia, but at least I feel that I’m not so embroiled in the web of ignorance as I was before. I’m a prisoner, but now I know what I am.’

‘Leo, we have know each other for many year now, since we were kids, and I love you, but I think you’re a little bit mad,’ said Romeu, unconvinced by Leonardo’s drastic ideas.

‘Leo, if everything is meaningless, why do you get up every morning? Why did you just accept a job? Why do you keep living at all?’ asked Alex, always willing to discuss Leonardo’s crazy ideas, since he also had quite a few of his own.

‘It’s probably ‘cause we’re scared of facing the truth I think, although I think that most often we’re just not even aware of the truth at all. And some times, when we think hard enough and realize what the truth is, w try to forget it because it makes us feel like shit. Who wants to live a meaningless live after all? I don’t, I makes me feel, small, insignificant and stupid. I much prefer finding a job, write news that are supposed to matter and make enough money to finance a mortgage and feed two or three brats. Ignorance is bliss, ain’t that what they say?’

‘They do in The Matrix…’

‘We might not live inside a computer program, but we live in a world that doesn’t make a lot of sense to rational beings capable of questioning the reasons behind their existence but which are enable to find any answers. So it’s better to just turn into a sheep and follow society’s rules I suppose. I mean, that’s the best next thing after being an actual sheep… sheep, cows, horses they don’t ‘ave the problems we do after all. They just eat, piss, shit, mate and die and that’s it, everything comes naturally to them animals.’

And us, humans, we just had to become so smart didn’t we? Ask questions that we can’t get the answer to that is our prime ability. So here we are, in this sad predicament. So we try to come up with antidotes and we squeeze all of them in a little book that might as well be called: how to proceed in civilized society. We have all these rules, fears and insecurities and we work really hard to wash them away, to feel safe and important even though we’re none of those things. Some crazy, overly ambitious people, even dare to entertain the notion that they are somehow indispensable, but really it’s all a hairy lie. The real truth is that nothing makes any god damn sense and that there’s nothing there after we die. Everything we do we do because we’re terrified of dying, because we’re scared of being poor, fear of being beaten up, fear, fear, fear of everything. Fear to discover that WE ARE NOT INDISPENSABLE. And look at me now, a trainee at the Publico, just about to start my life in society. So when I get my first mortgage we ought to celebrate with some port wine. Then when I get married we can upgrade to champagne and so on. What do you want me to say dear friend, pragmatic thinking Romeu, other than I wish I thought like you?’

‘Shit Leo, you’re the most fucked up guy I know!’ said Romeu, shaking his head in visible disappointment. ‘The only way to get you to behave like everyone else is to get you drunk, and even then…’