MINSTREL OF THE MIDNIGHT - The Viscerally True Story Of Meia Noite
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CHAPTER I - Life and death
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This is the story of my life, death and rebirth. For some ones, the lie of lies. For some others, the witnessing of a truth
that has been hidden for far too long. From you, dear friend, I only ask to keep an open heart and attentive eyes to receive and understand this honest and trustworthy testimony.
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I was born the second son of my parents, back in a faraway spring evening of 1864, in my family's ranch, in the countryside of the state of São Paulo - Brazil. My father was a tough country man, descendant of the pioneers who blazed the trails down to those lands, more than two centuries before. My mother, an unfortunate native "Indian" from the region, who was literally tied up by him when she was only 14. Daddy died from a heart stroke when I was 12, less than one month before my mom gives birth to my younger sister, who died from the measles on the 10th week of her short life. Mom went completely desolated and decided we should move on to the capital after those two hard losses in such a short period.
The big city, would never ease it for a countryside family like us, and as soon as we stormed at our new place - one of the really tiny rooms with two old beds reserved for the employees in a luxurious downtown hotel where Mom got a job - I knew our lives would never be the same again. We lived there for the following couple years, and being completely honest, besides the lack of many basic stuff one needs to grow up healthy and worthily , those were not the worst days for me at all! In the morning, I used to work as a shoeshine boy on the pathway in front of the hotel, where I met some good men, like Mr. Santarém, a classy and gentle literature teacher, who taught me how to read the newspaper and over the years, presented me with a considerable amount of books of all kinds. Perhaps, I was one of the very fewer boys, among all the lower class' children in the city at the time, who could read, spell and even understand what in the hell words like obliviousness or unconstitutionally mean. My afternoons, I used to spend wandering around and trying not to get into many big struggles with the other boys out there, yet, from time to time, I arrived at home with one bruise or two.
I have always been infatuated with the music, once my father was a great viola caipira player, and taught me the first notes and chords on an instrument. Since then, I started composing songs and lyrics about things that I saw, stories about myself and people around me. But it was there, in that hotel, that I met Mrs. Lorenzzeti, daughter of the place's owner and one of the most brilliant Brazilian pianists back then. I was 16 at the time and had been hired by her father to work as a waiter at the hotel restaurant. Every Thursday evening, she performed there and I just could not help stop working to watch her playing those incredible pieces. Many times, I almost lost my job because of that.
One night, after the concert, she called me and told me she perceived how the music touched me. After a short talk, we became friends. It seemed we knew each other for years! Marietta was one of the most adorable people I ever got to know. She told me how impressed she got with such sophisticated education coming from a simple waiter, then asked me whether I wished to learn how to play that wonderful instrument. Of course I readily agreed and we combined that my classes would happen once a week, after her performances, and so that was, almost religiously for the following two years. There was a time when she even invited me to play a piece of Beethoven with her in front of the audience, what, for sure, was not seen with good eyes, nor encouraged by her father. I must confess that at certain point, I realized I was completely in love with her. She was my first love and indeed, an impossible one, and sooner than I could imagine, it became very clear. That would be a regular Thursday evening. She would perform and I would be there, watching and waiting for my class. I decided that I would declare my love for her in that night, but in the middle of the 24th Nocturne of Chopin, that rich, yet, unclassy and visibly ignorant lad, son of an important politician interrupted the concert and proposed to her in front of everyone, a situation from which she could not evade easily. I remember that some days before, during a meal with that politician, Mr. Lorenzzeti said something about a serious financial crisis that affected his business in such way, that he did not see other option than closing doors and declare bankruptcy. The man offered him some help in exchange of something that I didn't listen, but then, it all made sense... Fact is, that I expected no other reaction from Marietta, but an emphatic reproof, once, for her, as much as for me, anything was more sacred than the music, and interrupting such a moment, would be just unacceptable! For my bitter surprise, though, she accepted his proposal. Clearly, she was not comfortable with that, but we are talking about a period when women's fate was not exactly on her hands, even for a girl like her, way ahead of her time. In truth, I got so mad, that I just threw the dish I was holding on the floor and ran as fast as I could from that place, never to return again.
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I must have ran for a quite long time when I finally found myself in an empty alley, where I had never been before. I sat down by the window of an old house and cried out copiously, thinking about all of that injustice, about Marietta, about no matter how hard I had striven, I would never be good enough to be part of her life. I was born a poor man, so, a poor man I should die! All the education I had got, for the high society members, looked just like an exotic stray dog with a diamond carved leash! At the time, I thought I had wept until I fell asleep, for suddenly and out of nowhere, a very elegant man, with a strong British accent came to me, extended his handkerchief and we got to talk. He told me things about the vanity of men, the needlessness of time and a bunch of other philosophical stuff that, for me, at the moment, sounded just like a really big load of bulshit! Now I understand, though, that the more we live and learn from our experiences, is the less the trivial things really matter. A man like him, had lived enough to earn and lost all the wealth one is able to do, at least a couple of times, and surely long enough to get sick and tired of all the human fuss about anything and everything. Our conversation lasted much more than I imagined, and then, the bell of a church in the nearby begun tolling. I just remember turning back to him and saying something like: "It's time for me to go. It's the Midnight..." And then I saw no more. He attacked me with such savageness, like a lion jumping on the prey with the certainty it cannot escape. I was involved in the most dense desperation one can experience and just stood there, thoroughly static as long as that lasted. Curiously, there was no pain, except by the soft piercing of his two needle-sized fangs on my neck. Time seemed to be idle and those few seconds lingered an eternity. People use to say that when you die, your whole life passes through your eyes, but in my case, it was most like if I could testify all the life and death of the world itself and the futility of existence as it is, running within my veins, and then, everything slowly fading to black. When I thought it was all coming to an end, he released me and I fell on the ground just like a stone, in time to face him getting down on his knees and gazing at me with those golden ferocious eyes to tell me about the "gift" I had been just given. According to his words, I should never succumb to no living man again. As himself, I would become one of a kind, above the human race, capable to rule all of the creatures on the face of the world, above and beneath the surface at my vain whim. I would be immune to the action of time and no disease would ever have any effect on my body. An overdose of sensations flooded my brain as each and every word he said echoed in my mind and vibrated on my nerves like the very trumpets of the Apocalypse. I felt and sensed every thing like never before. Therefore, suddenly as it came, this whole sensation disappeared, and only darkness remained, pure and endless, almost touchable. That's when, in an absolutely absurd way... I died and my journey has really begun.
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If you want to keep reading the next chapters of this story, don't forget to check out the brand new book MINSTREL OF THE MIDNIGHT - The Viscerally True Story Of Meia Noite. soon on the shop section.
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