WILD BOAR EYE
A novel in twelve episodes
By Luís Carmelo
(transl. Bernardo Palmeirim)

TENTH EPISODE
(The inventor of the wonder drug)

Yet nonetheless there was, between the two, that intimate exchange of looks that disclosed, in the hour of truth, a kind of pact, a bold, unforeseen trust. And the engine hiccupped, spoke of wear and tear, and pushed against the fatigue of such a climb. It is two to eight, and out of the shadow a dark sea surges in flickering lights, varying with the relief of the succeeding slopes.

Until they reached a stretch of road, approximately 50 meters long. Less than a mile to the belvedere now. The longing.

(It all takes place somewhere between accord and treachery – thought Rui, after it had all happened).

(Just a gift. Pilgrimage of the spirit that travels quiet until the moment we stand facing each other. One car for the both of us. The absurd. We had never seen each other before. And we were sitting there as if we had been granted access to life everlasting. We had been awaiting a sign. Anything. A car is an asset, a luxury, but I never thought it could be a sign of providence. For a car travels across space in the same way a miracle travels across your imagination. We’re still face to face, the two of us, next to the same car. Each holding his own key. We’d arrived at the park, the same park, at the same time. We took it for granted that we and we alone were heading for our own car and that obviously no one else could, especially at the same time, go for that car as their own. But on that day, it happened. And that was a gift. The gift. After that we traveled on board of a silent confession. We were like a baroque episode that makes movement awaken realities but not the reality. Unique. Between them, between these worlds, something ended up waking what we had lived together for a couple of hours. And because of that we drove, I swear, up to the highest point, the fancy of a higher thawing, where God could wait for us. And us with Him, arm in arm, holding a draught beer and a big cigar and playing crazy games. And I saw myself and them, Rui and God, hand in hand, running on clouds of twilight, in this isthmus where the curves of life can guess the ultimate stretch and, with it, the groveling fog and bitter wait for the belvedere of forbidden longing that I would never come to see. Already a kind of redemption anticipated the announced summit. World and life were still the image of starting the engine of a same vehicle disputed by two human beings who loved and betrayed each other, unaware. I, the inventor of the wonder drug, the magic vaccine, and he a lawman that would make his bearded colleague, he who had read out God’s commandments, envious. I can see him now, sitting on the blue cloud in the corner, a chandelier made out of seeds and costmary stems on each side. A true gift, that chance meeting: the royal pleasure of having existed for the big mountain climb, the oversized cliff. Until. Until the 50 m stretch showed up. It was less than a mile to the belvedere. The longing –Maya thought, just a blink of an eye before it all happened.)

Maya hit the gas for the long stretch.

(Next episode of Wild Boar Eye: “Rui opened his car door and stood stunned, numb, hanging onto the side mirror.”)

Continues