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

EIGHTH EPISODE
(The last cliff)

Over the last cliff, before the last stretch that goes on for approximately two snaky miles, you can easily see the specter of the whitish antenna marking the belvedere everyone yearns for. Maybe that is why it has been baptized ill-omened and proscribed; but deep down, always longed for. Where Rui grew up there was a slope called Dead-End; in Maya’s home town, an ancient path they called Dead Man’s Drink. And yet never did the good moon hold back its light from those places, be it a cold equinox or solstice day, one of evil omen or shady presage. For both Rui and Maya, everything, simply everything was land blessed by the eldest gods and legends that had translated, in ages of gold, the worthy postures and the good deeds which served as examples for mankind.
Rui and Maya never spoke of this, but they grasped it through a mystery that unfolded in the gap between their gazes during the hour of truth, when mystery cast light over its own doubt, and understanding was sewed into a handful of suddenly available, clear options. Numb for words, Rui and Maya realized that the summit of the last cliff was the most likely destination of a coincidence and remote complicity that, even though – who knows? – set off by others, ended up revealing an uncanny acknowledgment, an unexplainable agreement of spirit. Light had come out and the mountain, by a remarkable gift, accompanied it.

(Next episode of Wild Boar Eye: “The mountain ridge looked like a feasible place to go, a place one could trust.”)

Continues