Christmas' grenade

Avenida Paulista @ Haddock Lobo st in Sao Paulo. My attention was caught by the Christmas' ornaments and I instantly got puzzled: Is that a grenade?

I do not know if it was meant to be a grenade, but it sure looks exactly like one!!

Screams, hopes and dreams

A cracking sound breaks the brief silence. Two people yell at each other from the bottom of their lungs, spreading hate around the room. Kim is two doors away and can still feel it. She closes her eyes as hard as she can and then covers her face with her hands, in a primitive attempt to make that nightmare vanish. Unfortunately, unlike sleeping, when her eyes reopen the nightmare remains.

Several things are being broken in the kitchen, but now she can only hear one person there. Kim’s bedroom door bursts open. He picks her up from her bed, as if there was no gravity and starts beating her up. She does not react anymore, there is no point. Maybe because of that, he gets satisfied sooner and leaves her bleeding.

Kim just stands up, cleans the tears and the blood off her face and gets to bed. Her laptop lies next to her. She likes to look at cute pictures of animals cuddling, looking after each other, being more “human”, more caring than her parents will ever be. Kim gazes at the desktop background, a picture of Dave Navarro. His piercing eyes comfort her. He is smiling with the corner of his mouth, she smiles back to the laptop screen and gradually falls asleep.

In the following morning Steve, Kim’s boyfriend, shows up. He is unpleased to see how her face looks. He wants to take her to his game, around his friends and she looks trashed. He takes her out of that house, away from her crazy parents.

Steven drives Kim to his house. She is not going to the game with him anymore, not looking like that. He promises she will never have to go back to her parent’s house again and leaves to the game.

Kim has a small backpack full of clothes and her laptop in her arms. She places the laptop on her side of the bed and decides to have a bath. A long one. She watches TV all day, lying on the couch and eating nothing but ice cream and snacks. She loves that, not having to worry about anything around her and doing what she feels like doing.

It’s dark when Steven gets home. Singing loud, he picks Kim up and dances with her, spinning. They laugh. He is completely drunk. Steven looks at her, but it is like he is no longer there. His sight is lost somewhere, his eyes are blurry. This picture scares Kim. Steven, just like in the games, smells the fear and gets excited. He starts playing rough, which frightens Kim even more, so she pushes him away. The look in Steven‘s eyes instantly changes. Now Steven is the predator, the predator constantly needs to feel the excitement of being dominant and her reaction definitely unpleases him. So, he beats her up. He does it until he gets bored and passes away on the couch. Kim picks herself up, one more time. Rage takes over her head. Why is that repeating? She finishes the whisky bottle Steven left on the floor and heads to the bedroom. She locks the door and lies down next to her laptop.

One more time Kim gazes at Dave Navarro’s picture. She loves the fact that he wears make up, that his nails are always polished. She sees a strong, but still, sensitive person that is everything he truly wants to be. He is dreamy. Kim wonders why she cannot be with a man like him. She smiles at the laptop screen and falls asleep.

At this exact moment a fairy passes by and gets aware of Kim. -A what?- Yes. A fairy. Pinocchio’s fairy is flying around, helping the tooth fairy with some fairy business. Is this the part of the story that is hard to believe in? Wouldn’t the world be just great if the violence that happened to Kim so far was the awkward part?

But, yes, a fairy gets in action. Fairy tales are actually based on true facts. For some reason the religion stuff was more catchy. I feel this is because religion history is more tragic and filled with hideous acts. However, the nice fairy tales are also true, although, due to the human nature, harder to believe in.

Pinocchio’s fairy gets aware of Kim and enters the bedroom. The beautiful light that surrounds her paints the room blue. She gently moves the hair off Kim’s face, briefly watches her sleep with the kindest of looks and then turns to the laptop, concentrating on her work. Just like Kim, the fairy smiles at Dave Navarro’s picture and, moving as gracious as if she was dancing, the fairy touches the laptop screen with her magical wand.

The pixel man stretches like a cat, leans towards the fairy and astonishingly emerges from the laptop screen. This now flesh and bone Dave Navarro charmingly tips his hat to the fairy. He gently lies down next to Kim, putting his arms around her. In her dreams, Kim takes a deep, calm breath. The fairy leaves the room proud and satisfied.

Kim will wake up next to her now real dream man and they will live happily ever after. Against all odds.

Back through little girl eyes

Candy, tenderness and coffee. These are the elements I subconsciously associate with my grandparents. Their house was a very important and special place in my childhood. It was my second home.

My grandfather was a very intelligent man. Even though he was not much educated he was brilliant. He was always building things to improve the house or his car. He had a place filled with tools for his creations and had specially designed children size tools for my brother and I to “help” him. He was an adorable person.

My parents and grandparents were neighbours. Their backyards shared the same wall where my grandfather placed a square-shaped window, with a square curtain to give it a friendly, not invasive look. I loved that window, my grandmother used to hand me all kinds of delicious goodies through it. But the best part about it was calling for my grandparents whenever I was bored or in trouble and then being lifted and transferred to their house.

The window has always brought me a magical feeling. I used to think of it as a portal when I was little. Even though many years had past that still was the feeling I had when I returned to my grandparents’ house for a few days.

Only my grandmother was alive then. I was laying on the same bed I used to and that magical memory made me recall all the sensations I had as a little girl there. Suddenly I saw myself tiny in that room again. I sat on the floor and opened the huge closet doors, looking for an old small box. I could not help smiling when I found it. It safely held some of my most dear possessions through all those years - a yellow musical box with a picture of a girl trying to reach a red balloon, a miniature set of playing cards with amazing detailed illustrations and the fantastic hand painted little people made of clay. Each little person had an individual cardboard box, keeping them inside their own little world. They were a soldier, a German girl, a Dutch girl and a bride. The fifth box was a match box with the image of a groom which I kept for the no longer lonely bride.

Hundreds of images took over my mind. Soldiers trying to impress the clay girls. The girls running across gigantic flower fields, going as fast as they could though the tricky wind pulled back their dresses. Those characters were so alive during my childhood.

I put them back inside the boxes and went back to bed. I felt comfy back in that bedroom and fell fast asleep. There was a very old clock next to the room, and I was woken up by its ghostly sound announcing it was 3 am. I then heard a much lower sound. A unrecognizable sound, probably from my grandmother’s room or maybe of the water in the pipes, or even something outside. Sounds grow so much louder in the silence of the night.

The sound was getting closer. And closer and closer. Now it sounded like something being dragged. I turned on the lights and there were all the little clay people standing next to my bed, with their shiny little eyes and hand painted smiles, excited about my return.

Spin

One dark night I caught myself watching a white butterfly. It cast a thin, tall shadow on my bedroom wall and flew into my window. The butterfly flew around the entire room, as if it enjoyed looking at every detail.

I used to live in a very old two story house. Its decayed walls were covered by a vanilla wallpaper, decorated with very delicate scarlet flowers. Some parts of it were falling off, camouflaging the butterfly as it flew by. However my visitor left soon. I walked towards the window and watched this very little butterfly getting tinier and tinier with the distance. It reminded me of a snowflake as it flew down and landed on the soft surface of a dog's head.

This dog was sitting in front of the main door and it just stayed there, looking directly at me, as if waiting for me to go and say hello. I felt I had to meet this intriguing being.

It was a zombie dog, one of those lovely creatures with piercing eyes and, well, falling apart features. It had gold-dusty long hair and beautiful light brown eyes. Yet, even though its waggling tail showed contentment, this zombie dog was very scared. My attempts to pat the dog made it retreat several times. This dog certainly had been treated badly and was now cleverly being precautious. And I say cleverly for I am human and know my kind - I myself do not really trust people.

After a while my adorable zombie dog learned he could trust me and I named him Spin, for every time he saw me he would jump spinning around with joy.