Lunatics

Lunatics · Chap 004 · Heavy rain over the Drizzle City

4 · Heavy rain over the Drizzle City

IBRAHIM MOUSMÉE turned left at the calmer 24 de Maio street carrying Chico Manoel’s grey jacket on his left arm. Two flying transporters hovered less than twenty feet above him preparing to land. Ibrahim hopped away trying not to be used as part of the landing ground and regained his composure to pass a small group of groggy youngsters.

Before reaching Crispiniano Street, he tried, thrice, to call Chico Manoel using his personal communicator. The reply was a recorded message with a serious Chico Manoel speaking after the four first notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

“Please, leave a message. I’ll call you back ASAP.”

Ibrahim was laconic and used the same words all three times.

“I’m with your jacket.”

A yellow android with grey details was taking care of a small red-haired girl who had fun stepping on the dirty waters of the slops left by the afternoon rain. Ibrahim looked at the back of the ancient building of the City Theatre and thought of the weird talk he had with his friend at the bar. Chico Manoel must have looked for me after leaving the toilet but the noisy boys must have worked as a wall between us. That sounded logical, but he still could not understand how his friend had not noticed his jacket on the back of the stool.

There were many people on the benches of the Roberto Carlos Square. Some youths smoking weed, some exchanging lusty caresses, some old chumps playing cards or domino. Ibrahim stepped on the Tea’s footbridge after running to escape the still heavy traffic of the transporters going faster than the permitted speed, ignoring the huge white stripes of the zebra-cross, desperately trying to get to Paissandu Square or the tunnel that would take them to the Northern suburbs through the Anhangabau Pass.

The footbridge was curiously empty. The flagstones would take him to the Patriarch Square, siding the moving walkways. He preferred to walk than to use the conveyors so as to being able to stop in the middle of the way to enjoy the view of the boulevard from above. He pressed his forehead to the cold blades of intelliglass that protected the footbridge, observing the young couples and loners walking slowly on the stone paths, old ladies sitting on the benches, different sitter-droids never losing sight of the flocks of hyperactive children, some feet under.

He passed the jacket to his right arm and touched the cold, transparent surface with his left hand. The heat from his fingers left prints as clear as his breath did, blurring his vision with the rhythm of his lungs. There were police officers in strategic points of the artificial gardens. The adults who occupied the boulevard had a different beat from the ones crossing Ipiranga Avenue in front of the Republic Square.

The grassy carpets of the gardens and the sparkling waters of the fountains dancing in changing arches before showering over the multi-layered limy stones made him think of things yet to happen, a memory of the future and an unpleasant remembrance of his own history.

He could hear the baffled screams of the children filtered by the self-cleaning blades of intelliglass. The screams, the lights, the shadows cast over the plants and walls, the fountain, the robots, and the same sensation of a past experience. Screams. Of joy or of pain? Is beauty beheld from a distance more beautiful than the one we can touch? From up close, imperfections are easily perceived, the tricks are unmasked; the hidden lamps, the electric cables, the tubes and the pumps that make the flushes go higher, the exhausters and ventilators to keep the air clear, the speakers that bring mild tunes to set the perfect mood…

Ibrahim imagined his own reality in a cruder manner. His life was good but he had his share of pain. It had been cold as the intelliglass surface his forehead touched. But it also had been as soothing as that boulevard. He liked to be there, looking down at that paradisiacal view as if he were some god who could dispose of things and people as he saw fit.