The Chronicles of Decay

On Love for People and Nature

It was a Saturday afternoon and I was laying down on the bed, bored as usual, thinking about something to do, until John sent me a message saying he was feeling the same. He was again on a fitness period on his life, no drugs, alcohol or cigarettes, eating and drinking water at scheduled hours, making a diet and exercises and I was afraid he was going to call me again to drink juice and eat vegan pancakes, but I was surprised when he called me:

- I just woke up too, broke my code.

- So now you're done?

- Nah, I'll recover... But I'm fucked up.

- You smoked a joint, right?

- Oh yeah.

We laughed and kept thinking about our options for a while, until he said, unexpectedly:

- Let's go fishing! Bel called me fish on a nice spot.

- Where? A fish-and-pay?

- No, on a pond, we're talking roots here.

- But does he has a fishing rod? No pun intended - he laughed.

- He does. Rod, grill, insecticide and stuff. Do you have beach chairs?

- No, but I got those from bars that you can fold.

- Good. Take three of them if you can. I'll take a grill, spice and wood, we can eat what we fish. Bel said he cleans and cooks them and that's something I want to see.

- Cool.

I packed my shit, soon both arrived and we left. Bell Grills (nickname we gave him after this day) was a psycho who was going with John to the same college I graduated. He was known for his abilities to drink and run himself over with his own old beetle and told us once he almost got into the freemasons. I had never hang out with him before, but thought it would be interesting.

Bel's car was impressive: An old fucked-up beetle without the passenger's seat, where he putted a plastic box full of shit we'd use to fish. There were some boots, insecticide, wire, hooks, a cup with earth, foldable rods and a hoe lying on the floor.

- There's a fucking hoe over there.

- To get the fucking worms for the fucking hooks.

We went to a cheap supermarket, bought a bottle of cachaça and a gallon of water and off we went to the adventure.

We arrived at the place, Bel pulled over and got dressed. We saw some children riding a horse cart who didn't answered when we said "hi" to them and we asked ourselves if we were going to get murdered by them later at the night. We went to the pond, Bel sprayed insecticide on the floor around where we were staying and sprayed at his whole body as if it was a deodorant.

- What the fuck are you doing, man?! This shit will kill you! - John said.

- If you don't wanna get ticks here, you'll pass this on your body.

We sprayed some in our boots and spread some insect repellant. John took care of the fire, Bell started to prep the hooks and gave me the task of finding worms with the hoe. It was harder than I thought it would be: He told me to look in wet earth covered with leaves, but the weather was terribly dry that week. In the end, I found some after digging a big hole under a tree with the hoe. My hands and back started to hurt because of that little effort and I felt like shit because of my low resistance.

Bel prepared the worms in the hooks and I helped John to put the grill over stick supports. He putted some pieces of chicken he brought over it and we waited while they roasted and the fish didn't come.

We lit some cigarettes and started to drink the cachaça and talk shit. John complained something that I don't remember about the zombies from psych college and I said that it was because of things like that I decided to quit.

- You dropped out? - Bel asked me, surprised.

- Yup.

- But you didn't finish it?

- I finished it, worked with it, then I decided I didn't want it anymore.

- It's fucked up, isn't it?

- Yeah.

- That's why I dropped too. But I didn't finish it.

- What are you doing now?

- I ain't doing shit. But I'm doing biology college next year.

We stayed a little more time there and then we lit a joint as soon as it got dark. The fire started to get smaller and John went to get some wood.

- Stay out of the woods or you'll get swarmed by ticks! - Bel said.

We drank some more, until we got the first fish. It was a type of a swamp eel. It's skin was smooth and slimy and had several spots, like a jaguar. I was drunk and high and could only tell Bel repeatedly to cut it's head, but he was fascinated by the thing.

He really liked that, that place. He felt great by catching that fish and the others we would catch during the night. When we heard noises coming from the woods he would follow them only to see what animal was doing them. He showed a true passion I haven't seem in times anyone show by anything, specially by nature.

I knew people who admired "the nature", several spiritualists and humanists, but their admiration was as fake as their "love" towards humanity: They don't love "the human being", as they don't love "the nature". They love nature seen from their 2000-bucks-a-week lodges (they never stay more than a week), from their rides in 4x4 trucks with air conditioner in well lit open roads, in their seminars taken on places with well trimmed grass, sitting on colorful cloths lest they get the back of their new white pants dirty while eating their low-calorie cottage sandwiches.

In the same way, the human being they love is the one they know nothing of. The one from their ideals, humble and kind, walking their path towards enlightenment where they'll be purified of their ignorance and forgiven of all the suffering they caused to the world and their peers not by their own fault, but by society's, capitalism's, alienation's fault. Humanists build their lodges with air conditioner and breakfast at 9am and then they're able to love their neighbors, but none of them are willingly to cut an eel's head to dine among the insects.

I remembered I had brought my harmonica with me so I started playing it while another fish was cooked and Bel prepared another hook. I played the only song I still knew how to play while John checked the chicken one last time and sat beside me, drinking more of the cachaça while I finished the song.

- Well - I said - it seems you just saw David, the "lord of darkness", playing Hallelujah on a harmonica.

- It seems so. Awesome.