The man lived by himself in a little blue house. His wife had passed away a long
time before and his two sons, now married, lived far away.

On that day the man was disgusted. Coming home from downtown by bus he had
seen a group o children begging in the square near the church.

“This is unacceptable – he said furiously. The old man zigzagged on the carpet of
the living room.

“And what is worse is that tomorrow is the last day of the year!

The man had counted up to 17 children.

“I won’t be able to spend the last night of the year in peace knowing that, all the
while, these children will be there, lying on the cold cement, hungry and cold, running
all sorts of risks, and also the worst of them all: hopelessness.

All of a sudden two eyes lit up behind the thick lenses of the glasses. Sitting down
on the armchair of the living room, the old man took up a small notebook, a pencil
and started to write up a list.

He would buy, before anything else, a large plastic bathtub, 8 toilet soaps, 3 bottles
of shampoo, 1 box of swabs, 2 bottles of cologne water, 17 bath towels and a water
hose. The water for the water hose was to come from the tap of the filling station at
the side of the square.

He would also need to buy 17 T shirts, 9 pairs of pants, 8 skirts, 9 undershorts, 8
pairs of panties, 17 pairs of socks and 17 pairs of sneakers and one big bag to carry all
that.

And a mirror, a comb and hair fixer to comb correctly the hair of the kids.

And two big turkeys, bought already seasoned and roasted, 2 dozen eggs and wheat
flour to make the farofa (fried flour) and 2 kilos of rice.

And 17 cardboard plates, 17 plastic cups, 10 two-liter bottles of soda, 17 plastic
forks and 17 plastic knifes.

And 51 brownies, 51 cupcakes and 51 chocolate bonbons.

And a cake.

And a bottle of champagne (one sip of champagne to toast the New Year is basic
stuff).

And 17 toothbrushes and two tubes of toothpaste with fluoride.

And a small portable stove to heat up the food.

He would also buy 17 small mattresses, 17 pillows, 17 bed sheets, 17 pillowcases
and 17 blankets.

“I wish to see all these kids entering the New Year with the right foot!

A lead-colored cloud made the man frown still more.

What if it rained?

Just in case he thought it was better to add 17 umbrellas to the list, small ones.

And some aspirin in case anybody got a cold.

And one little bottle of mercurochrome in case anyone was hurt.

And three small low fold-out tables to put the food on.

And three table cloths of white fabric.

And three candle holders with three red candles, one for each table.

The man sitting on the armchairs in the living room stretched happily.

It would be a very nice thing to give a little gift.

He would buy 2 balls, one a football and one volley ball for the gang to play in the
afternoon. And 17 different books, one for each child. So that, when night fell, after
the bath, after the dinner, the kids would all be able to sit under a lamp post and spend
the night reading. When one of them finished a book, he would exchange it for the
book of another and so on.

And what about those who could not read?

He shrugged, annoyed.

“This is the XXI Century! It is unbelievable that there are still children in this town
that cannot read or write. This is a crime. A shame for all those able to read!

The old man made a face:

“Why us and not them?”

The old man was a retired man, he could read and write an, besides, had a lot of
free time. He himself would teach those kids to read!

And added to the list a small blackboard, a box of chalk, 17 notebooks, 17 pencils,
17 pencil sharpeners and 17 erasers.

“Only with a minimum of education would these children – so he said to himself –
be able someday to improve their lives a bit.”

Reading, so he imagined, the children would, besides knowing a thousand tales,
learn to think, for this is one of the most important things in reading. A text is always
a thought put into written words, a thought with a beginning, a middle and an end,
organized by an author. When we read we enter this thought and so, without knowing,
ends up by learning how to think too.

The man smiled at these thoughts of his.

And more, as he remembered, these children would know that there are different
countries and different customs, they would know their rights as citizens, would know
other viewpoints on life and the world, would discover poetry and science, would
find out that all people, of no matter what country, are very much alike: they fall in
love, they like tenderness, they revolt, are afraid to die, hate pain and hunger, can feel
ashamed, make mistakes, enjoy pleasure, wish to be loved and have a mania for
wanting to know themselves.

The guy was sure:

“When these urchins are able to read and write, they shall be able to teach the
others, which live in other squares. If each of them has 17 students, 17 times 17, this
is 289 kids. 289 times 17 are 4.913. 4.913 times 17 are …. 83.521 people!

The old man slapped the arm of the chair:

“This will be a reverse epidemic. An epidemic of generosity, of knowledge and of
the wish to change life and the world!

And he reminded himself that he would need three large bags, for the food, the bed
linen and the books and that maybe it would be convenient to rent a van to take
everything to the square.

Then he recalled that, before anything else, it would be maybe important to add up
the costs.

He would spend roughly 130 reais on the bathtub, on the toilet soaps, on the swab
sticks, water of cologne, towels and water hose.

At least some 648 on the clothes and bag.

10 reais on the hair fixer and comb and mirror.

169 on the food and beverages.

And there would still be the toothbrushes and toothpaste, the little mattresses, the
blankets and bed linen, the umbrellas, the towels, dishes, paper cups, table ware, the
portable stove, the aspiring, mercurochrome, the small tables, the candle holders, the
red candles, the linen table cloths, the balls, the books, the blackboard, the chalk box,
and school material.

It would, by his calculations, add up to some R$ 1.859,00, not counting the rent of
the van!

It so happened the old man was poor, his retirement pension was a pittance, and, to
tell the truth, he would never have the money for anything of that.

The man then went to the kitchen, picked up a piece of mozzarella cheese, a jar of
cottage cheese half empty, one package of sliced bread, a bottle of red wine, a small
knife, a corkscrew and some aspirin. He picked a folding umbrella, some scotch tape,
the little notebook, the pencil and a book of Folk Tales. Putting all of that down into a
backpack, he locked up the house and departed, his steps firm, towards the square
near the church.

The retired man never returned. He was my neighbor and all that took place almost
five years ago.

To this day, when the end of the year comes around, in the night I sometimes catch
myself thinking of him and the things he told me he intended to do some day, if he
had the courage.

A boy walking down the street met a man sitting on the sidewalk.

The boy was on his way back from school. The man was resting after a hard
day’s work.

“Please, what time is it?” The boy asked.

The man said he had no watch, and, to tell the truth, he couldn’t even tell the
time. The boy did not get it. The man explained:

“I do not know what that big hand and small hand are for. They go round and
round but I do not rightly get how the thing works.”

“But that is so easy!” Said the boy surprised. “The little hand points the hours
and the big hand the minutes. For instance: if the small hand is at the ten and the big
one at the five, this means it is ten and twenty five minutes”.

The man shrugged

“But which is the ten and which the five? I always get the numbers wrong”.

The man was old enough to be the father of the boy.

“You don’t know the numbers?”

“Not the numbers, nor the letters”.

“Can’t you read?”

“Neither read nor write.”

The boy stared at the person sitting on the sidewalk.

“Sometimes in the street” – the man told him –“ I stop to look at the letters in
the posters and ask myself what they can mean. At other times at the newsstand, I
admire the magazines and newspapers. I so wish I could read the news, understand
what goes on in the world; read the street signs, make out the words in the packages,
read the destinations on the buses and know where they are going…”
he man sighed.

“There are times I am so ashamed!” – he confessed. “I have to ask everybody
about everything. I seem to be always on the outside of things. I would love so much
to sit under a tree, open a book and read a story!”

A man in a trenchcoat walked hurriedly by, reading a newspaper. On a bench,
in the square, sat a girl, reading a small magazine. A young man parked his
motorcycle and took a city guide from his backpack to check the place of a street.

-“ I am not from here” – explained the man – “My city is far away, beyond the
hills, taking the road, going over more hills and more after that, near the sea. Some
three days travelling by bus.”

And his eyes shone sadly.

“I was just now recalling my house, my mother, my father, my brothers, my
people over there…”

The boy looked for a place to sit down.

“What about you?” The man wanted to know, examining the boy. “Can you
write?”

The boy pushed out his chest.

“I am almost in the third grade!”

The other smiled:

I have a bride, back home. She looks like a princess. The most beautiful thing
on earth. We shall get married some day…”

The man had an idea. He asked:

“Would you write a letter for me?”

The boy nodded and from the bottom of his backpack he took a notebook and
a ballpoint pen.

The man straightened up. Thought a little. There was a warm wind blowing.
The man spoke that the big city was full of smoke and the noise of car horns. He told
he felt lonely. He said he was afraid sometimes, that he was working a lot; making
little money and that in this city everything was too expensive. He asked after the
mother, the father and the brothers. Asked about the rain. Asked if the cow, Lindoia ,
had calved already. Asked if Joan was well.

The boy wrote and wrote.

The man went on. He told that he rented a room in a lodging house, that he
lived with other three people and had to take two buses to get to work. He promised to
save some money. He ended saying that missing them was killing him and that, by the
end of the year, with the help of God, he would take the bus and go back home.

The boy wrote all that in a careful hand, folded the paper and gave it to the man.

Night had fallen. The boy had to go.

A light shone unnoticed in the sky.

The man shook the boy’s hand.

The sneaker is made of canvass and of rubber, undershorts of fabric and
elastic. The notebook is made up of wire and paper. A TV set is of plastic with an
antenna on top and a screen in front. A house is made of a roof, walls, floors,
windows and doors. A cow is of hide, horns and four teats dripping milk. A dog is a
hairy bus full of fleas. A human being is made of flesh, bones, heart and ideas
marching through his head.

And what about the world we live in?

The world is a lot of land surrounded by water on all sides.

Water is the sea, the river, the lake, the rain, the tear and spit.

Earth is really earth.

It is so important that if an extraterrestrial flew by piloting a flying saucer and
halts in the skies and asks what is this thing here called, any child in arms will shout:
“This here is the earth, have you never seen it before?”

There are those who think that the earth is good only for digging a hole in the
ground, to be a hotel for earthworms, to sink down a lamp post or to make your feet
dirty on a rainy day, but it is not that at all.

If it were not for the earth, where would we walk on?

Were it not for the earth, where would we build our house?

What about the cities? And the roads? And the little football fields?

Without the earth we would never more play football!

I had a dream once. I dreamed I was asleep and wished to pee. I went on dreaming
and jumped out of bed. Poor me! When I stepped on the floor I found out that in that
dream there was no floor. And there I went falling, dropping, flying, and fluttering.
The world was a place without earth and because of that everything floated on air. I
left the room, went on flapping, went through the living room full of chairs, furniture
and tables flying and arrived at the bathroom. Inside that the shower, the sink and the
toilet seemed to be white things floating in space. I tried to pee but the toilet wouldn’t
stay still. The need was becoming acute. I tried to aim, I did my best, but it did not
work. I woke up all wet, with my brother below me screaming for help. We sleep in a
bunker bed, I on top and he below.

My brother called me all the names in the book. I explained to him that if it
were not for the firm earth the bunker bed would be flying and it would then much,
much worse.

Thinking about it, the earth is the most important thing in this our world. It is
the soil, the ground, the farmland, the floor, the port, the place where we stand and
build our lives. Without the earth there would be no going running, playing cops and
robbers. Nor riding a bike, or going downhill on a skate. No throwing a top and not
even thinking of playing marbles. Were it not for the earth the airplanes would stay
flying in the sky until they ran out of gas and then fell into the nothing.

Truth to tell, the earth is a kind of mother. The mother of us all.

Where do the trees come from, to afford us shade and safety? From the earth.

Where do fruits come from, for us to eat? From the earth.

Where does the spring of the river come from? And the flower? And the bird?

And the jaguar? And the turtle? And the butterfly? And the monkey? And the
little beetle? And all the animals of the world, except the fish and the sea stars?

With no earth where would the beasts go hunting, where to live and dwell?

With no earth there would be no corn, no oranges, no pears, no bananas, no
grapes, no cocoa, no strawberries, no cherries, no tangerine, no pomegranate, no
avocado, no watermelon, no peanuts, no nothing. The world would be just a lot of
nothing surrounded by water on all sides. However, the earth has its tricks. It doesn’t
like being mistreated, no sir!

It sometimes gets so angry it trembles. Such earthquakes come that God help
us.

Or it then opens its mouth and lets out a big fire out and becomes a volcano.

When people set fires or destroy the bush or fill the ground with trash and dirt
the earth goes sad and the sad land becomes a desert, an arid, dry, barren body, and
nothing grows anymore.

She that was generous, beautiful, wet, full of flowers, smiling, soft, fertile, full
of shade, full of perfume, full of fresh water, full of songbirds, of colorful blossoms,
small creeks, butterflies, small beetles, small and big animals all of a sudden goes
hard and cracked and can only make up sand and dust and desolation.

If the earth became a desert there would be a ground, but how would we be?

If I were a tomato it would be hard going, for, frankly, I hate tomatoes. The
worst thing in this life, worse than rain in the vacations, low grades at school or being
caught in the act, is not liking ourselves. If I were a tomato, I would hate myself.
Eating out at a snack bar is fun, but when a cheeseburger with salad comes, it
is better to have a close look. There is always a tomato hiding behind the lettuce, or
disguised as mayonnaise. I am sure they do it on purpose, just to see the face of the
customers gagging. It is a common thing in a snack bar to hear a giggle coming from
the kitchen.

Truth to say, I don’t even know what a tomato is. If it is cereal, a vegetable, a
fruit, a legume, a bush, a root or a creeper. A green it is not, for greens are green. It
may grow on the ground, like an ant or an earthworm. Maybe it comes in bunches. It
may be anything. Now, what it is good for, nobody has ever found out. I asked my
teacher what is the function of the tomato in this world we live in. He told me to shut
up and pay attention to the class. In my opinion the tomato is not good for any damn
thing.

I had two dreams. In the first one I was flying through the sky like a bird,
whistling, with a little warm breeze blowing on my face. Something came over me all
of a sudden: I started to fall and fall until I fell sprawling on the ground. When I came
to myself I was all bloody and surrounded by white snakes. Some of them were coiled
around my body. I shook. I felt the slow breath of death. I screamed. And that was not
even blood. It was tomato juice. I had fallen into a giant dish of macaroni. In the other
dream we were in class and somebody meowed like a cat, teacher Ms. Miller stopped
the class, threw on the ground the piece of chalk and opened wide her eyes. She
started to swell, to grow bigger, and to grow redder and became a very large tomato,
wearing glasses and a ponytail. Then she pulled a guitar I know not from where and
started to dance rock and roll.

How many are the marvels that nature offers us! Crunchy ice cream with a
whipped cream topping. Love apple candy. Chocolate with praline. Sweet peanuts,
sold in long paper bags at the doors of movie theaters. I phoned my father and asked
him who invented tomatoes. He got angry, he was busy and he sent me out to play
with something else. It is hard to understand what goes on inside a father.
Jessica thinks that being a tomato is no big deal. If she were a tomato she
would not worry. She would hang from a tree, or sit in a stack quite cool, on the stand
of a street market. She also said that she think herself the best thing in a pizza. Jessica
sits in front of me at the class room. I stay looking at her hair. Feeling her perfume. I
am going to marry her when I grow up. I am going to be a billionaire, buy a house in
Disneyland and stay there, kissing Jessica all day long.

I told Jason that I would wish to anything but a tomato. He told me to stop
being silly. Would I rather be toilet paper, he asked. Jason is the smartest guy in class.
Being a tomato can sometimes be a lot better!