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RUBRIC
THE STORY OF A SON


THE FIRST DAY
The story of a son who never stopped being a son


From my land I inherited the height of the hills and the depth of the valleys, a taste for life and, later, a lack of interest in it.

I remember the ordinary days: the first ray of sunshine would awaken my senses, making me jump happily on top of my many siblings. I'd put on my boots, pick up my sachet and hold my father's hand.

He taught me the ways, showed me the streams, the fields, the orchards, the city.

I would spend the day with him, watching his work from afar, the angle of the hoe, the dance of the scythe. I watched him learn patience in waiting and the time-consuming art of amazement. I followed him wherever he went, I wanted to do everything he did.

At dusk, the last ray of sunshine would bring me to his horse and he would ask me to remind him of the way back. I shrugged my shoulders, hesitating, because I no longer knew where the fountains were, where the waiting was, where the fruit was or where the men were.

I remember my mother's gaze and the silence of her body leaning against the doorframe as she watched me arrive with dirty socks and lips happy to be alive. I would call out to her and tell her about the great achievements of being a son: the sowing time, the fertilizing of the land, the market business. My father would approach me and hear me say the most certain of all my certainties: I'm already big like Dad.

Even though they weren't the same, the days repeated themselves, adding routines to time. Without doing the same things, they were the same things I did and I was happy. Until a mundane day came when being happy wasn't enough for me. Not that I didn't want happiness, or that being happy was too little, or less, because it wasn't. All I can say is that, deep down inside me, it wasn't enough.

That day, at dawn, my mother got up and I got up with her. We ate together and, before I went to put on my boots, pick up my sachet and give my father my hand, she handed me a glass, as she always did. But that day, I was so thirsty.

In the fields, I was disturbed by the sound of birds flocking and the water running through the soil.

In the evening, before going to bed, I went to see my mother in the kitchen. She stayed up late sewing my father's socks and my brothers' pockets. Meanwhile, she prayed the rosary and sang. I sat down by her feet, as I had never done before, and asked her why we exist. She shrugged her shoulders and I remembered that she too was a daughter, and that she might not yet know the place of men. Or maybe she just wanted to make me understand where the fountain belonged and where it didn't belong.

The days passed, and I repeated my body on those paths again and again. The thirst was also repeated. Why doesn't it go away? And what do I do with it?

Text by Verónica Benedito, asm Voice of Fausto Raínho Ferreira


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