A pitch dark soul - Ch.2

Partilho mais uma parte desta curta narrativa. Foi muito agradável trabalhar esta história. Estou mesmo bastante satisfeito. De tal maneira que já ando a imaginar os contornos da próxima. :)

Entretanto, volto a apelar, colaborador(a) pictográfico procura-se. Bom domingo.

Chapter 2 - James

In fact, there was a great reason for all that commotion that was fermenting inside Adam’s head. This strange new boy was normally dressed, with his school uniform from some unknown public school. Regardless there was something instantaneously awkward when we looked at him. Covering his face there was this old and dusty burlap sack.

Adam started questioning himself if he should be running away from that strange fellow. But then he remembered he hadn’t had anyone spoken to him in so much time, he was starting to feel he would regret if he turned around from that strange kid. Anyway even if this boy was just waiting to tease him off and beat him up, he couldn’t feel any more pain rather than the amount he was already feeling. And so, he decided to try again.

“Who are you? What’s your name?”

“I don’t have a name. I never had.”

“Well sir, everyone has a name. And I dare to say everyone must have one too.” Hick folks tend to treat everyone they don’t acknowledge with ‘sir’, following the first sentence with something they think is very complex and eloquent but that is actually logically absurd. This kind of speech vanishes as soon as they become acquainted. For countryside people this happens usually after five minutes of talking or as soon as someone refers ‘Jesus Christ’ in a sentence. Adam was just being faithful to his own roots.

“I never needed one though.”

“But you will. How do you, sir, expect me to salute you whenever I see you walking across the street?”

“I can’t see exactly how does that classify as a need of my own...”

“Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior!”, said Adam in recognition of the so awaited proximity, “Whenever one friend can’t call on the other, that makes a problem they both have to face, don’t you think?”

“Well if this issue is already becoming a problem I suggest you pick a name to call me. The truth is I really don’t have a name.”

“You didn’t have, to be more precise. Nice to meet you James. I’m Adam.”, said Adam while extending his hand towards his new friend.

“Hi Adam. So tell me, was that what death really looks like?”

A lovely character: the insidious James.

--- Life is a slip stream, draining out until it reaches the absolute nothing. The perfect emptiness. Universal voidness.

James in A pitch dark soul

Uma pequena amostra de algo diferente

Tenho estado a trabalhar algo que é completamente novo para mim: o conto. Como tal, apesar de extremamente desafiante, tem oferecido algumas complicações próprias de uma arte que ainda não se domina com segurança. De qualquer forma está a ser uma experiência deveras agradável. Pretendo finalizar uma série de contos negros para crianças reluzentes, traçando um género que será algo semelhante a Allan Poe para pequenos iluminados.

Deixo-vos o início da primeira história, que está praticamente finalizada, de forma a ficarem com uma ideia do que tenho escrito ultimamente. Ainda não tem título definitivo, sendo que por ora se chama "A pitch dark soul".

PS: É verdade, procura-se ilustrador que compreenda bem a motivação deste trabalho. Por um lado o traço suave e o universo colorido próprios de uma bonita e esteticamente agradável ilustração para crianças. Por outro, o contraste com uma realidade crua, insensível e cinzenta. Se é desafio suficiente para ti, reply me. :)

Chapter 1 - A Strange Boy Comes By

Adam was a boy living in a countryside village. Despite being no older than 8, Adam was already a very special child. He could not stop ever feeling pain. For people like us, one second as Adam would feel like an excruciating agony. To Adam however, whom was used to live with his pain since he was born, that feeling was nothing but a constant, latent scream. A warning telling him he was alive.

Adam was in constant pain, but what really made him feel hurt was the fact he did not have any friends. Though his body cried constantly as if it was a disfigured sore, his heart actually cried over nothing but its own loneliness.

After school the other boys would usually go play football on some old oat fields, now abandoned, behind the church. Adam would travel south instead, along the old Kerrisburgh road, on his way to the riverbanks. Adam loved to spend his sunny Spring afternoons by the Sleevers Creek, especially next to the abandoned mill. After collecting some poppy heads (they are very abundant close to the shore) he would lay down on the grass and just watch the stripped clouds, those that so many times look like cotton puffs waiting for the wind to shape them. With a little penknife he would cut the poppy heads and wait for its ‘juice’ to become gooey. Then he would chew the poppy gum. This used to make him intimately relaxed, where conjoined with the soft breeze blowing his hair up on his forehead, made him feel truly at peace. After all, afternoons were great by the creek.

On that particular day though something unusual happened. He had already closed his eyes but was not asleep yet. The pain and the sadness were all but forgotten by now and he was feeling as like he was immersed in a pool of tranquility, when a very clear and deep voice sounded from above his head. “Is this what death looks like?” It was a boy, and this boy had a perfect accent, therefore it couldn’t be townsfolk. It was someone from outside, a ‘foreigner’. Adam opened his eyes with a hurry, the normal fastness we employ whenever we are surprised. As fast as he opened his eyes, he let his lower jaw hang loose in complete astonishment as he stared at the other boy standing next to him. The boy asked Adam again. “Is this what death looks like?”

“Who are you?”, Adam replied after the while it took him to recover from the initial shock.

“I am most confident that is the closest definition of death I have ever crossed with.”, said the boy.

“Who are you?...”, asked Adam again, though he was definitely thinking ‘WHAT can he be?’.