Blog

Are you guys sick of my Rio adventures yet? Feel free to let me know. Here’s #6:

The Parque Lage. I’d heard ALOT about it, reading Narcisa: Our Lady of Ashes (you know how JS spares no details). I’ve already mentioned in a previous entry, the kinds of shenanigans and goings-on here. Like, ya know smoking crack with scorpions and being assaulted by monkeys.But now I was there, in this cloistered yet still expansive, lush and green tropical gated-in box, its lid bursting open with life and energy and birds and insects chirping and the whole nine.

Narcisa was feeding off this energy no doubt and was well on the up-swing back to the land of the living after our little “episode” with the cat that had occured a few minutes prior, and we were all just generally feeding off the oxygen-laden greenery that I, living in the desert of Los Angeles, am often deprived of.

“Gimme a cigarette,” Narcisa said as she led us through a small aquarium that was hidden inside a cave, tapping on the glass of every poor fish’s tank, the tanks all built into the rock.

After we walked through that, Narcisa took my hand and walked me through another cave to see some bats until she remembered something far more interesting and entertaining.

“Cigano! We have to show her the trick! To the top of the castle. Go!”

“The echo trick?”

“Shot the fock op, retarded! You ruin it! Come, Alessandra, lets go…” 

And she began to leap- literally- like a baby goat, up the side of the brush to where the ruins of a small tower stood. She waited for me and Jonathan to catch up and then started up a winding stone staircase to the very top of the crumbling monument. She gestured to the 6-pointed star in the middle of the floor in the open-aired circle at the top.

“Stand on it”

I stood on it.

“Now say something.”

“Hello (hello hello hello)” my voice echoed. It was pretty interesting.

Two guys, who were resting up at the top after a presumably long hike commented on my echo trick, in Hebrew. Narcisa then proceeded to explain the architectural flaws of the tower- in Hebrew- back to these men, turning to me and asking- in English- if I had any clue what she was saying, and then laughing to Jonathan- in Portuguese- how funny it was that we’d wound up here, in the Parque lage, on top of a little tower with two Israeli guys. In a little circle. Full circle. The way life always is.

“I’m jealous of you Narcisa” I said, in Italian this time.

“Why?”

“Because you have all the power, speaking these languages like this. You could go anywhere in the world and totally have your bearings.”

“Is no so good like this all time, you know? Is frustrating.”

And I looked at her thinking, yeah, maybe she’s right. Maybe it isn’t easy to walk around with all that knowledge. Maybe its more like a burden, or a curse. Or maybe an inescapable ball and chain to her fellow man. Maybe Narcisa suffers of information overload, I thought as we walked back to down the crumbling stairs.

 

 

NOTIFICAÇÃO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção registrados na Biblioteca Nacional com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor Jonathan Shaw e Alessandra DeBenedetti. Os personagens mencionados são inteiramente fictícios. Certos eventos, personagens, lugares e relatos, foram baseados em fatos reais, porém qualquer semelhança a qualquer pessoa viva ou morta se trata de pura coincidência. As várias fotografias apresentadas se encontram com o rosto distorcido para preservar o anonimato das modelos que representam personagens fictícios.