Here I’m now, going through some unknown city, opening my way through the masses, and so, between all these walkers, there are many kind of t-shirts with funny letterings, letterings sayings things like “Just do it or die”; “Good girls go to heaven Bad girls go to...”; “Sometimes pretending to be normal”; “I'm not rude I'm just saying what everybody is thinking”; “Not perfect, just limited edition”; “Warning! explicit contention”; “Stop following me!”; “Blink if you want me”; “Obey”; “Too much self control”; “Etc!” and so on. And thus, as they pass by, on both sides, worrying up, I’m actually studying their faces, analyzing their pretension, thus, let's go, fast-forward, let’s go for some description. This is, between others, I see men in suits with ties strangling their necks, walking fast. Women with bouncy hair, purses under the arm and long dresses, sometimes short dresses, walking fast. Middle aged people carrying bags and stuff, not walking so fast. Groups of teenagers advancing together, pushing each other, and messing with the people around. Many tourists also, some of them pushing suitcases. Suitcases pushing them. Plus, people waiting in corners, munching, chatting, yawning, some talking on their phones… and me here, looking at them and thinking, “Should I also get one of these phones in order to integrate myself in this society?”; “No”, a shoe-shiner tells me in a corner, “first you should get a proper job, then a proper house, then some kind of wife, then some kind of paramour, and just then, who know… some kind of phone, to collect friends, girlfriends, get abstract jobs, and waste your time with absurd idiocies, etc.” And as he says this things I smile, but, when he starts to touch my shoes, I run away from him, and so, there I go again, advancing through the masses, I see people getting 2 inside shops, getting out of shops, people crossing the road, getting inside taxis, some walking in all fours, others stopped on the sidewalk begging, like this guy, actually seated on the floor with a bunch of pots in front of him, and in front of each of those pots there is a signboard, one saying “Alcool”, other saying “Love”, other saying “Justice”, other saying “Chance”, other saying “Future”, other saying “No Internet”, and, as I pass by, I pick a couple of small stones from my pockets and throw them into one of that pots, this is, I didn't choose the pot by the saying, I just threw it randomly. And so, as I keep advancing, I watch the many showcases, many sort of gadgets, stuff for tourists, clothes accessories, telephone accessories, travelling accessories, information accessories, food accessories, love accessories, sports accessories, power accessories, lux accessories, accessories related with idols, accessories related with idiots, accessories related with ambition, accessories related with the sexuality of world famous people, etc. And then, I leave this main street, I leave the city centre, and, as I go through some middle class neighborhood, I pass the terrace of some pastry-shops, hearing conversations about budgets, about time, about guts, and, I pass some laundries, I pass some insurance agencies selling watches, and after a while, as I advance through some back streets with poplar trees aligned on the sidewalk, I arrive at some construction site, this is, I see they are building some kind of pavilion here on the slope, this is, the slope that serve as division borden between this middle class neighborhood and the other neighbourhood further down, where the suburbs begin. And so, here I’m, under this Poplar tree now, watching the man working inside the construction city, still far away from here. This is, inside it's all hustle and bustle, say, men carrying materials from place to place, men operating noisy machines, men yelling to each other. And, I may say, I like what I’m seeing, I don't know why, but, I like all this scenarium, and so, as it goes, I’m even approaching more the rusty fence, and then, I just stay by there, watching the men working from a distance, this is, watching them moving tools-objects from place to places, operating machinery, etc. And, as it goes, soon they are already getting aware of my presence, and, despite the distance, I can hear some making hot comments about me... this is, calling me a bugger, a snoop, a plainclothes, and others making signals, like, telling me to leave, but, there I stay, and so, after a while, someone is already coming down, 3 approaches the rusty fence, more precisely, coming to ask me what I want from there… and, well, I say that I'm looking for work, I say that I can do a bit of everything, and, I'm very motivated, and, I can start at anytime, and, I don't mind about shifts and stuff. And, as I say this, this guy wearing pants stained with wet cement and some kind of plastic helmet on his head, smiles a bit, and then comments, “but, you don't have the right shoes”; “it doesn't matter! I can work barefoot!” I say, and as I say this, he even let out some kind of laugh, and still smiling, he advances to the rusty fence between us, and he lifts it, while ordering me to pass under it, which I do in a jiffy. And then, up the slope we go, already approaching all these men working around a manual concrete-mixer. This is, they are five, or six or seven; with hoes in their hands, mixing the heap of sand with the portion of cement; others pouring water inside the mixer; others filling buckets of ready made concrete; others approaching with wheelbarrows, bringing more sacks of cement, opening it with a jerk and pouring the content by my barefoot already asking “What is this kid doing here?”; “He wants to work” the forman says. “Bring him a pair of boots!” he orders, and soon the servant is already bringing me the aforementioned. “You will be a porter” he says while pointing to the buckets full of cement on our front, and at the same time, pointing to a certain part of the building “you see that garage door… you have to go through it, cross to the rear part of the building, go up the aluminium staircase, and there, on the first floor, the bricklayer will tell you how he wants it, if more smooth or more rough, or more creamy, and you, as you come back here with the empty buckets, you must inform use about his choice, understood?”; Totally!”; “So, hands on”, he says, still smiling, some kind of tricky smile, but, that’s ok. And there I go, carrying buckets of concrete up and down, listening to the men's jocular comments, making it faster, this is, with my new pair of boots, I can almost fly up and down. And, as it goes, at some point, they even tell me to slow down. And the brickleys there on the first floor is also a nice guy, he do not make any questions, this is, the one that should make the questions here is me, and so, sometimes he wants it more smooth, sometimes more rough, I'm the messenger here, and the wall is growing, this is, I'm contributing for the creation of something real, a big house, a big building is rising... I still do not know the purpose it will be used for, but, it’s ok. Therefore, now, I’m going to talk about the men working 4 with me, their kind of humour, their morality, what we can learn from them, etc. Thus, the one operating the concrete-mixer downstairs, here he comes, already telling me a story about a rich politician that after a scandal went away to another country where became some kind of porno actor, and later, he would even found a new religion based on the believe that we all came from outer-space etc... there are some giggling and then, the guys holding the hoes around the mixer, in a while, all begin to talk about religion, love and sex, and women generally, mixing the subjects in a silly order, this is, a plump one here on my side, is already telling some confidences about his wife, more precisely, at the moment he is actually informing us that she… she used to sell fish around, in the streets, well, it looks that she was some kind of peddler, “but now, she doesn't do anything, no more…” he says, “I have to do everything at home… cooking, washing, cleaning, shopping, pay the bills, and while I work, she is out, hunting flies... watching soap-operas in the hair-dresser, or in the kitchen, making desserts all night... but on sundays, we still go to the church together…” he says, and as he says this things, the boys around, with the hoes, they just laugh and laugh… and then, one of them even start to talk about a certain butcher that have its shop in the back of the so said church, and other is even comparing the quality of the meat attending the church and the quality the meet attending the so-said butchery… and so, as it goes, my buckets are filled up, and there I go, running through the garage, passing to the rear part of the building, going up the aluminium stars, and then, delivering my parcel just on the side of the bricklayer working on something on that wall, this is, he doesn't talk much, I mean, now, he is just concentrated on the plumb bob thing, but his assistant, the kid, turns to me smiling, he also have something to say, this is, he also wants to prove some kind of smartness, and just now, there he goes, already beginning some kind of speech about chickens, eggs and gold shops... something like that, and then, relating these things with the conversation downstairs, about that church, that priest, that butchery on the surroundings, its owner, its clients, etc. And so, downstairs I go again to pick some more buckets of concrete, and upstairs I come again, and as I come back the kid just continues his story, now mixing the gold shop owner with the butchery with the church, and then as I go down they continue too, now mixing the church with the cemetery with the casino with whoreshouse, etc, etc. And, as it goes, at 5 some point, I get tired of this kind of humour, I get tired of all their salacity, and I just depart from there. This is, by now, as I come back to the main streets of this city, I see many kinds of people walking in many different directions, some excited, some dull, some with confused expressions, and, as I try to catch up with some of them, they run away from me with panicked faces, maybe because of my clothes covered with fresh cement, I think… so, I enter the first boutique I find and instantly I pick some reasonable pieces to wear, and, I even dress them right there in the shop, leaving my old rags full of cement there on the floor, on the changing compartment, and then, I make my way out, but, as I leave, a young lady with a strange haircut, bigger one side than the other, is already coming on my back telling me that I have to pay I have to pay, and I just run away. This is, here I go now, opening my way through the masses, and, some of these individuals looking at me, panting, others walking their way, absently, like if there's nothing happening in this world. And, I study their faces. I watch their moves. I analyze their style and pretension, fast-forward. And so, what I see is men and shemales in suits, with bulgy eyes or normal eyes or little ragged eyes. Sportive people looking at their phones. Plump ladies carrying plastic bags. Girls with tight shirts, showing up the bump of the breasts, some proud of themselves, some with indignation in their expressions. Male and female teenagers with strange decorative elements attached to their clothes, hands in their pockets, some staring at shop windows, some looking at me… and me, here I’m, seated on this bench, watching people passing by, more precisely, watching their shoes, watching their way of walking, their gait, and by their gaits, guessing their personality, this is, sometimes manly, sometimes nervous, sometimes calm, sometimes confused, walking around, sometimes relaxed, sometimes curious, walking slowly but not too slowly, sometimes late, premature, disintegrated, almost falling, attentive, sleepwalking, tired, greedy, sly, self-centered, bizarre, etc… Then I’m actually entering this Mac fast-food restaurant, now passing on the side of a fat woman giving ice cream to her lap dog, and then, watching the placards on the wall, this is, watching those sheets with numbers and rankings and statistics… this is, it says here that this Mac brand is able to make about two hundred hamburgers a second worldwide. And every ten hours a new store of the group is inaugurated somewhere in the world, and its employees are actually coming from the 6 widest range of backgrounds, just like the meat chosen to make their hamburgers… and so, as I get out from here, I’m almost getting trapped by two big guys coming in at the same time that I’m trying to get out, and then, on the opposite side of the road, I’m already entering the direct competitor of the predecessor brand, this is, the renowned "Starbrucks", this is, it says here, the largest coffee shop in the universe, with more hipsters per square meter than any other establishment in the world, it also says here, and as I look around, half of the customers here are actually staring at laptops installed on the tables, just on the side of their big coffee cups, and the other half of them is actually starting at their mobile phones, so, no one is in fact eating or drinking, and the background music is also disgusting, some kind of ill-ambient/alt-pop-rock thing, music for meditations, with some brown sugar for the brain in the middle, music suitable to make you enter the field of artificial intelligence, but it’s so hot here, the heating system is unbearable, I can’t stay here no more, so, there I go, making my way out, and as I’m actually passing through the door, this time I collide with this guy wearing some kind of strange glasses, like compound lens from some sort of digital camera, and I know, by now I’m being photographed from top to bottom and he's going to edit a film about me right here, inside this place with organic coffe brought specially from a special list of countries, this is, the so called under-developed countries, the poorest countries in the world, that is brand is helping, by buying their coffe. Sick. And then, there I go again walking through the city, and at some point I even seat at some bus stop, looking at people, and in a while there I go, already getting inside some bus, and, as I move on to the last seat, I hear an old lady protesting about the weather, an old man protesting about people that have the habit of protesting about the weather and there we go. Already seated here at the back seat, a young couple is kissing next to me, and I look at them kissing from time to time, and then, they get off at the next stop and a man with an umbrella comes and sits in the same place. So, at some point, I start to touch his umbrella, and then he holds it between his legs, so I do not touch it any more, and then, he gets off at the next station. And as it goes, some girl gets in and comes to sit in the same place. I ask her name and actually she tells it to me. Maria. And then I ask about her job and stuff, and she tells me that she is some kind of secretary, and so, I continue, I ask what she secretariats afterall. 7 And at this time, I’m not so lucky, she smiles but does not answer, and then she gets off on the next stop. So, the next one is a young dude with a cap. I look at his cap and he looks at me with some intimidation, and so, I look out. Silence follows. The bus goes around and then it's my time to get off. Thus, here I go now, following some pedestrians, passing through some kind of market and then going down into the subway entrance. I go through the halls, I watch the publicity on the walls, this is, I read the signs on the papers and I choose a direction, randomly. And then, I’m already aboard some metro carriage, being squeezed against the masses, I try to accommodate myself. Everybody is touching everybody in silence. Dull expressions. Promiscuity. Then I get out at some station, I change lines and I enter another carriage going in a different direction. Randomly. Following a natural order of the things. I watch people and their autism or small eccentricities. Some are playing with their gadgets. Some are reading books about exotic tourist destinations and self motivation like “The meaning of everything in the cosmos, for dummies”. But after a while, my curiosity is gone, my eyes are getting tired, the nervous system is being lulled, saliva coming out through the corners of the mouth, and down I go, falling, slowly descending, like if I’m falling from the earth onto the sky, in between the clouds, but I’m not afraid, and then, as it goes, “Que est ce la decadence?” I kinda hear in my back, and as I open my eyes, I can see now, some kind of beggar guy passing through the carriage, going from seat to seat asking “Que est ce la decadence?”, and then I sleep again, I see myself falling down again, but, not from the earth into the sky now, instead, from the sky into the earth, my body and skeletum being absorbed by the gravity, there I go, through halls covered with analogue micro-ships fiber-optic intersections, passing through some kind of cogwheels, and then being damped on the courtroom, still coughing, just in the time to hear the verdict from the judge “Absolved”, and as the public claps in my back, the train stops, the doors opens, and all in a sudden, there I go, making my way out, going through some tunnels again, still remember that same tunnels from my dream, and then, already above the ground, I see myself at the cemetery entrance. And so, I think to myself, “hat the fuck I’m doing here”, but “for some reason I should be here”, I rethink, thus, there I go, getting inside of this so-said cemetery, and as I pass along these narrow streets lined with graves on both sides, small chapels, I read some inscriptions 8 here and there, I pay attention to a couple of angels with broken wings and then I even notice some blurred photographs of people with haircuts from other times, and I walk fast, I wanna get out of here, thus, I quickly reach the opposite part of it, the part where there are no more graves, just a green space, and around here, under some kind of tree with pinkish flowering, I meet a certain guy, the gravedigger on duty I come to understand, here he is, with a toothpick in his mouth, and some sort of battery-powered radio at his side, reading a book, “Palm Wine Drinkard, I see written on the cover, and so, as I’m arriving here I’m already asking “what is it about”, and he “wait a bit, I’m finishing it…will tell you very soon, wait a bit, I’m really finishing it” and so, here I sit, over some logs, surrounded by some sort of junk, under this pinkish tree, now looking up, at the tree branches, its flowers, at the birds leaping around it, and then, at the sky, at the rays formed in the middle of the clouds, and soon, the guy breaths out, and lay down the book, already saying, “its finished, its finishes… its a great story, I will make a detailed resume to you… just because… you came in the right time” he adds, and then, here he goes, passing the tongue through his lips “so, the story is supposedly passed in Africa, and, as a start, the first-person narrator introduces himself as the eldest of eight children and… as one who has been a palm-wine “drinkard” since when he was ten years old… and, his father, who is the richest man in town, at some point, decides to give him a farm containing about five hundred palm-trees, and also engage a tapster to tap palm wine for his son all day.. and thus… this guy… the narrator… after having spent fifteen years drinking palm-wine with his friends, his father dies, and, six months later, his tapster falls from a palm tree where he was tapping and also dies. Thus, this guy, the narrator, unable to tap his own palm wine and is forced to drink water… then, having heard old people saying that those who die do not go directly to heaven but are still to be found somewhere in the world, he decides to leave his hometown and go in the search of his palm-wine tapster… and thus, after seven months of wandering, he encounters an old man who actually, is some kind of god… and, as the narrator introduces himself as the “father of the gods who could do anything in the world”, this old man says that he will tell him where his tapster may be… this is, he will tell if he could find a certain blacksmith and bring back some thing the old man told the blacksmith to make for him… and thus… then, at some point, the narrator assumes the form of a bird and listens to the old man talking to his wife… so, this way, he gets to know that the object the old man wants from the blacksmith is a bell, and… there he goes to fetch this thing from the blacksmith… and, as it goes, the old man sets the narrator another task, giving him a net and telling him to bring back Death in it…”; “Death?” I ask. “Yes, Death as a person” he says, and then he continues “so, the narrator finds the Death’s house and sleeps there, but he sleeps under the bed rather than on it, so when Death comes in the night to club him, Death gives blows on the bed, but the narrator is unharmed. Further… the next day, the narrator digs a pit for Death and stretches the net over it… Having tricked Death into falling inside the pit, he wraps the net around him and takes him to the old man… and so, the old man would panic, particularly when Death escapes from the net. And, as this happens, he and all the other inhabitants of the town run away, so… there is no one left to tell the narrator anything about his palm-wine tapster… Therefore, the narrator starts on his travels again, and… as it goes, less than five months later, he comes to another town, where the head man says that he knows where the tapster may be and he will tell it to the narrator if he can help him to recover his just captured daughter... And so, now the story is… the head man’s daughter had been at the town market when she had seen a fine gentleman beautifully dressed… and… despite having been warned not to do so, she followed him somewhere, and, it happened that… as he goes away from the market, he goes across an endless forest, and then, as he goes through it… he returns the various parts of his body to the original owners who had rented them out to him… thus, he returns his feet, he returned his belly, he returned his ribs, his chest, and then he becomes some sort of creature with only a head, arms, and a neck. And thus, then, disgusted, this lady tries to leave this forest and return to her father, but… this sort os creature with only arms, neck and head, creature prevents her from doing so… and so, as it gos, after having returned his arms, neck and skin, the gentleman was nothing more but a skull… so now, the skull brings this lady to his home… his home that is nothing more than a hole in the ground in which other skulls are also living… and, onde inside, he ties a cowrie around her neck, preventing her from speaking… and this cowrie would raise an alarm whenever the lady tried to escape… and the other skulls would prevent her from leaving… so, as the narrator hears this story, he agrees to find where this lady is, and while saying so, he drinks forty kegs of the head man’s palm wine… and thus, the next morning, he goes to the same market where the lady was lost… and once there, he sees this same fine gentleman from the story he have just heard, and so, as it goes, then, as the gentleman leaves the market, the narrator follows him, changing himself into the form of a lizard so that he will not be see, and… after observing this gentleman, again, return all the parts from his body, as said before, the narrator follows this skull that is no more a man into his house… where he will find the so-said lady... and so, when the skull goes out, the narrator changes into a man again so that he can talk to her… but, as soon as the lady stands up, the cowrie round her neck sounds an alarm, and in a while all the skulls around come by, capture the narrator and also tie a cowrie around his neck… but, as this happens, he changes himself into air and manages to escape with the lady, changing her into a kitten and himself into a bird. Thus, this way, he brings her home, but the cowrie around her neck is still making a terrible noise, which prevents her from talking or eating… and, when the cowrie is finally removed from her neck, the lady remains unable to speak or eat… And so, as the narrator returns to the forest he sees the skull again, and, at this point, he is actually putting some sort of spell on some leaves, saying that unless the lady eats them, she will remain in the power of the cowrie forever... and so, the narrator brings the leaves back home, the lady eats them and is finally released… and, as this happens, her grateful parents give her to the narrator in marriage… and, as it goes, the narrator stays with her and her parents for about three and a half years, until that then… at the end of this time, he notices that his wife’s thumb is swollen, and, all of a sudden, a male child bursts out of it, and, within an hour, the boy is three feet tall and can speak with perfect clarity. So… he tells them that his name is Zurrjir, and he drinks all the palm-wine and eats all the food in the house, fighting and beating anyone who attempts to stop him. This is… the child is stronger than anyone in the town and begins to create havoc, burning people’s houses etc. And, as it goes, the townspeople appeal to the narrator, this is, the child’s father, and he, well, he decides to burn him… so, yes, he burns his own child to death in the family home while he is asleep... and then, he get ready to leave home again and go in search of his tapster again… but in the meanwhile, the narrator’s wife kinda scratches the ashes of their burned house with a stick and from there she conjures up a half-bodied baby, which accompanies them on the journey against their will… so, as it goes… the half-bodied baby will eat all their food and terrify all the villagers they meet on their journey, making them outcasts wherever they go…”
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