The last chronicle

On the way home, I enter a Gavea tavern to have a coffee by the counter. In fact, I am postponing the moment of writing.

The prospect scares me. I would like to be inspired, to successfully crown another year in this quest for the picturesque in everyday life. I intended only to gather from daily life something of its dispersed human content, the result of coexistence, which makes it more worthy of being lived. In this pursuit of the accidental, whether on the corner or in the words of a child or in a domestic accident, I become a mere spectator. With nothing more to say, I bow my head and drink my coffee, while a poet's verse repeats in the memory: "this way I would want my last poem." I am not a poet and I have no subject. Then I take one last look outside myself, where live the subjects that deserve a chronicle.

At the back of the tavern, a couple has just sat down at one of the last marble tables along the mirror wall. The composure of humility, in the restraint of gestures and words, is added by the presence of a little girl of three years old, a bow on her head, all dressed up in the poor dress, who also settled at the table. Three elusive beings that make up around the table the traditional institution of the family, the cell of society. But I see that they are preparing for something more than satisfy the hunger.

I start watching them. The father, after counting the money he has quietly withdrawn from his pocket, approaches the waiter and points a piece of cake under the bell jar on the counter. This one listens, concentrated, the request of the man and then moves away to answer it. Beside me the waiter forwards the order from the customer. The man behind the counter picks up the portion of the cake by hand, drops it into the plate - a simple, dark yellow cake, just a small triangular slice.

The little girl looks at the soda bottle and the plate the waiter left in front of her. I see that the three, father, mother and daughter, obey around the table in a discreet ritual. Mom rummages in her shiny black plastic bag, removes anything. Dad gets a box of matches, and waits. The daughter waits too, attentive as a little animal. No one else watches them aside from me.

It's three white candles the mother neatly pokes at the slice of the cake. And while she serves the soda, her father strikes the match and lights the candles. The little girl blows hard, extinguishing the flames. Immediately she starts clapping his hands, very focused, singing in a babble, to which his parents join, discreet: "happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you ...". The little girl finally grabs the cake with both greedy hands and begins to eat it. The woman is looking at her tenderly. She straightens her ribbon, wipes the cake crumb that falls on her lap. The father looks around the tavern, satisfied, as if intimately convinced of the success of the celebration. He finds me suddenly, watching him, our eyes meet, he is disturbed, embarrassed - hesitates, threatens to lower his head, but ends up holding his gaze and finally opens into a smile.

Thus I would want my last chronicle: to be as pure as that smile.

Sabino, Fernando.

Translated by Google Translator.