The loneliest hour.

Pessoas se perguntam: mas porque DIABOS você se levanta às três?? E vai pro tramo TRÊS horas dele começar?

A resposta é simples: é a hora mais solitária do dia. Bem, quase sempre. às vezes, enquanto espero o ônibus às 4:30 na Praça 4:20 existem muitos idiotas chapados, fazendo merda com suas piranhas, ou simplesmente comendo um cahorro quente de larica na barraquinha móvel montada por cima de um Fiat Fiorino. Tudo bem. Desde que me deixem em paz. Outro dia, um desses bêbados sentou do meu lado e começou a falar sandices, e fui obrigado a escutar e dizer, "Aham...aham...Sério? ....Aham...aham...." - foi um saco. Ao menos ele não tinha grana para pagar a roleta, e a esta hora, os trocadores são bem coniventes em receber qulquer quantiaem troca de uma viagem, e foi o que ele fez, encheu o trocador de moedas e ficou na parte da frente, enquanto eu gastei de meus muitos créditos no cartão, e fiquei longe dele.

Ir para o serviço a esta hora é quase sempre uma aventura, pois qualquer coisa, qulquer um nas ruas, pode representar uma ameaça em potencial. Por isso, que geralmente eu vou com a cara mais psicótica que consigo fazer. Sim, sei que é uma pobre defesa, mas éo que tenho. E em geral, minha mão direita fica com as chaves da casa na mão, tentando imitar uma versão ultra-pobre de soco inglês. A esta hora, em geral, eu espero pelo outro ônibus, o 33, naquele ponto em que exitem muitos taxistas e ônibus, o tal terminal....não sei o nome, mas os ônibus todos vão pra Confins. Ali me paro e espero alguns minutos. Em geral, ele não falha, então nao há muito problema, pois ele me deixa a dois quarteirões da funchato.

E lá chego, em geral, às cinco e pouco, cinco horas. E o que faço? inicialmente nada, vejo porcarias na net. Ou, se for dia de pagamento, pago as faturas que devo. E fico só. Em geral, apenas interrompido pela presença de Maria Helena, a faxineira, que sempre me chama para um café no terceiro. Pego um cigarro e para lá vou. Ela é gente boa, tão boa que se presta a ir sempre visitar e levar contrabando para os filhos mais velhos, ambos encarceirados por conta do crack. Eu, se tivesse um filho assim, NUNCA chegaria perto, deixaria o miserável apodrecer na cadeia. Mas mãe é mãe, aprendi isso na vida. Ela não consegue deixá-los entregues à sorte. E não intercedo, não intervenho. Ela faz o que quiser, a vida é dela, os filhos são dela. 

Depois subo, lá pes seis, seis e meia, vejo se há algoa a ser feito, começo a fazer, nesta hora, em geral, meu chefe chega. É sempre bom, estar trabalhando fora do horário de seviço e sem ganhar hora extra, aos olhos de um chefe, ao menos. Te dá pontos, eu acredito. E em geral, são apenas formatações mesmo, então nem ligo. A parte mais fácil de TI é essa. Foda é lidar com os usuários depois: "E meus favoritos??? E meu Email??? E meu Desktop(que em geral, parece ter vindo do Exorcista de tão poluído)" 

Ah, assim é a vida, todos os dias. Chego em casa cedo, não quero falar com ninguém. Tento malhar, se não peguei o "nilagre" chamado 4103 e subi o morro a pé, mas em gerla, estou deveras enfraquecido. 

Aliás, ultimamente quase não tenho malhado direito por causa dessa tensão...e estou ficando barigudo. Correr?! Jamais, depois de subir quase uma milhe - a medida inglesa mesmo - até mina casa.

E assim vai. Vida lamentável, eu sei. Mas é minha vida....

El muerte.

At first, there was nothing, nothing at all. Just a blank, a darkness...and everything was silent.

      So this is what death feels like.

      People everywhere...fear for this moment. The only certainty of life, and we fear for it intensely. We avoid thinking about it whenever the minds steers towards that direction. We swerve away.

      I've swerved away. But not on that day.

      There was this last memory of me being alive, when I was driving down the road, echoing through this blank nothingness. A few hours before, I've decided that I had enough of that nonsense. I got out from my empty apartment, and just drove away, heading due somewhere, wherever. I just had to.

      When I was almost running out of gas, I stopped by this gas station in the middle of nowhere. I really didn't care where the hell I was. I was close enough to just end it all...The winds were freezing, the snow kept on falling and I've reached an area with  "Deadly roads in winter" signs everywhere. "Drive carefully", "Caution", "Warning", these were the signs I was looking for.

      The kind of signs I was expecting to find here. The kind of signs I've found everywhere I looked at.

      I sat at the cafeteria, wrote a few parting words on a napkin, the napkin I was expecting the police to find amongst my leftovers. Amongst the wreckage. Beside my mangled body. From yours truly.

      Whatever.

      I sipped some more coffee and just contemplated the few words I've written on the napkin. So few words. The résumé of my life, now my application to the bitter end of it all. 

      I sighed.

      Did I really want it to end that way?

      Well, my life was over, anyway. I was dead even before I've planned to take that final step that day. Dead. Alone.

      So I paid for my coffee and sandwich, filled my gas tank and drove away. Not before checking with the clerk the name and location for the most dangerous road in the area.

      Then, for the last time, I drove away...And headed for such deadly road. It was snowing, but not too heavily, and I was glad about that. I wanted to get to said road and fulfill my little plan, not get stranded somewhere and freeze to death.

      I didn't want a slow and painful death, even though I knew I deserved one. Coward, coward.

      Trying to put some sense in my nonsensical head, I drove on and on. Almost an hour passed before I've reached my final destination. The day was almost done, in more than one sense.

      I spotted my target when the daylight was almost fading. A nice, steep and deadly curve on said deadly road. There was no one else around, no cars, no witnesses.

      Just perfect.

      I glanced through the snow-smeared windshield and took a deep breath. Not the way I had planned to go...At least not until my life was taken away from me months prior. Not the way I wanted to die.

      All of a sudden, that realization came upon me, sending me back all those dreaded emotions I was trying to drown in alcohol and drugs for the past few weeks. Anger. Sorrow.

      Loneliness. Pain. So much pain.

      "Oh no, you don't", I've told myself, "you will not back away from this."

      But the sorrow just got stronger. And the pain was too great. Stifling back my tears, I reached for the glove compartment and retrieved the bottle inside. Cheap bourbon. All I needed right now.

      I chugged down a long one, and closed my eyes.

      "This ends tonight."

      The fiery liquid was quite harsh. My stomach almost revolted, making me gag. And the alcohol...I felt like was being absorbed instantly. It made my head spin a bit.

      I listened to the hum of the engine, and tried to build up my courage.

      "This...will...end...tonight."

      I opened up my eyes and stared at the windshield. The headlights made two cones of phosphorescent snowflakes in the winter air. I took another swig of the bottle and sucked my breath, waiting for a signal, anything.

      My mind kept on wandering to all those repressed events, all those things I did to try and bury all that pain. All the stupid things I've done since that dreadful day.

      "Stop. Stop. Right now."

      My right hand almost refused to move, but I forced it to position itself...upon the gear stick.

      "I will end this...tonight."

      I stepped on the gas, making the engine roar a bit. Then I shifted the gear from neutral to first. Then my hand moved to the hand brake.

      The engine awaited. I felt my heart racing, and noticed how much I was sweating, even in that forsaken cold. My hands were shaking, so much I couldn't even hold the handbrake handle properly.

      "Oh no, this will not stop me."

      I mustered my strength and gripped on the handle tightly. Then I stepped on the gas a bit more.

      I reached for the bottle again and took yet another long swig. The dreadful bourbon came down as a ball of fire, making me gag once again. I closed my eyes forcefully and waited a few seconds for the awful feeling to ease a bit.

      I opened up my eyes and looked at myself on the rearview mirror, wincing at the image that stared back at me. I felt my right hand going numb on the handbrake handle, and came back to issue at hand.

      I took another cold look into my dead-like eyes, and said to myself in a menacing tone:

      "You will not back down. Not this time. There is no one around to stop you, so don't get me started."

      Silence.

      "Finish this."

      I took one last swig and tossed the bottle away. At that moment, I was so drunk that I didn't even noticed that I threw it at the passenger's seat window, smashing the glass and letting that gelid wind inside the car. That cold wind stole away my stupor for a while, and it seemed enough for me to make up my mind.

      "Let's go."

      I did not close my eyes as I released the handbrake, and I floored the accelerator pedal. The car darted towards the nasty road, roaring loudly as the engine revved more and more.

      The road was slippery as hell. It was hard to keep the car from swerving out before it gathered enough speed to ensure my ultimate goal. But somehow I managed to keep it from rolling over before I reached my final destination.

      That curve up ahead looked good enough for me. The numbers on the speedometer looked all a bit too blurry for my drunken brain to decipher, but I figured that it'd be enough for me.

      I took one last look at my own eyes before the impact and tried to smile, but it was already too late.

      I felt something like a thud and heard a loud noise, as loud as it gets when you're driving a car at who knows how many miles per hour towards a guardrail on a winding mountain road.

      And things went black.

      So this is what it feels to die.

      This is what death feels like.

     

      If only.