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Project for Internet
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...Tale I
..Author: Paula Maciel Barbosa. 2003
 
The night, surrounded by darkness.
The sound, which comes out of the golden cage and fills up all the voids, indeed myself; it fills up all the pores, the alveolus, all the instants.
O The sound of the bug is bigger than itself. It doesnąt resemble the insect neither does it seem to come out of its fragile guts.
It is much bigger than itself.
When I took it out of the fields it seemed so vulnerable.
The bluish wings, the delicate legs. I knew it wouldnąt be willing to live in the golden cage.
I am not fond of living here myself, in this golden prison.
A heavy environment lies over me. Silence lies over me. Darkness lies over me.
Only the sound of the small cricket embraces and warms me up.
...Tale II
..Author: Paula Maciel Barbosa. 2003
 
I was the one who enjoyed bringing up crickets.
As a matter of fact I like to hunt crickets in the stretch, which separated our house from the dump.
It was right there that I found the mayonnaise jar used for keeping the little bug. I pricked the lid, so that it may breathe.
I fed it with some leftovers.
My mom felt sorry for the cricket and forced me to release it to the wild, after all the noise it made throughout the night.
She said it sounded like ambulance siren. I donąt think so.
I find its noise quite comforting to listen to at night, when we are in bed. Better than the noise of gun shootings.
Mom is afraid of the police. So am I.
Yesterday we checked if the truck had left something cool at the landfill.
I found a dirty little Box. It was red, made of a shiny kind of fabric.
It carried the drawing of round bridges and different kinds of houses.
I found it beautiful. Thatąs right, without having looked at its inside yet.
When I saw it I couldnąt believe it. It was a cricket, a counterfeit one, of course.
A cricket doll, although it also sang. The noise wasnąt as nice as the one I had, but it wasnąt necessary to care for it.
My mom wasnąt going to complain either, as for the noise to stop she would have to close the lid.
I took the box home. It was just like a hidden secret.
Every now and then I ran to it just to hear the noise.
The matter is that I missed the real crickets, look at them and hold so that they wouldnąt jump.
It was light, but not weightless. And it smelled.
The point is that I missed the real cricket.
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