Death in the Camping and Other Non-Death Tales: Collection of Urban tales

By Ivair Antonio Gomes

Collection of several urban tales.
 

Mrs. Naná- It portrays the care of an Elderly woman in the patients’ care in a Health Center.

Death in the Camping-It shows about what may happen when a group of young men and girls decide to go out for camping with other people who they barely know.

Friends – when friendship is worth more than words.

Vampire – Night Beings also have nightmares.

Mystery on the mountain – Are there indigenous gods or they are only legends, and if there were, how would they be?

Don Caramujo – A living being cannot last forever under his shell.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Aug 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9781547535194

Book preview

DEATH IN THE CAMPING AND OTHER NON-DEATH TALES

Ivair Antonio Gomes

––––––––

Translated by Moisés António 

DEATH IN THE CAMPING AND OTHER NON-DEATH TALES

Written By Ivair Antonio Gomes

Copyright © 2018 Ivair Antonio Gomes

All rights reserved

Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.

www.babelcube.com

Translated by Moisés António

Cover Design © 2018 Ivair A. Gomes

Babelcube Books and Babelcube are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.

DEATH IN THE  CAMPING

AND

OTHER NON-DEATH TALES

––––––––

By: Ivair A. Gomes

Copyright © 2018 Ivair Antonio Gomes

All rights reserved.

ISBN-10: 1511660856

ISBN-13: 9781521031575

DEDICATION

To all those people that at a certain time or another, have felt themselves left alone, like a fish out of water. You should know that, the impossible is something which has not been done yet. It doesn’t mean that, it can’t be or will never be done.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To my friends for all the support, to enemies for turning me into a better and stronger man.

CONTENT

Mrs. Naná

Friends

Vampire

Death in the Camping

Mystery on the Mountain

Don Caramujo

Mrs. NANÁ

––––––––

After sometime, today I could see Mrs. Naná once again.

It has been almost two years since the last time we met. But all this long, seemed to be just like one day. Surprisingly she seems to me happy and well with her life, as she always was.

The first time when I met Mrs. Naná, she used to use an all-white uniform and brought a trusty friendly smile upon her face, which I found out later on, to be an everlasting.

A pair of glasses hung by a string on her neck which gave her more an austere air, but that was just an impression.

As I first changed conversations with this elderly lady, my impression was left out. Her white hair and calmness contrasted with the overcrowded environment and with the sepulchral silence watching in the corridors of the Municipal Hospital Attendance Center. There, she looked like an Angel who paraded beautifully, without any harsh words or abrupt manners.

I remember that well. She really looked like someone who parades. In no time her acts seemed to us as if she was just walking, taking into consideration the way she behaved. Different, elegant, high shoulders and haughty look. The way she used to dress was adequate to the very same place and almost forgotten in the present times. Her tone of voice was never faked and in no time was more audible than the necessary. When she talked with a patient, only the one could hear whatever she said. Whenever she talked to everyone, the tone of her voice was strong but could not come up to be thick.

At a certain point that day, a mother arrived with two children. She had brought the younger in her arms with her diapers on and beside her, holding her free hand, there was a little boy with wide open and lived eyes. The nose was dirty with snot which also besmirched his face when he tried to clean with his arm’s back. The older child was crying in sobs. It was not a desperate crying. But we could notice that, he was trying to control himself. His mother was quickly attended by Mrs. Naná. Even though this was not her duty to attend pediatric cases, she served the orthopedics’ ward, the noble lady approached the child who was crying and with a bright and sincere smile took care of the little one while the mother vaccinated the small baby. 

My backs were burning with pain and even so, I had to wait almost two hours to be attended. In those two hours I could know a little bit about the service developed by the sexagenarian nurse. Besides not wanting to require her retirement of which she already had her rights acquired, both due to the age as well as the time of service. She was still a volunteer on her days off, in another place at the Municipal Hospital. I, myself rebuked mentally. I used to live complaining about my pains, my problems, and there, in a place where could I never expect to find energy but yes sorrow and bitterness. As it usually happens in outpatient clinics or hospitals, I found an example of dedication and devotion to our neighbors.

I remember that, on the occasion I was waiting for my turn to be attended, I heard the conversation from the other nurse about Mrs. Naná. She said that, one day a team of Television had been at the entity where the old nurse was a volunteer, but she refused to give an interview. She said that, she was not a TV artist. She had asked to this nurse in case who was speaking by my side, to attend the reporters.

From that moment on, I started looking the Lady in white with other eyes, who with the splendid strength dedicated her life to take care of us, resentful and parched with the kind of life we had. After the first time I saw her, I began looking at the nurses with different eyes. As for doctors... that was another story.

When Mrs. Naná sat down beside me for a while, I felt an energy running in the black and bright eyes of that kind lady. To start a conversation I told her that I’d forgotten my appointment medical number, and if she couldn’t check that for me. The nurse smiled showing her perfect white teeth to be envied. She told me not to worry about that, at the right moment everything would be alright. I smiled back and thanked her. She said that to me in a very caressing and endearing way that I imagined, and remained in silence for moments thinking if that was not my mother speaking.

I can’t say that if at that moment I was not too much wide open to my emotions, for at an environment like that where everybody express pain in their faces and try to remain in silence controlling themselves up to the time they’re going to be attended, this is very likely to happen. The truth is that I got moved to see such a beautiful and striking figure. I got more interested talking to this lady but she could not stand for long time and all I could know was through her short and few resting moments when she sat beside me, to avoid lots of varicose veins, according to her, as if those short instants sitting would really give any result.

She told me that she’s been a widow for more than twenty years and since then she dedicated the art of living and making people to live. She had two daughters, both already married and gave her two granddaughters and one grandson. She could not feel lonely, because she used to arrive home tired and after listening to the radio she could sleep quickly. She used to like the dawn radio program. She lay down at about nine o’clock in the evening and when it was five, she was already up. She never liked Television, she thought that, there were lots of bullshit.  

I increasingly could admire the old lady’s way of life. she really was happy. Anybody could notice that. Her eyes, the way she smiled. The way she lived, to many people was considered a crazy way of living, but to me, it was something which deserved claps of hands. The younger nurses told me where she lived. I wanted to find out where that such a noble person used to get hidden.

In a world where the image counts more than the character, there was someone who didn’t care about any other thing else, but to please those who did not have pleased images. Yes, it’s very rare to see somebody sick beautiful. Illness is not just  something internal or external, it affects us in a such way that at a certain point takes away all our hopes and dreams, mines our souls and spirits and ends up destroying some roads that we’ve barely started following. And even when the illness is only internal affects also our appearances. These were Mrs. Naná’s words as she served me a cup of tea on a late autumn afternoon in South America. She told me that she had this habit of having tea in the afternoons some years ago. Her teas were not the same as the famous English teas of Agatha Christie, whose novels I saw on the huge library that the old lady had in ones of the rooms’ house. There were many glasses with leaves and roots of several more species and flavors in the kitchen, for the most difference causes.

The old lady pleased me in a such way that, with her gestures and manners I felt back in olden times. As if I were in ones of those epic novel movies or even reading a novel of Somerset Maughan. Many times I felt myself wishing to have lived in other times, to meet Mrs. Naná when she was younger. But our differences make us ambiguous. Thus, as the past can’t be changed, the future can’t be avoided.

That autumn afternoon that the temperature indicated winter, it looked like the old England had fallen in that old house where the old Mrs. Naná used to live. A sky with no sun and fine mist besides the moisture we threw ourselves into soft and sweet conversations. I have never had any grandmother to talk and I thought if my mother’s mom was like this in her last times. I still went back till three times at the kind nurse’s house. Then, I don’t know why on earth I never visited her anymore.

But I especially remember that day. Today more than never, believe me, from today on Mariana Damiana will have angels beside her to have tea.

I wait everybody to leave the graveyard then I approach. I’m not any relative, not even anybody important for her who she knew. Maybe not even in