The Boa's Breath and Other Tales

By José Anilto dos Anjos

Book description:
 

After seven years writing for blogs and for anthologies, the author has gathered in this book his best-rated short stories and chronicles.

They touch on diverse themes, ranging from the children's universe to the daily lives of adults. Although the author is a military police officer, he avoided as much as possible dealing with themes such as insecurity and violence, although one or another text touches lightly on these subjects, but always bringing nuances of hope, friendship and joy. Many of the stories takes back to a grandfather telling stories to his grandchildren, as they would do in the old times.

The literary tenderness of the author guarantees that his direct prose with no flourishes can convey to us the emotions and feelings of its protagonists.

Amongst them, these ones stand out:

The rattlesnake at the Gabiroba tree (2012 "Best Storyteller" Interarte Award – Goiás Velho Letter Academy)

Survivors of the end of the World (Winner of the XXXV International Literary Contest of Edições AG publishing company)

The Boa's Breath (Participation Prize on the Great Contest of the Rio de Janeiro City, at the Taba Cultural publishing company)

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Jul 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781667405957

José Anilto dos Anjos

José Anilto dos Anjos (author) Captain José Anilto dos Anjos, 56, Pernambucan. Military policeman and writer. José Anilto dos Anjos, is the son of Franscisco Soares dos Anjos and Onécia Paes de Oliveira dos Anjos, was born on July 3, 1957, in the city of Alagoinha, Pernambuco.   At the age of eight months he came with his family to São Paulo, where he lived briefly in the city of Espírito Santo do Pinhal, in the interior of the state of São Paulo, shortly thereafter going to the village of Caturaí, in Goías, where his father, a construction site by profession , built a wooden house near the quarry where he worked, in the woods located on the outskirts of the city. Then the family moved to the city of São Geraldo and, in 1961, returned to their hometown, Alagoinha - PE, residing there until 1965, when they came to the city of Ribeirão Pires-SP, where they currently live. From 72 to 78 he worked in the metallurgical industry, and in 1979 he joined the Military Police of the State of São Paulo as a soldier, having worked in Ribeirão Pires until 1982, when he was approved at the Military Police Academy of the State of São Paulo, starting his official service. He specialized in Systems Analysis, Public Safety Intelligence and Road Traffic. He worked in several Military Police Units, among them the Military Police Internal Affairs. He joined the reserve in 2005, as Captain.   For the Military Police he was awarded the medals "Merit and Dedication", from the Barro Branco Military Police Academy, "Fifty years of the Military Police Internal Affairs Unit" and Personal Merit Awards. From 2005 to 2008 he was Chairman of the Board of the Security Council of Ribeirão Pires, having received the Biennial Franco Montoro Award for Community Services twice in a row, for the projects "Vizinho Solidário" (2006) and "Conselho Jovem" (2008). He currently dedicates himself to social projects, through the Rotary Club Ribeirão Pires -

Book preview

The Boa's Breath and other tales

José Anilto dos Anjos

The Boa's Breath and other tales

A collection of short stories and chronicles

2012

(catalogue data)

I dedicate this book to my family and friends, and especially to someone who encouraged me to enter the literary world. Unfortunately I can't name them, because I don't remember who it was. I blame it on aging...

Index

Presentation

Stories

Surucucu snake under the bed

The girl and the writer

The rattlesnake at the gabiroba tree

Lost soul

Jesus, the blind ones and the elephant

Potocoto

Boa's breath

Transfiguration

The snow gets my foot stuck

The postman and the gloomy street

The death of me

My death (again?)

The chattering nurse

Horned by a furious cow

On the other side of life

Survivors of the end of the world

The Lord's prayer

Wet nurse

God Save America

Mini-tales

My mother forgot about me...

Slut bitch

Disabled love

From my window I see...

The kiss

The curve

Crime, Punishment

Reflections

The gardener and the writer

Sandstorms

Time and parallel issues

Withered plant and jeopardized friendship

End of year, start of year

The author

––––––––

Presentation

- Do different things and you will discover new joys in life - a friend once told me, when I was preparing to leave active duty in the Military Police with the São Paulo state.

- Write! - someone else told me, and this was one of the best advices I received, although I didn't give it much value on the occasion.

And just like that, after almost thirty years working in Public Security, I decided to dedicate myself to literature. In my writings I avoided as much as possible talking about crimes, violence, insecurity, and so many other things that were part of my routine in the police work, although one or the other text fall under these themes.

Over the course of seven years, I wrote many texts, publishing them in Internet blogs and literary anthologies, and it was about time I organized and published a book of my own. I made a selection of my best short stories, and as a result I had two collections: this one, with varied themes and texts that have been highlighted in these seven years; and the other one, which I will publish in about six months, with a collection of regionalist tales, talking about the northeast of Brazil, set in the agreste of Pernambuco, which is the driest and wilder portion of the state.

Writing is a very rewarding activity, and I would certainly like to thank the person who advised me to enter the literary world. It really was a good advice, which I pass on to everyone: write, do not worry about style, themes, forms. Just write. The outcome might be surprising.

Stories

Surucucu snake under the bed

It was early in the night; we were starting to get ready to go to bed. Mother was apprehensive, because her two sisters were to arrive from Pernambuco later that day. Father had gone to meet them at the bus station and had not yet returned.

At that time, we lived in the vicinity of Caturaí, a small village in Goiás, and in my understanding as a boy a little over three, in the middle of the forest, which I was really scared of; for my parents, only a bit far from the village. My father worked in stonemasons, and the quarries where he systematically turned gigantic boulders into cobblestones was nearby.

I was taking a nap when the commotion started. Mother quickly removed the logs that formed the door in a desperate hurry. We lived in a wattle and daub house, with dried leaves that we called sapé to make the roof, and a door that was made of a bunch of logs nested on the doorway during the night to protect us from animals that could potentially find our house an attractive dwelling. On the other side of the door, her sisters waited, tired after traveling more than a hundred hours from Pernambuco to Goiás. They finally came in. The younger sister was still a teenager. Hugs, handshakes, kisses, caresses on me, and I, in my euphoria, ran from one side to the other, until I clumsily hit my head against the central column of our house, a log that reinforced the entire structure.

After a lot of crying, having alcohol rubbed on the head and a child aspirin pill taken, I ended up falling asleep, while my aunts and my mother chatted cheerfully.

The next day I woke up very early, as usually. My bed was made of wood sticks, with a grass mattress, which from time to time was refilled to be more comfortable. Well, I must confess that sometimes the grass would have to be changed because of the smell, given that despite my age, sometimes I would still pee in bed...

Already awake, I was watching my aunts in the endless combing of their hair, when I heard a scraping noise under my bed. Kind of hanging over the edge, I looked under the bed, trying to find the source of the noise. Right under it, in the far corner, where the pressed clay that formed the floor would meet the girders that formed the walls, in a gap between them, something moved. I shivered. I called my aunts, and one of them poked the intruder, screaming in a scare:

- A snake! - and immediately climbed into my bed, which could not bear the weight and, obviously, collapsed.

Everyone was running. My mother came to help, my father who had just left returned to see what caused the disturbance. My older aunt grabbed me and ran out of the house with me.

- It's a snake. It's in a hole under the bed, and it won't leave. - shouted the youngest one.

Then she ran into the kitchen and came back from there with a bottle of alcohol, the same one that had relieved the pain on my head from the bump the day before, and a box of matches. Before they could stop her, she threw alcohol into the hole and scratched the match. Struck by the fire, the snake came out of the hole in fury, writhing from the burns, and jumping everywhere trying to bite someone. It was a huge surucucu snake, which was eventually killed after multiple hits with wood sticks.

Relieved after the snake was killed, they laughed and talked nonsense, until my older aunt gave the warning, terrified:

- Help! The house is on fire!

Once again, we ran. This time, they ran with pots and cauldrons, from the stream to the house, throwing water into the fire, to prevent it from reaching the sapé leaves on the roof. I watched and enjoyed their rush, oblivious to danger.

After a lot of work, the fire was put out.

That day, my father did not go to work. Armed with a sickle and an axe, he went into the woods and returned with two new trunks. Then he picked up another bundle of wood sticks, restored my bed and reinforced the structure of the house. He took clay from the stream bank and covered the holes in the floor.