Aenigmata

By Marco Paulo Silva

... What appeared to be a mere bicycle ride, with a picnic at the mountain viewpoint, has become an unveiling of mysteries surrounding the human, immanence and transcendence. Irus, became the chosen and favorite disciple of your grandfather Ocram to be a legacy of knowledge, perspectives and teachings, truly epiphanic taught by him...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clube de Autores
• Release date: Jun 9, 2021

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AENIGMATA

MARCO PAULO SILVA

AENIGMATA: Latin expression for: Hidden Truths; Enigmatic;

METAPHOR: Linguistic style figure, which describes an object or quality in a non-literal way;

Transposition of the proper meaning to the figurative one, by means of comparisons;

Expressive appeal.

HYPERBOLE: Purposeful expressive emphasis resulting from the exaggeration of linguistic significance;

Linguistic resource that defines something in a forceful and intense way.

PARADOX: Thought, proposition or argument that contradicts the basic and general principles that usually guide human thought, or challenges the conceived opinion and the ordinary belief of the majority;

Apparent lack of nexus or logic;

Apparently reasoned and coherent reasoning, although it hides contradictions that result from an unsatisfactory analysis of its internal structure.

MYSTERY: Something that is secret; That is not shared with others;

Something that is preserved and reserved;

What is incomprehensible and enigmatic;

Body of knowledge necessary to master a technique, art or science that, to the layman, seem unattainable;

Inaccessible to reason.

Faith and Religion.

The pointers of conventional time indicated five thirty in the morning, when Irus woke up to the smell of bread with sausage, coming from his grandfather's wood oven. Both had combined a bike tour that would have as a final stop to the natural viewpoint of the mountain, embodied with the best bread with sausage that Humanity has ever tasted (in Irus words) and other essential foodstuffs for a delicious picnic that is worthwhile. Irus was 15 years old and, Ocram, his paternal grandfather, wanted to offer her a pleasant and unforgettable day full of revelations. The girl, a candor of nature, and yet youthful, is one of those creatures that brings together the aesthetic fullness of the eternal feminine - beautiful as nature itself -, endowed with an epistemophilic drive (curiosity and yearning to know about everything). Not surprise, therefore, the immeasurable admiration that she had for Grandpa Ocram (she treated him like that) seen, as a common man, he gathered countless and impressive gifts, in the head, a brilliant clairvoyance and extraterrestrial wisdom. On other occasions and shared moments, the granddaughter always asked him, where and how, he had learned about so much. Ocram always responded with the same maxim: we have to know, see, hear, feel and read the life, in all her forms and expressions, especially, in the most difficult and painful moments, learning from all the sages who have passed through this world. Furthermore, (he added) you did not inherit this passion for knowing of nothing. Disciplined, methodical, restless, with a posture and nobility of character, Ocram projected in all practical, public and relational life, without detours and without filters, all the magnificence of your nature. An itinerant, non-conformed and idealistic soul who sought, at all times, and in everything he set out to do, perfecting, excellence, truth and beauty. In addition to all the aforementioned skills, which make all the difference in concreteness, he repaired bicycles like few others and knew how to make bread with sausage that would tear anyone who swallowed it. Irus knew all of this and felt privileged. However, one of the demands she made to yours grandfather, when he expressed the desire to offer her a mystical walk (as he called it) as a birthday present, was, ipsis verbis, to taste that bread woven by inspiration of Gods.

They had agreed, by mutual agreement, that the exit towards the lookout would take place at six in the morning. Despite Ocram's rustic home, which many, who knows why, jokingly called it old, modest and unworthy of receiving illustrious visitors, but which he proudly flaunted, claiming that it was the mirror of his soul - the thing in itself, as it is-, being located in the vicinity of the mountainous back of the region, in a bucolic landscape, the distance to the desired point, in time and by bicycle, would last about an hour and a half, because, in some sections, due to the topographical difference, the quality and narrowness of the trail, it would be necessary to dismount and carry the bikes by hand. In the elder's planning the entire script was religiously drawn. And when he sketched it, in any circumstance, neither heaven nor earth would change it. The journey would last the entire day, with a return scheduled for before dusk. He already predicted that her granddaughter would come with a compendium of questions. So, in addition to the round trip, it would be necessary to be prepared, and have enough time, so as not to defraud Irus' expectations. In his heart, Ocram kept the secret hope that could be a remarkable and unforgettable day in granddaughter's life. A day to make all the difference in her future.

Early breakfast took place in silence, as required by any healthy neuronal interconnection that proceeds to the recovery action of Morpheus' arms. They packed, in two backpacks, the provisions that would satiate the intolerant stomach, with special care for the divine bread, in order to keep it warm and juicy, and all the necessary utensils. They put on appropriate clothing for the undertaking and set out on their respective bykes.

After the first few pedalings, Irus set the tone and showed what she came for:

-Grandpa, our unusual names have Mesopotamian origin, right? Any relevance to point out in the motivation for choosing them?

Ocram was short and imperative:

-More precisely, from Galilee. Relevance cover any name, as it is the first, the ultimate and unchanging referent of the person's non-transferable identity. In our specific case, our names have a lineage whose origin comes from an ancient cradle of human civilization. There will be others, for sure. Mesopotamia, when placing Planet Earth on a planispheric scale, occupies a central geodesic area from which all other coordinates are practically equidistant. It was there that the three main monotheistic religions emerged: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the ancient made a parenthesis, to be precise and strict, in the Arabian Peninsula that borders it. And it is there, too, the secular stage of so many geo-strategic-ethnic-political upheavals, with global repercussions, that it would take more than a day to explain to you. It will not be the place, I believe, where the species emerged, that no one will know how to define, but it is the region where people began to form a community, a collectivity, a society and a culture, in the molds in which we are inserted. I exclude here the Asian or indigenous ancestry of the entire American continent, which I do not know. Not to mention what they call the lost continent - Atlantis - which most people catalog as a myth, but which my meta-intellectual commandments always refuse to discard. Irus, (concluded) we must never deny, at the outset, something we do not know, because, contrary to what you will always hear, it is the myths and legends that shape concrete reality, and not the other way around. Just as political-social praxis came to literature, just as much of the historical and sociological becoming came to fiction and entertainment. Keep this with all the affection, which we will talk about again (he emphasized).

While Irus reflected on the concentrated information she had just received and tried to process (the elder had this tremendous ability to say something that contained and encompassed a hundred numbers of reports and conjectures), Ocram mentally visualized his natural viewpoint of election (thus had it in his concept), he has visited it dozens of times, since his green years, in which he sought refuge, answers to the concerns of existence, peace and energetic breath. Excited by the fact that her granddaughter was going there for the first time, unconsciously, he felt excited and accelerated the cadence. He came to himself when Irus, panting, said:

-Slow down, grandfather!

-Oh! Sorry honey. Pass it on. You moths the pace and I feel more secure.

At that precise moment, they began to feel a balsamic Wind in yours faces.

Despite the slight unevenness of the two-way road they were traveling on - what is commonly referred to as a false climb - it imposed an expected difficulty on the two vacationers and cyclists of occasion. The vegetation, as the altitude gradually increased, became less exuberant. The sky, that one, was of brigadier, pronouncing an idyllic backdrop for the physical turning and mental ambulation devised by the elder, in honor of your disciple. Concentrating on the motor cadence to be carried out and managing her effort, Irus was faced with the vision, on the other side of the road, of a porcupine, or what was left of it, crumbled on the asphalt. Run over (she thought). And, with an immediate introspective restlessness, which she inherited from your grandfather beside her, she began to digress about the fragility of life. To enjoy, fully and unconditionally, with those we cherish and love, because we never know until when we will be with them. Irus here revealed an early and vigorous maturation that was concealed and ignored by the most of people. Obligingly reading the granddaughter's face sagaciously and guessing her thoughts from the moment she caught a glimpse of the dead animal, he verbalized from the top of his esoteric and hermetic way of being:

-Everything in this earthly life is ephemeral, transitory, fickle, fleeting, fickle, fragile and precarious. Tragic findings, no doubt, of our conscious condition.

Irus, incredulous, realized that the grandfather had entered her mind.

-But (Ocram continued), as long as this evanescent breath is felt, an infinitesimal possibility of opportunities, experiences and achievements will open. Paradoxical? (He loved to express himself through sphynxic questions, parables and metaphors). The question is the best stimulant for reflection (he always said). And, yes, paradoxical as only life knows how to be.

-Grandfather, how did you guess what I was thinking?

-Valences that you will acquire with experience, social interaction and the interpretation of the human soul - nothing supernatural, be calm (he replied haughtily). Shall we make a strategic stop to drink water and get some rest?

-I longed for you to say it (stressed Irus, showing a playful smile of relief).

Stopping and enjoying the warm and providential shade of a tree that bordered the path, grandfather and granddaughter, with their respective canteen, hydrated themselves with the vital and irreplaceable liquid. Blunt and piercing, Ocram broke the homeostatic mutism:

- My dear, you just turned 15 and in a little while, reality will emerge in your eyes, without contemplation and with all its strength, compression and inexorability. I just used the word tragic. Yes, our ontological condition of being born, growing and perishing is, in itself, self-explanatory. It is tragic because, as far as we know, we are the only beings that we make aware and anticipate this whole process. In the face of this irreversibility, there is no alternative. Living is a permanent becoming where we walk on embers that are ignited by multiple factors, random or not. There is also no point in rationalizing, controlling or trying to calculate each pass. In a flash, everything is gone. You will therefore have to live with this inextinguishable, instinctive and evident resignation, as a superior, thinking and reflective organism that you are, with thousands and thousands of years of desiderative pressure to survive and perpetuate yourself, and with which you will never be reconciled. The focus is what to accomplish in that vital interim that you have at your disposal, and to seek, at all time, the harmony of the moment that concentrates the absence of physical or psychic pain, bodily and thought freedom, affection and FAITH. The here and now is the space-time period that you definitely have to worship, but never forget, and that is the encouragement and comfort that you will have to develop and believe, that whatever you do, alive or feeling, will be inserted in a supreme spiritual purpose. If you think so, if you settle on this perspective, you will transform the felt tragic and inescapable immanence, into an endless transcendent process. Doesn't it look auspicious? (concluded by asking).

Sitting in the shade of the tree, grandfather and granddaughter lived obviously different moods. Irus, trying to