Vulcão

Sligo Spigot sleeps in the woolshed. He awakes in the woolshed crumpled under a shroud of dirty clothes. What’s you name Sligo, what’re we to call you? Sligo Spigot eats in the woolshed; dented tins of consommé, meatless oniony broth, mouldy cheeses, loaf ends and jam jellies. His greatest fear is that he will awake one morning, place his feet on the floor, yawn, then fall head over heel, his body a shrivelled weakly mess. He will be a sac of loose skin; a skin bag. Unable to balance himself he will fall back into bed, where he will stay curled up in a ball the rest of his days. While living out the rest of his days in bed, his weakly body twisted and deformed, he will reread The Mysteries of Boquete Chiriqui, stopping every page to catch his breath and brush biscuit crumbs off his chest. On the wall over his head, where flies and winged midges made cow-webs stickier than honey, was written “Following the melancholy musicians there filed into the garden as many as twelve duennas, in two lines, all dressed in ample mourning robes apparently of milled serge, with hoods of fine white gauze so long that they allowed only the border of the robe to be seen.” (Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quisciotte) Not sure what it meant, someone’s idea of a practical joke, a message from on high perhaps, he fell back to reading The Mysteries of Boquete Chiriqui, his breathing docking and receding like the winter tide. Rendón, whom he met one afternoon while out for a walk and with whom he developed a shallow friendship, said he recognized the mysterious writing from a book he’d once read in grammar school. He said the book was about a group of young boys who while on a trip, where was of no importance, he said, and added little to the plot, arrive by coach to a secluded warren, a warren because there were a lot of rabbits, so he remembered, and here they come upon an old woman with a mole on her chin upon which sprouted a long gray hair, and this old haggard invited them into her gingerbread cottage upon which she boiled them in a cauldron and ate them, everyone last one, even the boy with a thalidomide arm upon which sprouted three tiny fingers and a thumb, with a big wooden spoon. Piled shoulder-high on a butter-box next to his cot were the following books arranged in order of their purchase:

A Cidade e As Serras, Eça de Queirós
Gente Singular, Manuel Teixeira Gomes
Marânus, Teixeira de Pascoaes
Húmus, Raul Brandão
Pedro o Cru, António Patrício
Terras do Demo, Aquilino Ribeiro
Clepsidra, Camilo Pessanha
Ensaios, António Sérgio
Canções, António Botto
Poemas de Deus e do Diabo, José Régio
A Selva, Ferreira de Castro
Charneca em Flor, Florbela Espanca
Gladiadores, Alfredo Cortês
Mensagem, Fernando Pessoa
A Criação do Mundo, Miguel Torga
Sedução, José Marmelo e Silva
Nome de Guerra, Almada-Negreiros
Contos Bárbaros, João de Araújo Correia
Gaibéus, Alves Redol
Solidão/Notas do Punho de Uma Mulher, Irene Lisboa
Apenas Uma Narrativa, António Pedro
O Barão, Branquinho da Fonseca
Historiazinha de Portugal, Adolfo Simões Müller
Noite Aberta Aos Quatro Ventos, Adolfo Casais Monteiro
Mau Tempo No Canal, Vitorino Nemésio
O Caminho da Culpa, Joaquim Paço D'Arcos
O Dia Cinzento, Mário Dionísio
Poesia, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen
Poesias, Álvaro de Campos
Odes, Ricardo Reis
Poemas, Alberto Caeiro
Poesias, Mário de Sá-Carneiro
A Toca do Lobo, Tomás de Figueiredo
Ossadas, Afonso Duarte As Mãos e os Frutos, Eugénio de Andrade
Poesia I, José Gomes Ferreira
Retalhos da Vida de Um Médico, Fernando Namora
A Secreta Viagem, David Mourão-Ferreira
O Fogo e As Cinzas, Manuel da Fonseca
Pelo Sonho É Que Vamos, Sebastião da Gama
A Sibila, Agustina Bessa-Luís
História da Literatura Portuguesa, António José Saraiva e Óscar Lopes
Movimento Perpétuo, António Gedeão
Dimensão Encontrada, Natália Correia
Pena Capital, Mário Cesariny
Teatro, Bernardo Santareno
A Origem, Graça Pina de Morais
Léah, José Rodrigues Miguéis
No Reino da Dinamarca, Alexandre O'Neill
A Cidade das Flores, Augusto Abelaira
Bastardos do Sol, Urbano Tavares Rodrigues
Tanta Gente, Mariana..., Maria Judite de Carvalho
A Colher na Boca, Herberto Helder
Felizmente Há Luar!, Luís de Sttau Monteiro
O Palhaço Verde, Matilde Rosa Araújo
Rumor Branco, Almeida Faria
Xerazade e os Outros, Fernanda Botelho
A Torre da Barbela, Ruben A.
Praça da Canção, Manuel Alegre
Estou Vivo e Escrevo Sol, António Ramos Rosa
Teoria da Literatura, Vítor Manuel de Aguiar e Silva
O Delfim, José Cardoso Pires
A Noite e o Riso, Nuno Bragança
As Aves, Gastão Cruz
Maina Mendes, Maria Velho da Costa
Peregrinação Interior, António Alçada Baptista
A Raiz Afectuosa, António Osório
Novas Cartas Portuguesas, Maria I. Barreno Maria T. Horta e Maria V. da Costa
Toda a Terra, Ruy Belo
O Que Diz Molero, Dinis Machado
Finisterra, Carlos de Oliveira
O Labirinto da Saudade, Eduardo Lourenço
Rosa, Minha Irmã Rosa, Alice Vieira
Sinais de Fogo, Jorge de Sena
Instrumentos Para a Melancolia, Vasco Graça Moura
Uma Exposição, João M. F. Jorge Joaquim M. Magalhães Jorge Molder
O Silêncio, Teolinda Gersão
Livro do Desassossego, Fernando Pessoa-Bernardo Soares
Memorial do Convento, José Saramago
Os Universos da Crítica, Eduardo Prado Coelho
Para Sempre, Vergílio Ferreira
Amadeo, Mário Cláudio
Um Falcão no Punho - Diário I, Maria Gabriela Llansol
Adeus, Princesa, Clara Pinto Correia
As Moradas 1 & 2, António Franco Alexandre
O Medo, Al Berto
Gente Feliz com Lágrimas, João de Melo
O Pequeno Mundo, Luísa Costa Gomes
A Ilha dos Mortos, Luís Filipe Castro Mendes
A Musa Irregular, Fernando Assis Pacheco
Um Canto na Espessura do Tempo, Nuno Júdice
Um Deus Passeando pela Brisa da Tarde, Mário de Carvalho
Vulcão, Luís Miguel Nava
Guião de Caronte, Pedro Tamen
Geórgicas, Fernando Echevarría
O Vale da Paixão, Lídia Jorge
Cenas Vivas, Fiama Hasse Pais Brandão
Não Entres Tão Depressa Nessa Noite Escura, António Lobo Antunes