The Hermit

By Alberto Magalhães

At summer, daylight begins earlier and dusk a little later. By this time, while daylight blends with the blackness, at my return to my home coming back from my teenage-initial job, everyday I saw my old friend hermit to whom I talked a few minutes, listening to him say about this extraordinary world, some times intriguing or frightening. He was all white-haired, his face easy and his lost sight in some place on his mind, made him respectable. He worked and lived on a small room in a old building, head-office of a cultural institute in City of Aracaju. He was a mixture of janitor by day and caretaker at night. Peaceful and solitary, some times remembered me The Phanton of the Opera, and this made him smile (rare opportunity) when I told him about that comparison.

He never told about himself, but about everything that surround us throughout the world. Maybe it is the cause that I can't remember his name. He seemed an extraterrestrial, disguised himself of human being who came observe the earth. He ate few meals, walk through the city a little, however he knew about everything. Everyday he red papers and listened his old radio, fixed with scoth tape. His nourishment was basically bananas, peanuts, bread and powdered coffee – never drinked other kinds of coffee. He was impregnated of culture, an autodidact thirsty for the universal history. At heart he demonstrated his disappointment with the world, disgusted because of the paths assumed by the people, unsatisfied because of emptiness of traditional values of family, that, on his opinion, made poor this society day after day much more materialist.


Alberto Magalhães is public servant in the State of Sergipe, Brazil

(Translated from Portuguese by Marcos Vinicius Gomes)