2-Streets
It might not have seemed like it, because it was lethargic, but the city which Gustavo went to live in was big. It wasn’t huge, like many that can be found on the planet. He had been to some of those urban monsters. That wasn’t the case with his city. But it was a lot bigger than it seemed. A calm, hot city, where four or five people knew each other, was big. Gustavo used public transport with Emílio, to hear what he had to say. He thought Emílio’s comments were funny. Not because they were funny, in truth they were not funny at all, but because they were pertinent.
- Notice the silence; people are incapable of talking to one another. They look at their own shoes, it is the best way they find to avoid having to look at other people’s faces. Let’s get off and get inside a building. So they did.
- Come, let’s ride the elevator. People feel uncomfortable in elevators. Not because they are claustrophobic, but because they hate the proximity with others. They seem to suffer from a horror of dirt, they deal with others as if they are dirty. But it isn’t possible to clean them. In elevators passengers feel desperate because of the length of the trip. It seems long, uncomfortable, invasive. Elevators were horrible: they had human beings. And on top of that the humans were close by. They could touch each other, feel each other’s breath.
- The only defence is to do as they do: stare fixedly at the ceiling of the elevator. Every time it stops you can feel a chill, an anger, because this means the trip will take longer. When you reach the destination and the door opens, you pass between the other passengers trying not to touch them. It is a huge relief to get out of the elevator.
Gustavo wandered round the streets of the city. They were wide and long. The coast road, beside the not-always calm sea made a curve, adjusting to the geography. Why were there so many coastal Avenues with this slight bend? He knew many, some only from photographs, but he knew they were like that. The streets were paved with tarmac. There was a time when they would have been made of stone, not any more and Gustavo couldn’t remember that time, before tarmac. The buildings were mostly worn and dirty. They functioned with problems. There were damaged pipes, walls in need of repair, fresh paint was a rare thing. Gutted doors, already rotten iron bars, the city appeared to be frozen in time. But it wasn’t so. New bits appeared round every corner. Surveillance cameras were all over the place. Some were meant to be seen, others were high up, all, however, were meant to be perceived as a method of control. Citizens were curious, in their rapid walk. They wouldn’t talk to strangers, that was considered ridiculous and synonymous with a lack of intelligence and culture. People had given up the famous “cell phones” with pictures. They preferred the ones which didn’t have any pictures at all. They preferred talking without seeing people “on the other side”. That way it was like talking alone. Many people entertained themselves for hours with computer games. Individual games were much appreciated. Being at home, watching television, talking to someone without being seen were interesting occupations. Some theorists had even predicted the decline of television, but they had been completely wrong. Far from losing interest and fans, television had gained more and more fans. There were many channels and they had taken a curious path: fusion! Channels were all similar and they weren’t “thematic”. They all transmitted everything! Female mud wrestling, motor sports, circus, political rallies, all kinds of films, newscasts for all kinds of