Dona Teresa

Image: James Ensor, Pierrot and Skeletons
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By EDUARDO SINKEVISQUE*

“Teresinhaaaaaa, huhu” (Chacrinha).

She was young, I admit. She was thin, slender. She took care of the cats campus, did not allow gaticide to be carried out, nor sterilization to operate on them. She was the mother of abandoned cats and dogs too. Afterwards, she lost her strength as a woman, her strength as a people.

Sorry to tell you this story. Tell the story. I prefer that you continue to admire and love Dona Teresinha.

She, before being the owner, I want just for myself.

Maybe I would give it to the hippos. But I think they've already come for her. They, the dead hippos.

That's why, today, you only see Dona Teresinha, grandmother, grandmother.

Yes, the smell of death surrounds the great Lady. There is a kiss almost touching her neck. There are already paws in the hole. About that: compassion. Catharsis.

Dona Teresinha made the hippos very read, very studied. It is very broad in research on hippos, but reductionist in the main. She only sees hers in her backyard.

I know this story is difficult. Forgive me.

I'm a poor little narrator. A storyteller. I love hippos.

I can't stand historical erasures, directed histories, digested easily, easily, facetiously, scams that deceive the people, the ignorant plebs of the Donas Teresinhas' entourage.

I don't want to persuade you to stop loving who you love, nor to admire who you admire. I want to look at the sea and the mountains.

I love hippos. I don't love literary critics, hippo scholars. I take my hat off to dedicated, studious, enlightened people. I'm a lost sheep. But I think that my truths, of straying sheep, could also have been poorly told stories, badly told.

I may have been carried away by another myth. Who knows? I can say that I lie, by making use of the myth.

May everyone be at peace with the hippos, with Dona Teresinha. I keep the hippos I love, which are not the same as Dona Teresinha.

I'm left without Dona Teresinha. I got tired of making epidictic variants praising pioneers. I'm tired of reproaching tyrants. The story ends in the tour that ends.

*Eduardo Sinkevisque is a postdoctoral fellow in literary theory at the Institute of Language Studies (IEL) at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp).


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