She was sobbing. And, as if the brightness of the day wasn't already enough, she was a redhead.
On the empty street, the stones were like ember at the heat- the head of the girl was like in flames. Sitting on the stairs of her home, she handled. There wasn't anybody in the street, only one random person waiting, uselessly, at the bus stop. As if her patient and submitted look didn't mean enough, the sobs interrupted her constantly, shaking her chin, which was resignedly supported on her hand. What can be made of a sobbing ginger girl? We looked at each other without words, dismay versus dismay. Not a signal of the bus in the desert street. In a land of “browns”, being a ginger was an unwilling riot. What does it matter if someday, her mark would raise an insolent woman's head? For now, she was sitting on those sparkling stairs, at 2pm. Her salvation at that point, was an old and broken bag strap. She held it with an almost marital love, tightening it against her knees.
Then suddenly appeared, her other half in this world, like a lost brother in Grajaú. The possibility of communication appeared from a warm angle of that corner, within an elderly lady, and embodied in the shape of a dog. It was a dachshund, precious and miserable, sweet over his own fatality. It was a ginger dachshund.
There he came, trotting, in front of his owner, dragging his own length. So unwarned, so accustomed, so dog.
The girl opened her eyes, amazed. Softly warned, the dog stopped after her. His tongue was pulsing. They both looked at each other.
Among so many beings that are ready to become owners of other creatures, there was that girl, who seemed to have come to this world just for owning that dog. He quivered mildly, without a bark. She looked at him from behind her fringe, fascinated, serious. How much time was elapsed with that moment? A big sob shook her, tunelessly. He not even moved. She got over her sobs and continued to stare him.
Both had short and red hair.
What have they told each other? Nobody knows. They had only a quick instant of communication, because there was no time for much more. Also, without a word, they asked for each other. They asked for each other with urgency, shyly, astonished.
In the middle of so much of so much vague possibility and so much sun, that dog was the redemption to the red kid. And in the middle of so many streets to be trotted, so many dry culverts- there was that girl, like she was flesh of his very own ginger flesh. They stared at each other deeply, given, absents of Grajaú. One more instant and this floating dream would be broken, yielding, perhaps, to the severity with which they craved for each other.
But they were both committed.
She was committed with her impossible childhood, the center of a naivety that would only go away when she became a woman. He, with his own imprisoned nature.
His owner waited impatiently, under an umbrella. The ginger dachshund finally went away of the girl, and left, like sleepwalking. She was scared with that happening on her hands, in a kind of muteness that neither her father nor her mother would ever understand. She accompanied his way with her two black eyes, which could barely believe, leaning over her bag and her knees, until the dog and his owner turned the next corner.
But he was stronger than her. Didn't look back, not even a single time.
Tobias Eccher
