A General Theory of Oblivion Read Online Free PDF

Tree
    Down in the yard, where the lagoon rose up, there is an enormous tree. I have discovered, by consulting a book from the library about Angolan flora, that it is a “mulemba” (Ficus thonningii). In Angola, it is considered the Royal Tree, or Word Tree, because the tribal chiefs and elder women of the tribe often meet in its shade to discuss the problems of the tribe. The highest branches almost reach the windows of my bedroom
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    I sometimes see a monkey wandering the branches, way out there, amidst the birds and the shadows. He must have belonged to someone once, maybe he ran away, or his owner abandoned him. I feel for him. Like me, he is a foreign body in this city
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    A foreign body
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    The children throw stones at him, the women drive him off with sticks. They shout at him. Insult him
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    I’ve given him a name: Che Guevara, because he has a rather rebellious look about him, a bit of a joker, and haughty like a king who has lost his kingdom and his crown
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    One time I found him out on the terrace eating bananas. I don’t know how he gets up there. Maybe by jumping from the branches of the mulemba to one of the windows and from there onto the ledge. It doesn’t bother me. There are plenty of bananas and pomegranates for us both – for now, at least
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    I like opening up the pomegranates, turning their brightness around in my fingers. I even like the Portuguese word for them – romã – the morning glimmer it has to it
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The Second Life of Jeremias Carrasco
    Any one of us, over the course of our lives, can know many different existences. Or occasionally, desistances. Not many, however, are given the opportunity to wear a different skin. Jeremias Carrasco had something very like this happen to him. He awoke, after facing a careless firing squad, in a bed that was too short for his six feet, and so narrow that were he to uncross his arms they would both hang down with their fingers touching the cement floor, one on each side. He had a lot of pain in his mouth, neck, and chest, and terrible trouble breathing. He saw, on opening his eyes, a low ceiling that was discolored and cracked. A small gecko, hanging directly above him, was studying him curiously. The morning was coming in, wavy and scented, through a tiny window high up on the facing wall, just below the ceiling.
    “I’ve died,” thought Jeremias. “I’ve died, and that gecko is God.”
    Even supposing that the gecko was indeed God, he would appear to be hesitating about what fate to assign to him. To Jeremias this indecision was even stranger than finding himself face-to-face with the Creator and the fact that He had taken on the form of a reptile. Jeremias knew, and had known for quite some time, that he was destined to burn for all eternity in the flames of Hell. He had killed, he had tortured. And if he’d started off doing those things out of duty,obeying orders, he had later acquired a taste for it. He only felt awake, whole, when he was racing through the night, in pursuit of other men.
    “Make your mind up,” said Jeremias to the gecko. Or rather, he tried to say, but all that came out of his mouth was a dull, tangled thread of sounds. He made a second attempt, and, as in a nightmare, the dark rush of noise came again.
    “Don’t try to talk. Actually, you’re not going to talk ever again.”
    Jeremias believed, for some moments, that it was God who was condemning him to eternal silence. Then he turned his eyes toward the right and saw a hugely fat woman leaning against the door. Her hands, with tiny, fragile fingers, danced before her as she spoke:
    “Yesterday they announced your death in the newspapers. They published a photograph, it was quite an old one, I almost didn’t recognize you. They said you were a devil. You died, you were reborn, and you have another chance. Make the most of it.”
    Madalena had been working at the Maria Pia Hospital for five years. Before that she had been a nun. A neighbor had witnessed the shooting of the