Miguel Martins de Menezes

INTERNET
ON THE FLIGHT TO THE ABYSS

(English version)
Translation by Maud V. Rugeroni

(LOOKING FOR AN ENGLISH PUBLISHER)

COPYRIGHT PROTECTED
 Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the American naturalist photographer Dennis Jackes for the
generous concession for using the rights of the image from the photo of the
hummingbird on the cover of this book, paying homage to his work, which is of great
quality and surprising sensitivity. I would also like to thank Maud V. Rugeroni who
bet on my work, rendering her professionalism in translating it in such a brilliant way
to the English language.
 Short autobiographical note

Miguel Martins De Menezes was born in Mozambique, on the twenty-first of March,

1960. In 1975, after this Portuguese territory became independent, he migrates to
Portugal due to the armed conflicts and social and political turmoil following the
independency. In that very year, he continues his studies at Liceu Nacional De Viana
Do Castelo, where he finishes his General Course. In 1976, he moves to the city of
Coimbra where he finishes the Complimentary Course at Liceu Infanta D. Maria, and
enters the Law Faculty in Coimbra University. He studies for two years in this faculty,
but does not graduate.
He starts his professional activities in 1984, in the air and sea logistics and international
commerce, in the cities of Porto and Lisbon, and takes his professional knowledge to
several countries in Africa, South America and Europe.
In 2009, he decides to give up his professional life, returning to Portugal to fulfil a long
time dream, dedicating himselft to literature full time. He writes “INTERNET-ON THE
FLIGHT TO THE ABYSS”, a novel based in real facts. He is now finishing his second
fictional novel, named “THE TEMPLE OF MEN”, where he dissects the human feelings
with a wonderful and mystical realism.
 Synopsis
An extraordinary narrative on the fight of one man struggling to get closer to his loved
one. Fascinating reading, “INTERNET – ON THE FLIGHT TO THE ABYSS”, is a love
story based on real facts.
Murilo, a forty-eight year old Portuguese man falls in love with Luana, a forty-three
year old Brazilian, living an intense and rough love relationship over the internet for
eight months, leading them to getting together twelve thousand kilometres away. A
dramatic and piquant story, full of surprizing experiences, cruel and violent moments.
Questioning virtual reality and its dangers, a living and real report set in three
different countries; Portugal, Brazil and Argentina. The novel takes us through a ride
in the imagination of the described facts, making the reader mix reality and fiction;
war, corruption, love and betrayal, moments of fun, facts based on the author’s
personal experience over his journey through more than sixteen countries, from the
Eastern to the Western coast of Africa, Southern Africa, going through the whole of
Europe and the North Atlantic. The author questions the “virtual” reality, pointing out
its dangers and harmful usage, interrogating, analysing a planet amidst a complete
change of values.
The passion between Murilo and Luana would be consumated after several incidents
on the way, in a head-spinning description of moving events happening in an
alucinating rhythm.
__________________
Note from the author: The author has tried to be faithful to the facts, giving up his own subjectivity for a description as
real as possible. In order to do so, he has distanced himself from the building of the story for several days, reflecting on
his position as a witness. The text reflects, as much as possible, the reality.
 Summary

Page

Chapter I
Internet, knowledge and involvement ………. 09
Chapter II
Passion and rupture............................................. 35
Chapter III
Reconnection and longing ……..…………….. 44
Chapter IV
Maturity and proximity ................……………. 81
Chapter V
Facing reality ........................…………...………. 93
Chapter VI
Separation and moving towards the unknown ... 135
Chapter VII
Union of Murilo and Luana .…………………… 176
Chapter VIII
Diving into the abyss …...….……...................... 222
Chapter IX
Murilo’s rehab ..................……………………..... 269
 Note from the author
The facts described in this book are completely based on real events. Nothing is
fictional in this book. However, names and locations were altered to preserve the
identity of the people and institutions involved.
 Chapter I

Internet, knowledge and involvement.

It was a beautiful sunny summer afternoon, that pleasurable time when dreams mingle
with reality, a moment of idle sleep and without the ticking of the clock. Murilo
Marquez got out of bed on that very day, as he did in any other day of his life, without
knowing that this day would change both his existence and his incorruptible
sensitivity. A man with his head in the clouds, disturbed by the anachronism of years
that passed by, raping his inner youth. Life and time made him eventually fall into
oblivion. Living on reminiscences, he was unable to overcome the state of paralysis
that tightly gripped him.

He had never suffered from expectations. Everything surrounding him was like a dull
and quiet postponement, as if there was no tomorrow, or as if what was once lost
would never wait for him. Just like the lavender field stretching in front of his eyes,
blowing delicate scents into his sharp senses without any visible horizon. Murilo was a
sad man; unable to see any possible future, embittered by his past.

His name was something he always hated, but settled down to this as a man whose
vanity had been hidden in his compassionate way of being. Sometimes he was afraid to
speak; his sensitive inner-self shackled his tongue like the knots of his beaten-up
shoelaces ran every step of his life. He preferred to be humiliated to throwing back
insults, referred to the intellectual laziness that condemns humanity to an immoral
indulgent silence. He felt embarrassed by this, but did not budge from his inner peace
to break up even a single misunderstanding or dispute.

He lived with his poetic soul haunted by the beauty of everything surrounding him, an
endless quest to understand all the facts that made up his own journey of life, as if he
had decided to take a break from time and go through each step of the trail leading
him to this very moment. Desperately seeking, somewhere in his dazzled mind, a
plausible explanation for his own path, so that he could then take the next step and
move on. The facts that had been left behind and all those past experiences determined
his inner need, intuitively making him feel that there was no urgency in his search for a
personal perception of his own existence.

He thought about changing his name over and over again, but realized that if he did
so, it would mean to lose his identity just like a bird trying to escape from the colour of
its feathers, no longer being Murilo, turning into something that his inner soul
repudiated. Thus, he lived in between this sense of being and nonbeing, between self-
acceptance and self-denial, an attitude of repentance and moral laxity rioting inside
him, making him smile on his own self-pity.

This gorgeous afternoon unambiguously and irrevocably changed his life. It was on
that very afternoon that he met Luana on the "net", on a discredited and frivolous chat-
room, two hearts scorched by the pain and sorrow of their own past personal
experiences.

He picked up one of the tiny, delicate lilac flowers, some lavender leaves as thin as
needles, and rubbed them vigorously between his own palms, letting them release
their fresh and soft scent, like the smell he imagined Luana’s body should have, in his
mind dazzled by this unexpected event. Running his hands over his own face, over his
skin without any caress, he thought of Luana there holding hands with him, sharing
that moment only memory and her image could wake him up from. He smiled
inwardly, softened by this fearless vision of life and walked feeling the precarious
happiness that spoke directly to his heart. He mentally envisioned the green dress she
wore the day he first met her. That dress brought out those two expressive eyes as he
had never seen before, making him soon fall in love with those very eyes that spoke in
tones of honey crystals. The first words immediately seized his being, his inwardness,
his frank and upright character, realizing he had found a genuine and sensitive person.

Since then, Murilo and Luana never ceased to communicate, like two friends who are
expected to meet daily at the same time. Dialogues were extended endlessly; there was
no end to the late and sleepless talks at night, until the day was dawn, continuing
sometimes into the morning until reaching exhaustion. Even still, the thirst of
approximation could not be quenched, that sweet tenderness that united them. It was
like a dangerous and delirious drug that freed both of them from pain, from the
loneliness of days and empty nights. A tiny seed that germinated in each inexorable
second the clock ticked away, both uniting and fascinating them.

Days followed nights like lovers who had just met, in an ecstatic trance of dedicated
affection, to which nostalgic fingers entwined in an empty computer screen. There was
a spell that freed them, a healthy tyranny that bound them, a mixture of imprisonment
and freedom that brought them closer. A consented imprisonment in their lost souls,
an unquenched thirst for knowledge, an unsuspected fascination, different cultures,
speaking the same language with different melodies. Murilo looked into her eyes,
gorgeous, honey-coloured, leaping out of the orbits, like two small planets breaking
towards the external path made of joy.

Exhausted and happy, Murilo would go to bed, waiting for the arrival of a long
awaited tomorrow in their eternal anxious wait. He depended on Luana, on her
presence and tenderness. She depended on Murilo and his devoted love, like a fragile
flower and a delicate greenhouse full of warmth, housing their weaknesses. They told
each other passages from their lives during these endless dialogues, questioning
choices that sometimes intransigence or cultural origins distorted its understanding,
with a sigh, a small spat settled straight away by the invisible magnetism binding
them.

There was a sort of anguish that constantly chased them, like a storm that was always
present, a gloom made by the distance. Always there, like an unanswered doubt, an
unconscious despair haunting every word, when? how? where?. One day they would
have to meet, touch, feel the scent of their skin, that sharing of bodies that settles the
emotions and passions of all lovers? A veil of ashamed transparency concealed these
issues, clouding their postponed future.

Both of them believed that one day the wish for that much-desired embrace would
leave marks on their bodies filled with desire, unsettled by twelve thousand kilometres
away and a huge ocean of frustration apart. Every day this question lured them into a
deep and embarrassed silence, always aware at the back of their minds, in this
sensitive and sensory sharing of interiority.

It was kind of taboo to touch the subject of their dissatisfaction surrounding the
ground they trod. It was there, always present, but ignored by the alienation that
Murilo and Luana hid, as a constant delay of heartache and longing tormenting their
soul. He felt the primary necessity of materializing this link in a physical and carnal
embrace of desire which has been daily postponed.

They felt really ashamed by the misunderstanding of others, and would hide these
meetings from all those surrounding them, smiling at their ability to dream in daylight
and also at the shadow that pursued them in their walk. The fate of two intersecting
lives, a world of imagination without any fraud. Both of them were over forty; Murilo
was forty-eight, Luana forty-three.

Nobody noticed the emotional dare binding them together. Sometimes, they were
secretly mocked by comments made by family members who have never taken that
binding much too seriously. As two young teenagers temporarily in love, a healthy
educational exercise tolerated by those who looked from outside with a complacent
smile, without expectation on their lips.

Murilo Marquez had changed, becoming a different man, determined, resolute,

deciding to live that late love that was growing in front of him. They had never had the
opportunity to live and love with such intensity before. Luana was sensible and
prudent, questioning everything straight away, projecting the future, confessing her
loneliness and the fragility of their connection. Murilo, however, gained a daring vision
of love, an unwavering loyalty to balance her tempered objective view and the
pragmatism characteristic of this mature and lonely woman he so devotedly loved.

Her inner beauty caused him to always find a word for each questioning placed by her
realistic view. It was like a battle of titans that only imagination and creativity
originated from this copious spring of love and wonder could overcome. Sometimes,
Murilo felt defeated, silent before the naked truth of their physical distance, the
corrosive reality of the facts. The remoteness of their connection shook the foundations
of that affection uniting them with deep wounds in both hope and encouragement.

A dark cloud of a storm was approaching that duet of single and lost hearts. The tips of
his fingers frenetically sought solutions on the keyboards of the machines that linked
them in such a tangible way, which in reality was only exposing them even more,
emphasizing these fragilities that eroded their hearts, constantly reminding them of the
link that flourished in such an unstable way. They lived in this daily paradox, but the
affection and love, the tenderness of the feelings they shared, was like an effective
antidote to the poison well of doubts that pushed away even the craziest and most
daring of lovers. Both died daily, in that embrace brought by chance in between the
distance of two far away continents.

Those were difficult times. Murilo was unemployed, living with difficulties, staggering
across a barren desert of loneliness that had lasted for three long years. He had been
through a failed and painful marriage, full of all the ingredients for bitter pain and
suffering. He had travelled his whole life, a breathtaking trajectory of countries that
have succeeded one another without stopping, from the African coast of the Indian
Ocean to Europe, returning to the eastern coast of Africa, in war situations, armed
conflicts and bloody violence, returning yet again to the icy North Atlantic. A dizzying
carousel of experiences and cultures that seemed to never reach its end.

He was exhausted, wanted to change course, desperately wishing to put an end to this
erratic path of travelling with no destination and no peace, no roots and nowhere to
stay. He had found his shoulder, his lap, his family, all in a single person. Luana
cherished that condescending love, caressing Murilo's sorrows time and time again,
rendering the sensitivity of her being, the best of her existence and beauty. He looked
at her face confusing it with his destination, her body with his address, her eyes with
his hope, his hands striking the inner desire of this link to that coveted alliance. With
the greatest affection and care, he called her my sweet baby. They had become
complicit in everything in their lives, even their greatest worries and weaknesses.

They shared a history of great suffering. Luana had suffered through an empty
marriage without love. Twenty years of solitude, out of which she had given birth to a
beautiful daughter. The sacrifice of her own happiness for the sake of a new
generation, even under the horror of death threats, a constant state of consented and
tolerated unhappiness for the sake of the child she loved and watched grow, waiting
for the moment of her release. All these factors have brought them closer, even if
separated by an endless ocean the colour of hope. Both waited for this moment in their
parallel and still unknown lives.

During years, they anticipated, in their tormented minds, that sort of freedom that only
peace and true love can reach. The moment had not arrived for them to live the reality
they both dreamed of. There was yet a long and unveiled path to walk through; a
violent path made of pain, hurt, longing and separation. Luana was Brazilian and
Murilo was Portuguese, blood brothers! He was delighted with her sweet accent, with
its intoxicating musicality. She loved the soft accent Murilo had, the accent from both
mother and tyrant land that gave origin to both her country and to modern
commercialism. Everything seemed perfect, were it not for this sea of longing, the fate
that separated their destinies, left to the hands of God and human fatalism.

A common love bound them, not the love that united them, but the fond memory of
her beloved grandmother. He would look at Luana helplessly. Tears would run down
her face with the memory of a greater love time had swallowed. It made him go back
in time and also remember his grandmother, while stagger spelling the first few
letters lying beside her with the first textbook from João de Deus School. Murilo
affectionately listened to the description of these tender images of the grandmother
who caressed her, traversing Luana's memory like cotton candy in the mellow mouth
of a happy child.

From time to time, Denise, Luana's mother, would appear in the video image of the
computer, always smiling, waving at Murilo. He, on the other end, was haunted by
this vision of cohesion of a family he had never had. It was lonely to be a man with no
family; just like a bare tree without roots. That image was his fascination, his beloved
family, his unfulfilled dream.

He feared her father. Despite having never seen him, there was this natural fear of
knowing he was an austere man of very few words. One day, incidentally, he saw his
figure passing by during split seconds in front of the camcorder and almost tried to
hide himself. Luana laughed. The most beautiful smile he had ever seen. This frank
and open smile, with her white teeth and cherry rose lips in the form of a tender kiss,
so long desired by Murilo's mouth.

They were both happy. Those hours would release their fears, defying the pure feelings
linking that late, crystalline passion, just like two irreverent teenagers. They felt that
time had stopped and moved backwards some years, reminding them of those happy
moments that once had taught them how to smile. Something made Murilo feel
younger, gaining a new hope, once again reborn, putting all bitterness of the past to
rest, lulled by this mirage of life.

Memories of unrestrained and helpless tears, a twilight of sadness throbbed in his

heart, hit by untempered loneliness and gagged by the voracity of time. Luana was his
source of life, a ripe fruit that silence slowly cooked on his desiring lips. His mouth
longed for her lips just like fresh water. Her hair called for his hands like a caress.
Murilo's fingers trembled before the nurturing of a stroke from those silky threads
woven into his imagination.

His failed marriage had been forgotten, as well as the accidental death of his seven-
year-old adopted child, his ex-wife's eleven years of alcoholism, never being able to
overcome the pain of that loss. Images of war were dissolved in his memory, diluted
by the luminescent glow of Luana's love. Weeks spent sleeping in a closed bathroom
with mortar howitzers, the bursting of machine-gun maddened by human
ignominy, knocking on the walls of the buildings, piercing the glass windows of his
room, lost bullets full of misery and death in their ruthless path of indifference were
now all in a very distant past.

One day Murilo confided to her that he had come on vacation to Portugal, escaping
from that insane violence for forty-five days, and remained closed in a hotel room
crying like a lost child. This gracious love had erased from his memory these darkest
moments that mixed fact and fiction, without him knowing how to distinguish them,
with fear and utmost panic of his return to the violence of armed conflicts.

Every day he would ring Luana on her mobile, waking her up just like her alarm clock
would. He was always present in her life, as the sun rising on the horizon and
descending into the sunset of life. Then night came along, once again resuming their
contact for days in a row, with the melodious and sweet touch of eternity.

Months went by in a flash, without any of them being aware of the eagerness of time.
Time made no sense at all. Love marked eternity, the sole clock dictating the tone to the
irregular rhythm of their smallest illusions. Time was forgotten, and in the present,
they would find themselves reminiscing in ancient times, as light travellers, with no
space and no path. He loved to hear her slurred voice, drugged in her body, sleeping
by the indolence of the senses in each morning awakening. That was the small and
sensitive being he so religiously and gently loved, perpetuating his naive illusion, the
simple happiness of a man with no great ambitions.

Facing financial hardship and currently unemployed, he was always chided for this
eccentricity he allowed himself to perpetrate every day. His only wish was to be part of
her life, reducing the distance and suffering brought by his permanent absence.
Murilo gained in stubbornness, which originated from his feelings, he would phone
her whenever he had the chance, following the morning ritual that gave him a
secluded satisfaction, found in these groans of awakening from libido and conscience.
His soul was full, like a bird soaring free in the enjoyment of the light blue sky. He felt
like a bird with his open wings, sliding between grief and happiness, between
forgetting and the memory of those days shared with Luana.

They would often face hilarious moments, without the video camera connected. Their
answers were slow to arrive, Murilo insisted, looking anxiously, thirsty for her words,
trying to find an explanation for her silence. For minutes, he would stare at the
computer screen, his heart beating wildly, like a dancer who lost the grace, the pace,
and then, all of a sudden, Luana said:

- “Cockroach! ..”
He asked:

- “Cockroach?...”

- “Yes, there is a cockroach here - my daughter hates cockroaches, if I don’t kill it, she
won´t sleep”

Murilo laughed without restraint. Since that day, whenever she took a little longer to
answer, he would ask, with deliberate mischief:

- “Cockroach? ... “

Technology is fabulous, but this technological love was a daily torment in the sensorial
desire of both Murilo and Luana. Voice calls never worked, these were not able to
reveal the mood that a vibrant tone of voice so easily elucidates. Sometimes, they
couldn’t get a video and image link, and would speak as in a dark room, causing
irreparable distortions to communication. This unfading love was able to compulsively
overcome all these obstacles and conventions. Time and time again, they reached
moments of rupture due to a fraudulent and distorted communication. Luana hated
quarrels, but they were frequent, even though most of them were due to a lack of
communication and others by Murilo's temper contrasting to her light, fast and loose
nature.

Marquez encouraged her, telling stories about how his parents had dated for two years
by letter without the possibility of talking for hours every day, eventually getting
married by proxy. His father in Mozambique and his mother in Portugal in a time
when it was unthinkable for a woman to join a man without being married. She said to
him, very beautifully:

- “Actually Murilo, this is the only thing that gives me hope in my relationship with
you, knowing that your parents endured and overcame this distance years ago”.

It was then the year of nineteen fifty-seven, the post-war generation. There were no
hairdressers, and the cosmetics industry was not completely developed yet. Hair spray
was made of a concoction of beer, water and sugar. Women wore authentic cathedrals
on their heads with internal structures and frames, metal sponges and all. Collars and
cuffs in men shirts were starched with egg white. The first refrigerators by oil had just
been launched, the steel from guns and weapons were being melted and made into
useful objects. Times of hope that would affect culture, music and the projection of
future for the people. Hope was solidified in the memory of his parents’ past, fuelling
Luana's and Murilo's mutual credibility in the feasibility of their intangible love. On
those days, there was no "net"; lovers exchanged long and scented letters that the mail
took ages to deliver to their destination.
Murilo went to bed every day thinking about this wonderful human being he so gently
loved. Hardly his senses awakened in the morning he was already smiling, just by
imagining that in seconds he would listen once more to her plaintive and sleepy voice
starting a new day. Both felt their love grow like a fruit that ripens its nectar in silence,
slowly and unnoticeably, among the ignorant foliage of a secular tree. They were like
two ants diligently building their unconscious lump of happiness.

There were some moments that were marked by deep cultural difference. Words and
phrases Murilo did not completely understand. New words coming from the same
language, the language time and distance adapted to fit each culture and people.
However, he discovered daily with Luana new meanings to their common language,
watching her smile, surprised, sometimes hilariously, with the different meaning of a
word originating in the same language.

Sometimes an unnoticeable breeze carried his words to those places, without Luana
being able to discern them. Children of the same language, of its mismatch, but this
inner desire for proximity marked this difference, the engine that drove faith and the
need for sharing a love born in the cradle of innocence. There was no spelling
agreement or disagreement that could prevent this delusional connivance of affection
that survived, regardless of time and words, ignored in the live and lenient
communication of two people who loved each other.

She was Catholic and Murilo Agnostic, but there has never been a shock because they
both worshiped a similar closeness to God with only minor differences. Luana cheered
for a football club and Marquez was not a fan of any team at all, he actually hated
football! However, he became passionate about her football club, Corinthians, which
was inevitable. Murilo "gave up" his nationality and became her accomplice, the most
Brazilian Portuguese in Portugal.

Trying to find out about everything related to her country, from music to literature,
history, economics, social and political situation of each state, he would eagerly plunge
into this vast multitude of data. Thus, aware of the growing passion towards that being
he loved so much, as the cool shade under the burning sun, his love for her country
made him dream of that place which was once called lands of Vera Cruz.

Every day Murilo received an email wishing him a good day. This loving courtesy was
returned with the same frequency, often with a touch of humour to brighten up her
day. The daily meetings late at night were not enough for them. He would send
messages to Luana's work email address, a constant presence, permanent. None of
them was ever bored with this tacit, hidden harassment, implicit in their wills that
daily filled their hearts like peppermint sweets with the taste of intoxicating spell.
Every moment was secreted as a whisper in their delusional hearts, passionate by the
secret affection that united them in a silent, poignant and complete manner.
She was beautiful both inside and out. They had never told each other a single lie,
living under an auspicious atmosphere of sincerity, never hiding anything, no matter
how painful or unsatisfactory it was. This integrity was not calculated. It just flowed
naturally, arising from this devoted and spontaneous love that both delightfully
conspired within their hearts, as an act of delivery and genuine affection. Murilo told
her all about his life, since his early childhood, his family roots, his meandering
journey of life. He didn't want her to love him for what he appeared to be, but with the
harsh reality of his erratic traveller’s path, with all the miseries and mistakes in his life.
Nothing was ever concealed from her. His past and history were mentally revisited,
opening the doors of his heart in the purest way he could find.

Murilo's father was born in Goa, in India, at the time one of the many Portuguese
colonies. The independence of British India resulted in the annexation of the
Portuguese territories by the new nation emerging under the steely and enlightened
determination of the passive and non-violence resistance policy of Gandhi. This shook
the British textile industry and put an end to the remnants of the empire. He told
Luana the story of Governor Vassalo e Silva1, who had been instructed to resist until
the last man facing a disproportional Indian expeditionary force against the small and
poorly equipped Portuguese army.

Then, Nerhu would have said he did not want to spill a single drop of blood on the
annexation of territories under Portuguese administration. Salazar, the Portuguese
dictator, immediately sent orders to the governor Vassalo e Silva to resist to the last
man! The latter responded without cringing and full of courage, “I shall not waste the
life of a single human being in vain!”, and gave up the Portuguese possessions
peacefully, without any bloodshed. Many Goans left their property and migrated to
Africa, Mozambique, settling in this territory on the coast of the Indian Ocean under
Portuguese administration. The saga of Murilo Marquez and his family began there.
His mother was born in northern Portugal, from a Celtic origin, and met her future
husband in the year of nineteen fifty-seven, in an operetta in Lisbon, during one of his
holidays through the continent. This led to them meeting and dating, which two years
later would result in them getting married. Thus, Marquez' mother would leave for
Mozambique in nineteen fifty-nine. Murilo was the result of that distant love, the son
of an Asian and a European, born in Africa.

At that time, trips were made in transatlantic ships. Those long-haul air trips were
time-consuming, accessible only to the most privileged. The journeys were made
by twin-engine propeller-powered ships, with many stopping points on the way. Trips
that took two days then, today are made in just a couple of hours, with no stopovers
for refuelling. Luana was dazzled, listening to these passages of life, questioning
Murilo here and there about the source or an explanation for the facts, which for one
reason or another, were not sufficiently clear in her mind. Thus, he was harassed by

1
Author’s Note: Vassalo e Silva, General of the Portuguese army and the last Governor of India. He was expelled from the
Portuguese army for disobedience to Salazar and reinstated after the revolution of April 25, 1974.
her relentless thirst for knowledge and by thousands of questions until her curiosity
was completely satiated.

He told her he had spoken to more than four hundred people on the internet during
this period of devastating loneliness following his separation. Murilo had a strange,
extreme and meticulous curiosity, wanting to know about the human being, an
epistemological attitude towards life. He wished to understand the motivations of each
one, the genesis of the social structure, dynamics, and the causal effects of every
sociological phenomenon. However, his loneliness could not be sublimated in public
chat-rooms. This experience was solely to notice this reality and learn about this
fascinating universe. He met hundreds of people from many different age groups
around the world, hoping to understand if cultural or linguistic factors were
determinants of marked differences between individuals. A reality that dazzled him,
while explaining to Luana the factors motivating his wanderings on the net.

He could quickly distinguish imperceptible differences in the way people wrote,

revealing a lot of information about them, even before knowing about their profession,
educational level or social-economic background. It was like a mental game Murilo
tried to decipher, becoming increasingly astute and insightful in this perception.
Thousands of hours typing words, observing behaviour and stereotypes, hidden
motives, surprising perversities, moments of uncontrollable laughter in the face of
human folly: audacity, wickedness, deceit, arrogance, everything that the most fertile
imagination can encompass beyond limits.

One day he told Luana the story of a woman who was sold into slavery four times.
This fact had happened recently, right now in the twentieth century. She had been
consecutively raped and beaten up by high-ranking police and influential families in
South America. People seeking to get married on the "net", trying to solve their
personal problems, those whose only motivations were cultural, political, religious, or
those who used these means to play games and to put an end to their solitude. All sorts
of people Murilo Marquez had met over these three years, noticing the multiple
opening and dangers of this modern means of communication.

His curiosity in this field of knowledge went beyond. From an early age he watched
the way some people walked with a brisk pace, others firm and yet others undecided.
How they held their body, erect or depressed, proud or disinterested, Murilo
interpreted this communication phenomenon, understanding it as a form of language.
Hands, he realized, were crucial in this understanding. People do not think about the
way they move their hands when they talk to each other, or even isolated, revealing
insecurity, fear, shyness or firmness by the way they use their hands. When they do not
know their position in space for any reason, they shake their hands as if they didn't
know where to place them, they don't stop undecided, reflecting their mood at the
moment, or even a personality trait.
He explained his descent into the field of human knowledge, considering that the face
represents the soul of the person, personality traits are wrinkled into the face, like a
map of life, he would say. Traces of sadness and hurt, faces of joy and well-being, trails
of misanthropy or others. For this reason, it was difficult to read the face of a
youngster, still immaculate, with no marks of time and soul upon it.

Luana listened to him, quietly, attentive to every word, and Murilo continued on his
lecture that filled him with pleasure and at the same time satisfied his ego. He
considered language as the way people expressed themselves, giving out a sense of
what they thought, their position towards life. Tone of voice is dynamic. It reveals
emotions in every moment by subtle changes in speed, flimsy variations in height or
intensity. The eyes are the spectrum of the soul, he claimed, capable of revealing the
interiority, deep, leading us to an inner journey into the being as they reveal
candidness, transparency, though perhaps less than the hands, since these betray by
omission. If we add it all up, then we have Man in reality, he concluded!.., stating that
he likewise used the Internet to deepen his level of knowledge of the human being.

Among others, they addressed a variety of issues that led them to a dilettante attitude.
Everything was superficially discussed, given one or other deepening into an area that
for some personal reason raised more curiosity. These were controversial and heated
discussions that consolidated their relationship, the link that structured its prolific and
never-ending communication. In some occasions, they would disagree over useless
language issues, given the differences between Portuguese from Portugal and that
from Brazil. In others, Luana corrected him so relevantly that he admittedly amended
his mistakes, thanking for her timely interventions. It was like climbing the highest
mountain hand in hand. None of them would ever be left behind in that exercise,
leading them to the sky, filling their hearts with kindness and willingness to share.

They talked a lot about Murilo's journeys around the world. Luana had a never-ending
thirst for details of the cultures and peoples he mentally revisited to appease her
curiosity and desire for knowledge. These talks gave him a private pleasure, on one
hand it brought back grateful memories, other heavy; on the other hand, Murilo was
delighted by the simplicity of her inquiring attitude, making him feel like a little guru
trying to cuddle these questions Luana placed in every step of his narratives.

One day he told her a little anecdote that made her doubt, asking him if it was indeed
real. Not because she doubted Murilo's seriousness, as he immediately realized, but
because it seemed more fiction than real.

Murilo Marquez was moving to a construction site, isolated on the outskirts of a city
somewhere in Africa, a place lost in the middle of nowhere. The sun was scorching,
intense, dry, burning everything mercilessly. He entered a red dirt dusty road, his car
being wrapped around a cloud of red dust. His path took him along a lane of about
five kilometres, a very narrow road, where a car however small, was not able to
reverse. Murilo was driving a way-too-long vehicle, and wouldn't be able to do it.
That extremely thin red dust stuck on everything, on the windows, his face,
arms; everything was as red as earth, dust fine! Suddenly he hears gun shots coming
from nearby. A faceless crowd was laying ahead of him, just a twisted mass of people
who he could not see clearly because of the distance, but immediately realized the
shots were coming from that common indiscernible mass of human beings.

Murilo stopped the car for a while, trying to rationalize that moment with the engine
on. Leaning his head back, fearing for his life, wondering if he should go forward or
back, he realized there were no options, the only way was to move forward. Otherwise,
he would be irreparably stuck in the high ditch full of dust in the edge of that narrow
road. The only solution would be to go back in reverse gear for five kilometres, but if
another car came up from behind, he would also be blocked. There was no way
out. The air conditioning was on and the windows shut because of the scorching heat
and all that thin dust. He decided to turn the air conditioning off and open all the
windows as he was getting close to an armed crowd. The windows shut would only
prevent communication and would be useless to protect him. Thus, his car moved
forward carefully, slowly, until that huge mass of human beings took visible shapes
and contours.

A pickup truck with a coffin in it materialized amidst the crowd, while the people
surrounding it were dancing and shooting into the air, drinking beer and merrily
swaying to the sound of those heavy and raucous beats. His vehicle slowly
followed behind that human procession swirling around him, people greeted him,
smiling, shooting into the air beside him with pistols and automatic weapons, offering
him some beer. Murilo shared that moment of disbelief; those people were competing
to get into his car, giving him their weapons so that he could take a look, try them out
and shoot the air as well. They wanted his opinion, whether this or that weapon was
better or worse than the one of a friend, also sitting in the backseat.

The funeral procession arrived at the front gate of Jamala cemetery while the entire
crowd danced, sang, and fired shots into the air. The entourage escort religiously and
peacefully entered the cemetery to the sounds of music and gunfire, following the
rough wooden coffin where the deceased perpetuated an undisturbed and ignored
sleep. Murilo continued peacefully on his route towards his destination with the sun
already falling on the horizon, a sky the colour of fire heralded the end of both day and
life in this winding course of existence.

Every day he would write her poems or would look for something whose perfection
and excellence could dazzle her and brighten her day. This relentless search rejoiced
him, trying to fill his soul with tenderness and beauty. He would spent hours on this
quest, searching all the "net" like a hungry bum, never satisfied by the wonder of the
things he read or found. They were never too beautiful, never exactly what he wanted
or sought, and therefore, he continued in this effort until the sun rose, so that Luana
could have, early in the morning, the most beautiful poem or the most delicate flower
in her e-mail inbox.
He pictured her turning on her computer at seven in the morning, smiling with joy to
start a new day of work. It was like filling an empty soul of tenderness, a magic trick
that instead of taking paralyzed rabbits out of a hat, would deliver music and joy to the
being Murilo so deeply loved. Luana thanked him delighted, enough compensation for
those hours lost in search of that Holy Grail of happiness.

Sometimes Luana played with Murilo, calling him crazy for his irreverent
eccentricities, the extravagance of his mental wanderings. In others, she would go
into a frenzy for no apparent reason, adopting disproportionate critical attitudes,
accusing Murilo several times of having a bad humour and aggression without any
grounds. She had always pictured him as a short tempered person with a dull
character. He always tried to dissuade her, sometimes frustrating himself, explaining
that it was not like that. Nonetheless, Murilo had not been granted with that divine gift
of eloquence to be able to unveil the complexity of these moments without voice or
image. His subjectivity led her to interpret his humour as rage or as discord when
facing even the smallest twist in understanding and communication.

Murilo had been raised in a family of intellectuals, and was therefore used, from a very
early age, to dissect ideas and concepts confronting the opposition of his father or his
paternal grandmother, brandishing ideas because there was no consequence beyond
the passionate and eloquent verbiage, vibrant, often with heated debates that would
enter the night. These disputes and controversies would quieten down, leading to
moments of humour, keeping the bonds of affection and good nature unchanged.

However, the mere fact that some annoyance or antagonism reached them in dialogue
would be interpreted by Luana as a fight. The mere discussion of ideas or opposition,
the intellectual challenge and resistance, were sufficient to break her mood. He has
never managed to convince her otherwise, because once that mental image was built in
her brain, Luana would never change her view of things. This was a serious obstacle to
a conversation without stumbling, but it was very difficult to make her notice the
opposite, because often they could not see each other and they could rarely listen to the
voice of one another.

They were reduced and conditioned in communication by slippery written words, by

the perversity of constant doubt. Many a time Murilo smiled and she thought he was
bored. Time and time again he would try in vain to convince her otherwise. Cultural
and language differences did not help either. Often their relationship had collapsed for
reasons as useless as an invitation to eat cod, or other formality that had been
misunderstood.

For Murilo it was not nice, according to European tradition and custom, to disregard,
neglect, or deal with a serious issue with the same lightness and frivolity of a short and
informal one. For Luana it was common and usual to do so. These attitudes generated
conflicts that sometimes affected their moods for days, because Luana's memory was
relentless, and she would spend hours, days and even months musing and
regurgitating over the same subject. Unfortunately, it was this kind of attitude that
would later influence their relationship, driving it to the edge of a cliff, exhausting its
strength and wearing down affection. He realized this danger, but knew he could do
nothing. Her nature could not be raped, her frame of mind was set, and there was not
enough elasticity in it. He was blind. His apparent ability to analyse everything had
been suppressed, preventing him from seeing beyond his love addiction. They would
always overcome those situations, because there was a strange magnetism that
wouldn’t let this connection die. It was something whose essence had no words and
could not be explained, even with the most precise use of language, however brilliant
the ability of human communication could be. It would be necessary to write with the
fist of God and the grace of angels on a canvas fitted with immaculate gold.

And so the days went by, in this interlude of incomparable love, with no apparent
wear, constantly stimulated by feelings and libido, driving it as a giant sail in this
ridiculous dinghy, sailing through a sea of passion and tenderness, overcoming even
the roughest seas, grooving like a peaceful trickle in times of calm.

Luana slept very little. The difference in time zones between the two countries ranged
from four hours in the winter to two hours in the summer. Murilo waited for her
religiously at two in the morning. Sometimes, at four in the morning, they would start
their delusional session that tied them both to a computer screen. She would often go
to bed at two or three in the morning and get up again at six. This began to undermine
her health, inevitably weakening her.

Deciding to adopt a more disciplined attitude, they set a rigid schedule that would
only be broken on weekends. Friday reflected the exhaustion of the whole week;
Saturdays were the days they both looked forward to the most. Sometimes they started
chatting at nine o'clock and finished at eleven in the morning, a marathon of fifteen
hours straight, only interrupted to drink a glass of water, milk or a cup of coffee. They
had overcome their initial shyness, and now turned on the camera in their pyjamas,
informally, images entering the house as if they both were living under the same roof.

The longing for each other hurt deep in their hearts, like a thin knife piercing slowly,
anonymous, unpredictable, desperate and cruel, without leaving any scar or blood. A
slow pain, an acute and unbearable agony that would only faint away when they were
together. They felt the hardness and bitter taste of these moments, the feeling of
emptiness and longing in the face of a non-existing hug. A kiss lost in distance and
material limitations. The scent of soft skin Murilo so much desired to caress. The
postponed touching of senses, the depth and fascination of a look that sent him into a
state of commotion and mental agony.

They spoke of love. Not love of physical surrender, but this was also addressed. The
desire between them was latent, constantly there. Their union was greater than only a
primitive, carnal, animal desire. Spontaneous, honest and genuine in this approach,
they would describe how they would make love to each other, suffering from an insane
longing for that embrace that embittered and extended the pain of their wishes with an
unbearable wait. They had never felt that the "net" was able to overcome this carnal
need of touches, and that’s why they had never done it, firmly believed it. However,
they were aware of their bodies, the pressing need for that hug without latitude. The
distance made the desire insane, when lovers expunge the insatiable lust of delivery
and the smooth skin would faint in strokes. A union of fluids and bodies, whose
tension would be rendered in the paroxysm of climax.