Marcelo and the Mouse

Marcelo took pride in owning a brand new VW Bug, which He called “My Cherry”. It was bright cherry red and did fifteen kilometers on a liter of any kind of fuel. It had a flex engine. Every Saturday he’d take Cherry to be washed and polished for she was a lady and needed to be in tip-top shape for the weekend in order to impress others.

One weekend Marcelo decided to take his parents to visit some relatives in a city nearby, just a two-hour drive away. For this reason the grooming process would also include a thorough check-up.

They drove to their local garage and Marcelo handed Cherry over to the professional while he savored a cup of freshly brewed coffee in the waiting room. A few minutes had passed when a man in gray overalls asked Marcelo to follow him behind the office which lead to where Cherry waited.

“Marcelo, I am afraid there is a problem.”

Marcelo froze. “What happened? Is everything all right?”

“I’d like you to take a look at the engine.”The man pointed to a small opening behind the battery. “Right there, look.”

Marcelo was afraid to look but he had to. He bent forward to get a closer look when he saw it. It was the biggest tail he had ever seen and it was furless.

“What is that? A cat’s tail?”Marcelo asked nervously.

“Marcelo, I am afraid that it is a mouse.”

“A mouse? Look at the size of that tail!”

“Ok then, we’ll call it a rat. Anyhow, it seems to have been living in your engine for some time now. See how it has eaten its way to that spot?”Marcelo looked carefully has the man pointed and showed him what he was talking about. “You see we can follow its trail and we believe that he  even goes into the interior when the motor is running.”

“I can’t believe it! The sound of Cherry’s engine has always sounded like music to my ears. I would have realized the difference. I would have known whether or not there was something strange going on.”

“Not necessarily. It is actually quite common and…”

“Common? You’ve got to be kidding.”Marcelo was dumbfounded.

“If it were a cat, it would have been cut up into pieces, but a mouse can live in a car for quite a long time. The biggest problem is that mice eat up the wiring and that costs a fortune to be redone.”

“Get it out! Get it out!”Marcelo shouted. : I don’t want a mouse, rat or whatever it is living in my car and chewing up the wiring!”

“We will." The man said calmly. “I just needed to show it to you so you could believe it.”

Marcelo went back to the waiting room and nervously waited for the removal of the critter and for the check-up to end. He kept trying to figure out where the mouse could have come from but the picture of the huge tail kept invading his mind and gave him the shivers.

An hour and a half later, Cherry and Marcelo left the garage, picked up the parents and off they went to the nearby city. Marcelo didn’t dare tell his folks about the mouse. His mother would have had a fit and his father would give him a sermon on how important it was to take good care of one’s things. His father would say this to Marcelo always at meal times.

The ride was pleasant and they arrived at the estimated time. The relatives were pleased to see Marcelo and his family and they were impressed with Cherry. “A VW Bug is not something we see in this town every day and this one is a beauty.” His relatives would say.

For dinner that evening, Marcelo’s aunt made homemade pizza. It was divine. During dinner a strange feeling came over Marcelo and he had a hunch that the mouse was still around lodged somewhere inside Cherry, so he decided to place a small chunk of the delicious pizza where he had seen the tail and after having done so, he went to sleep.

Bright and early the next morning, he slowly opened up the hood and noticed that the pizza was gone. Vanished. Not a crumb left. He even looked underneath to see if it had fallen through; after all, there are open spaces inside the hood of the car.

Marcelo was furious and drove Cherry to the local garage in that city, explained what had happened and to his disappointment, the mouse was still there. They opened up the hood and there was that huge furless tail.

“Get it out! Get it out!” Marcelo shrieked.

The people at the garage tried to calm him down. They told him that they had a super powerful vacuum cleaner that would definitely suck up the mouse and get the job done.

Marcelo waited for over an hour during which he spoke to the woman who was serving coffee.

“Can you believe that I drove all the way here with a mouse in my car engine?" Marcelo said.

“You don’t say.” The woman kindly answered.

“You’d think the mouse would go flying out with all the potholes on the roads and the heat the engine produces.”

“If I were you, I’d buy rat poison just to be sure.”

“Rat poison?” Marcelo was confused.

“Yes, you can get some at Joe’s, a small shop just down the road. You can spread it all over the engine and if the poison is still there the following morning, you will know for sure that the mouse is gone.”

“That’s not such a bad idea. But I am pretty sure that after they use the powerful vacuum here and after the drive back to my city, it won’t survive.”

“I don’t know. It sounds like you’re dealing with a pretty smart super mouse.”

Marcelo drove away and decided to stop by at Joe’s like the coffee woman had suggested and purchase the poison. He couldn’t believe that a creature could be so resistant and stubborn. He picked up his parents, said goodbye to the relatives and drove home. Unlike the trip to the city, the trip home took over four hours.

There is no way that mouse is still in the engine. Marcelo thought.

Before calling it a day, Marcelo took the poison and filled up every nook and cranny in the front part of the car. He wore rubber gloves to protect his skin because Joe said he only sold powerful stuff. As he closed the hood, he bid Cherry a good night and went to bed.

That evening Marcelo tossed and turned in bed and dreamt that the city where he lived had been infested with talking rats of all sizes and colors. It was a nightmare. The alarm clock went off; he rushed out of bed and headed for Cherry in his pajamas. He opened the hood and all the poison was gone.

“No!” He screamed.

The mouse had survived the super vacuum, the heat of the engine, the bumpy roads, the long drive, no food, no water and he had eaten all the poison. Marcelo wasn’t sure the poison would have any effect on the super mouse, so he decided to repeat the poison three nights in a row just to be sure he’d eliminate the resistant big furless tailed rodent.

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(Written Feb. 6, 2012)

copyright ©2012 - Todos os direitos reservados a Meire Marion.

Mary in the Sky

Mary in the Sky had long black hair. She walked around very proudly holding her head up high as she paraded around the town with Marcelo, her owner. However, it hadn’t always been this way.

Marcelo was walking home on a rainy afternoon when he saw a box move on the sidewalk. At first he thought it could have been a rat, but curious as he was, he opened the box and came across this small black puppy of a mixed species. It was hard to tell which species he could have come from because the pup was quite dirty and in pretty bad shape. He also noticed that the pup was shivering and his tail and right ear had been cut off. Marcelo immediately felt heartbroken and believed that the dog had found him and not the other way around.

Marcelo took the little creature home and because he was a big fan of the Beatles, he decided to name it Mary in the Sky. He didn’t think that he looked like a Lucy and besides, the cut that been made on his right ear resembled the letter M and so Mary it was. Of course he only called the puppy by its whole name when he did something wrong, otherwise Marcelo only called him Mary.

Mary grew up big and strong and always protected he owner from others- good or bad. On many occasions, she had chased away muggers and beggars and even some of Marcelo’s closest friends.

Marcelo was so proud of Mary and Mary was grateful to have such a caring owner. Not only that, but she had a warm bed, ate fresh meat at every meal and had someone who cared about her and took very good care of her.

As time went by, Marcelo ended up rooming with his brother Gerald because their parents decided that they wanted to retire at the beach and leave the city life. There was no one else who could take care of Gerald, so he moved into Marcelo’s apartment. Marcelo had moved out of his parents~ home when he had turned eighteen and he had found Mary a few years before that.

At first Mary had huge fights with Gerald and tried to chase him away whenever he approached Marcelo’s territory, which meant all the rooms in the apartment but especially his bedroom.

It was necessary for Marcelo to raise the family income, so he started working overtime. Mary ended up spending more time with Gerald and gradually she began to accept his help and company.

The three of them were a very happy family. They spent all the weekends together and what Mary mostly enjoyed was getting in the car and driving off into the countryside with her nose out the window feeling the wind and also tasting it for her tongue would always be sticking out.

On one of these outings, they stopped off at a small town before reaching their destination. Marcelo crossed the street and so did Gerald. Marcelo had noticed that Mary was not on her leash. A cold shiver ran up his spine. Gerald called Mary over and she happily ran across the street. All they heard were tires shrieking and a loud cry.

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Marcelo couldn’t budge. There she was lifeless in the middle of the street. His friend, companion, protector of so many years and he, Marcelo, couldn’t move to pick up the body off the cold gray concrete ground.

copyright ©2012 - Todos os direitos reservados a Meire Marion.

FADING AWAY SLOWLY

Being invisible can be a two way street. Perhaps it is just a feeling in the air or perhaps it is reality. To be trapped in a world where you are seen by only a few can be perturbing.

There are those who walk by you making believe that you have greeted someone other than them; those who do not even look in your eyes and greet you with a quick eyeball hello or a squint of the eyebrows; those who only greet you when you are speaking with someone important because they want to kiss ass; and finally there are those who nearly knock you down when they walk passed you and give you that look as if you were the one who had to apologize.

How can people be so blind? Could it be that we are fading away, simply blending into the walls; melting into the floors?

They say that when a person loses his eyesight the other senses awaken to a greater degree. You become more sensitive and wear it on your sleeve. Your sense of smell improves and there are scents that only the most refined noses can capture. You need to touch others and the tips of your fingers pick up stories and new sensations.

This blindness is not physical but spiritual. The soul that has darkened and the heart that has stiffened are able to see only material things without being able to recognize other souls.

Nowadays people need to wake up to the fact that what matters are the souls- the people around them and not the material things that can be destroyed in a flash.

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copyright ©2012 - Todos os direitos reservados a Meire Marion.

Siesta Now!!!!!

All tropical countries should reinforce the importance of having a siesta on an extremely hot afternoon. There should be an official law stating that people should only work or study until noon and then resume these activities as of five pm. when the sun has lost it heat and the temperatures have gone down a bit.

Going home for a nap or a bath, drinking freshly squeezed lemonade would be refreshing when the thermometers read 34 degrees Celsius.

While reading this, you have probably thought about the fact that this already happens in most tropical countries if not in all of them. Despite the fact that the law does exist in some of them, do people really rest or sleep in the early afternoon especially on an extremely hot day?

The answer to this question is a negative one. Nowadays people are running against the clock and do not know how to simply sit back, relax and watch the trees dance. There is an uncontrollable need for people to do multiple tasks, the brain is on twenty-four seven and there is no stopping to it. Or is there?

Perhaps when the body shuts down and stops working the way it is supposed to, you realize the importance of slowly down and relaxing. You become aware of how important doing nothing is.

Let’s not wait for the worse to happen learn how to relax and pledge for a Siesta now!

copyright ©2012 - Todos os direitos reservados a Meire Marion.

Fall and Rise

Walking on a road not knowing where you are heading can be bewildering. With every curve there is an unexpected event – no previous warning.

One day you wake up and realize that you are paralyzed. Your lower body does not respond to your commands. Your head starts to hurt because of the enormous effort that you make sending out messages; however, not a single muscle moves. No reaction whatsoever.

You try to stand up but you fall. The fall is not hard; it feels as if someone is gently placing you on the floor. Even so, you are floundering about.

You wonder what you have done that has lead to this in addition to trying to find someone to blame for all this misfortune.

The people you love and care about cannot do a thing to help you. Although they try very hard, the rebel inside of you wakes up and takes over. You try with all your might to connect your brain to your nerves but with no avail. This rebellious part of you brings out the ugliest thoughts that you have kept locked up inside throughout the years.

You can rebel as much as you want to; however, the situation only improves when you surrender. You give yourself to your creator and place your life in His hands. Let Him guide you. Once you have done this, you tend to see the world through a different prism. So, you are paralyzed for a moment, still on the road unaware of the forthcoming events, but safe that you are in good hands.

copyright ©2012 - Todos os direitos reservados a Meire Marion.