Written by Sérgio Raimundo

First it was a huge balloon that attached itself to the hook of my stepfather's navel, first it was a wagon of maggots that carried bundles of flies on my stepfather's legs, but I still think first it was my stepfather's upturned mouth that spat out words with crooked, lame syllables. In a few days my stepfather became a house rag; in the mornings he was dragged by his feet and stretched out in the sun, and in the evening he was evacuated by hand cranes into his room. Every now and then he was forgotten in the yard, but the miss of his lungs exploding with coughing, between the walls, would wake us up and we would run to carry our rag.

My stepfather was already a rag, so one day we tried to wake him up, but his eyes were droopy and his breathing lines were sort of sloppy. Everyone started crying, my mother wiped her tears on her body, because he was a rag. My stepfather's daughters, giraffes with huge necks, folded the rag, put it on a bed, and called the hearse. I can't get out of my mind my stepfather's wheelchair hanging on the wall in my mother's bedroom.

My stepfather was already a rag, so one day we tried to wake him up, but his eyes were droopy and his breathing lines were sort of sloppy.

I remember the pastor blessing my stepfather's coffin with drops of sand and saying, "those who walk uprightly will enter into peace." And my stepfather who never walked upright, who always walked with his body spilling over the edge of the wheelchair, my stepfather who without the crutches on our shoulders crawled on his belly across the yard, he who could even join in and decide to walk straight, but was always dragged by the wind because he was a rag; several times we didn't find him on the street because his stomach, full of pill boulders, gave him a little weight. 

And to this day I don't understand why the funeral home brought a big coffin to put my stepfather's rag in, I don't understand why everyone cried in the cemetery when the shovels covered my stepfather's rag.

I remember the pastor blessing my stepfather's coffin with drops of sand and saying, "those who walk uprightly will enter into peace."

"Those who walk uprightly will enter peace," and my stepfather entered the grave in peace, for he was a rag and never walked straight. If only they had put the rag with his wheelchair in the coffin, at least he would stumble inside the grave trying to walk straight and at the door of heaven he would straighten up to enter in peace. 

After months we went to see my stepfather's grave, but in his place a new corpse had been placed; my stepfather, who was an old rag, had been exhumed by shovels and thrown to the wind to walk straight. My poor stepfather, I kept imagining him walking through the cemetery without his wheelchair, he who overflowed his belly and went crawling on the back of his own body.

After months we went to see my stepfather's grave, but in his place a new corpse had been placed; my stepfather, who was an old rag,...

We ran to the cemetery offices to complain about our rag that had been ripped off, but the employee who attended to us, preferred to joke with us by asking us the date of burial, the full name of my stepfather and in the end ended the joke, as she took the blindfolds off our eyes and said she couldn't do anything.

At that moment I felt like digging up the sentence that my stepfather used to stone me with after a glass of wine: "and you think you are good at being someone's son? If my stepfather had been there I'm sure he would have put his finger on the employee's forehead and with contempt said, "and you who don't even know where I am, do you think you are good at being someone's daughter?".