a snake tale

Those who know me know I have this terrible habit of walking in the dead of night. I do not suffer from insomnia. I simply like empty streets, and I like the mood of my city when there is no one in it. There is something nostalgic and almost welcoming in that silence, and it does me good.

I usually leave around four in the morning. I walk from my neighborhood to the small city airport, then make my way back. All in all, it comes to about ten kilometers. It feels good.

Even though I go to the gym at least three times a week, I give a special kind of value to walking, which I do pretty much every day. I call it mental hygiene.

On that particular day, I was distressed. I kept thinking about life and its questions: why do some people have so much, while others have nothing at all?

As a Christian, I directed that question to God. I asked Him to answer me in a way I could understand.

Anyway, setting those questions aside, I got up that night, got dressed, and prepared for my walk. But this time, I had decided to take my dog, Amon, with me. And listen: I never take him. He belongs to a breed that can suddenly decide it has a problem with any living creature, for no reason and with no explanation. But that day, I wanted to take him.

I put on his collar and muzzle. And off we went.

The questions began to shrink, almost disappearing, after a brief prayer as I walked. I was happy. I could smell the fresh, damp air of a morning about to fade into daylight.

We went, as usual, to the airport. Then we came back.

Ah, the colors. The colors at the beginning of winter are beautiful. The sky was waking up in shades of lilac and pink, and the closer the morning came, the happier I felt. The beginning of a day, at least for a fraction of a second, has always given me a sense of possibility.

Then I entered the main avenue, the one that led to the road that would take me home. As I approached the end of it, I noticed a man lying on the ground. He looked homeless. He was crying like a child. Badly dressed. Dirty.

In that moment, something cut through my heart. I wanted to ask if I could help.

I stopped in front of him with my dog, and we began to talk. He slowly calmed down and, strangely enough, my ill-tempered dog did not reject him. Quite the opposite: he seemed to grow fond of the man, who then started playing with him.

I found it odd, but I let them play. Then I asked what he was doing there. I asked if it was drugs, gambling, alcohol, anything like that.

The man denied all of it and told me his story. And damn, think of an unlucky person. Nothing had gone right. Everything in his life had collapsed, as if in the blink of an eye. A cloak of bad luck seemed to cover him, no matter what he tried.

Having my answer, I continued on my way home. But I could not get that man out of my head. After sitting for a minute in front of my house, I thought that maybe I could fix his life. The company was doing well. I could pay for a place for him to stay, and I could even find him a job.

So I went back to him.

And together, in about two hours, I found a small flat where he could live. A few hours after that, I also found him a job so he could support himself.

Perfect. His life was solved. I had won the day, and satisfied, I went to sleep. For now, let us call this man Bruno.

Two months passed.

Few people know that, on the other side of the city, I support a rehabilitation house for people struggling with chemical dependency, a place meant to help them recover and return to society able to stand on their own again. At the time, we must have had around twenty-five residents. The project was led by Pastor Paulo. I had stepped away from in-person volunteer work because of the heavy demands of my job, but I remained a faithful supporter.

Now, Pastor Paulo is an old man. Seventy-five, almost eighty.

He called me one Sunday afternoon, terrified. He said one of the residents had suffered a psychotic episode, had tried to kill him, and then had tried to take his own life. He said he needed my help.

Without asking too many questions, I got up in a hurry and went to the hospital where they were. It was late Sunday. The Pastor was exhausted and worried, because he could not take the man back to his house. Imagine if he had another psychotic episode and tried something again. I could not take him with me either. At the time, I was staying at my mother's house, and my apartment was under renovation.

But I had an idea.

After speaking with the man, he told me he would leave for his family's home at dawn. He stressed that he only needed a place to spend that one night.

I remembered Bruno.

I called him and told him the story. I said I would spend the night there with both of them, just until morning, so the man could go on his way.

Bruno apologized and lied for five minutes, giving me five different lies about why he could not help. There was a smugness in his voice.

Upset, I hung up.

I could do nothing for the young man in crisis that night.

I never found out what happened to him after I returned home.

A few more months went by, and I had forgotten that grim episode. One day, while I was waiting for the light to change at an avenue intersection, my eyes settled on the corner, where I saw a man standing and begging for money.

It was Bruno.

I found the situation strange and, after a brief search, discovered that he had lost everything again.

God had answered me. I had not asked for revenge, but I understood that God knows the hearts of men; and that if someone is not capable of helping others, perhaps he cannot be helped either.