“My life is divided into three phases: in the first, my world was the size of the universe and was inhabited by true and absolute gods.

In the second phase, my world shrank, became more modest, and became inhabited by revolutionary heroes who carried weapons and sang songs to transform the world.

In the third phase, dead the gods, dead the heroes, dead the truths and the absolutes, my world shrank even more and reached not its final truth, but its final beauty: it became beautiful and ephemeral like a flowering blackcurrant tree”.

- Rubem Alves

"Alex, wake up!" My grandfather shook me. “Please, my son, wake up!”

I woke up screaming and sweating. “What happened?”

“You were having another nightmare.”

My grandfather's heavy hand smoothed my hair that I'd grown for the past two years to hide the scar on my right temple I'd gotten as a baby. They don't tell me about the circumstances of the scar, but I know I got this one and another on my forearm at the same day my parents died. He had a voice heavy and charged with worry.

“Another!” I replied. “What a hell!”

"How many nightmares have you had this month? Ten, Eleven?”

“Fourteen, and they're getting longer. I'm afraid to go to sleep and not get up because of these dreams.”

He made the sign of the cross and squinted his eyes in a serene tone. He looked up at the ceiling, took a deep breath and looked at me worriedly. I wanted to tell him everything was fine. But what to do when you have the same dream for several years?

“We need an expert again. He looked thoughtful. Are you sure you want to go to this camp?"

We had already gone to a specialist once, and I probably took the name crazy behind my back. I had just accepted that my life would be ordinary and like everyone else, but I started having nightmares about the end of the world.

I remember that the first time I went to a psychologist, he diagnosed me with GAD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder plus Panic Disorder, and suggested that I urgently visit a psychiatrist. When looking for one that my health plan covered, I found only one.

How lucky for me. In the first session, he prescribed me a powerful anxiolytic. Man, I got really groggy!

From the second visit onwards, he asked several times about my nightmares and my life. Heck, he was a bloody psychiatrist, if I wanted a psychologist, I wouldn't have gone to an appointment with him.

Anxiolytics are horrible. Do not drive or practice extreme sports if you do. Really!

How the anxiolytics had no effect. We visit a new psychologist. My grandfather thought it was better that way. “A psychiatrist shouldn't play the role of a psychologist. Each in his area.” Doctor Telkna was a really nice guy. His name was Scandinavian, something like that. It was hard to pronounce the first time I heard it.

He asked questions about my childhood: where were my parents I never met, if I have friends, if I have a girlfriend. I got angrier and angrier when those sessions ended. He was supposed to solve my problems, not give me more. He was too positive. He said everything was fine. That the world was beautiful and everyone should see it.

I'm going to barf rainbows. – I thought about almost all our sessions.

So, we went back to the psychiatrist. Dr. Thomas, as he introduced himself earlier, said that my grandfather Young was to blame for my nightmares. The fact of making up horror stories about aliens made me like that, complexed by conspiracy theories. For a few minutes, I came to hate my grandfather, but then I came to hate myself. I was the one who chose to believe his crazy stories.

I called the way Dr. Thomas looked at me as psychopath mode. That doctor had no empathy at all. He had no expressions, affection or haste when he referred to me. He was always slow and almost stopping - However, he did miracles. But a month or two later, my psychologist and my psychiatrist hated each other. They practically forbade me to go back to each other. Dr. Telkna said I was not required to use drugs. Now, Dr. Thomas said otherwise. “Crazy people need crazy medicine.” He practically said that in one of our meetings.

Did I have nightmares? “I have the perfect medicine.” Anxiety attacks? “This one works miracles!” I had cases that I could sworn Dr. Thomas just wanted to drug me. Like when I mentioned that I had diarrhea and he was given sleeping pills. All those medications were making me sedentary. I ate junk food while missing a lot of basketball practice because I was groggy.

I felt terrible. Damn crazy people medicine!

I had a lot of problems due to these stories my grandfather told me. Among them, in addition to the crazy drugged psychiatrist and the ultra-positive psychologist, I have to change schools because a boy beat me up and hung me by my coat on a nail in the gym. He took pictures of me and added them to different groups on their social networks.

“Look, I caught a scrawny alien!”

My grandparents were afraid that I had gotten a nickname, so we took advantage of the fact that I won a scholarship to one of the best schools in the country, so we decided to move.

Even though the dream was always the same - with a few minor variations, and having replayed it a million times to both psychologist and psychiatrist, they insisted on knowing what I dreamed every damn session. It was like they wanted to find something or know something I hadn't told you about before.

And honestly, I didn't need it again. I had bad memories of my previous ones. There were days at a time when I couldn't sleep properly and it wasn't doing me well. The feeling was more and more real, so I told my grandfather that I would go to camp and as soon as I got home, I would go to a another doctor, psychologist, or anything else to treat these apocalyptic nightmares again. However, I would like to visit a new professional. The old ones didn't make any difference.

“All right. You really want to go to camp.” My grandfather agreed. “Now, changing the subject, you remember that you promised to help me to paint the front of the house before your travel?”

“I haven't forgotten, grandpa!” I yawned, getting up.

I was with one foot in limbo yet – the threshold between reality and madness, a world inside dreams with almost no return – and another in reality. I had stayed up late watching a rerun of the Lakers game against the Celtics.

The Celtics won the game 133-96. It was an amazing game. They won the first half, the Lakers almost managed to draw in the second, but in the third half it was a mess and they couldn't recover afterwards.

“The Lakers win next time, Alexandre!” Exclaimed and approached. He placed a hand on my shoulders and, smiling, continued: “We will finish soon. Now come on, hurry up! Your grandmother is waiting for us.”

“I'm on my way. I'll just put the rest of my stuff in my bag, but don't even think about starting until I get there.”

“All right, son. I won't.” and he went down the stairs.

I looked up at the ceiling and saw the fluorescent stars I'd pasted up last fall. The way I made the constellation of the sign I was born in was weird. I started putting the stars and when I saw it, I had formed Sagittarius.

Whenever I saw it, I was reminded of my grandfather Young. Before he passed away, he used to tell me fantastic stories about flying saucers, aliens and zero gravity. Every time I heard one of his stories, he added a new detail that was sometimes scary.

"He had blue skin. Horns. Tail. Six eyes. He had tentacles instead of a mustache.”

I was more impressed with each new detail in his stories. When I turned eight, I decided to become a NASA pilot because of what I was hearing. I wanted to go where no one else went. I wanted to be a space traveler. He encouraged me and taught me lots of cool things. I planned to be on the first crew that would colonize Mars, but my grandfather said there was no such thing as an uninhabited planet. I doubted it. But, he said he was absolutely sure of that.

When I went home, I wrote down everything he taught me and built my rocket out of a cardboard box until my grandparents took me out of my room so I could go play outside.

It was a hell. You can't even be an astronaut in peace.

My grandfather Young had gray hair since I understood myself by people. He had slightly large cheekbones and a well-developed belly that he'd cultivated with the help of fast food for the past few years. He was born in California, in a neighborhood near the sea, however he hated the ocean, what attracted him were the stars and, therefore, he became a pilot. He met a geologist who worked at the same base where they were married and had my father, Steven Young. After listening to him for a while about the terrors of Area 51, I started having nightmares about the end of the world, so my maternal grandparents forbade him to visit me. When my paternal grandfather passed away, he was alone. They found him sitting in his rocking chair nearly a week later and no one but a few friends attended his funeral. They wouldn't even let me visit his grave.

This decision of my maternal grandparents devastated me. My grandfather Young was my hero. He was a NASA pilot, knew Kung-fu, handled weapons of all kinds, and could speak five languages. He was everything I would ever be.

At least I thought so.

Finally, I decided to get ready to help my grandfather paint the front of the house and I confess that it took me longer than usual to close my bag.

"I still think I'm carrying too many clothes," I muttered as I walked down the stairs.

I walked across the dinning room to the kitchen and the food smelled wonderful. Then it dawned on me that my grandfather wasn't there. He had gone to paint the front of the house by himself. I hurried to eat.

“I have the best grandma in the world!”

“Come, son. Sit down.”

“I'm hungry!” I replied, smiling.

I sat with my back to the back door. My grandmother set the table and gave me a slight smile. The wrinkled and tired skin, added to the short white hair, showed how much she had aged. She was younger than my grandfather, but she looked older. I think her worrying too much about everything made her feel like that.

However, just as I was about to take the first bite, she demanded that I go brush my teeth. I couldn't argue. I went upstairs to the bathroom. I felt my heart speed up as I brought the brush to my mouth. An irrational fear of the camp. Something told me not to go, but how not to go? My last year had nothing interesting and this was my last chance this year. There I would be free of my grandparents talking about what I should do until next year.

It will be perfect! No, it will be terrible! And if I have nightmares there, I'll be tormented for the rest of my life for it!

I tried not to think about nightmares. I went downstairs to eat, but not before imitating Magic James, the best point guard who ever played for the Lakers, at a table I put up in my bedroom. I sat in the chair and my heart was still pounding. I was a little absorbed until my grandma snapped her fingers right in front of me.

“Is there a problem, my dear?” she asked, smiling.

“I was thinking about my nightmare.”

“Which one? Playing basketball against clowns?”

“No. The other one, which doesn't let me sleep lately. Is it a premonition?”

“May the heavenly Father have mercy on us.” she said as she clasped her hands together. “shut your mouth, my son.”

I hugged her for a few seconds and went to help my grandfather. I wouldn't see her for a few days until I got back from camp.

I told him not to start until I get here!

I grabbed the last piece of toast and stuffed it in my mouth as I ran to the front of the house. As I passed the living room, I almost stepped on my dog ​​John. He is thirteen years old. It's a champagne-colored poodle, and sometimes I thinks that he has head problems. I'm pretty sure old age is the cause of this. –

Yes, except I, everything is old in this house.

When I was about to step on it, he let out a loud yelp as if he were telling me to look at the ground when I walked in a hurry.

My grandfather had already painted nearly a quarter of the front wall when I got under the stairs he had climbed.

“Grandpa, who ordered you to start without me?” I yelled and almost knocked him over with fright.

“Calm down, son!” he said putting his hand below his left breast. “You have to learn to speak lower. I almost had a heart attack.”

“No more warning.” I gasped and sat down near the stairs.

Our house had the most common pattern that it is possible for any to have. Is the smallest in our neighborhood. We lived near to the city center. It had a small ladder that I was thinking about turning into a ramp due to my grandma not being able to go down and up the stairs all the time. But, if I could choose where to live, I wouldn't trade the coziness that this house has even for the greatest luxury in the world.

Living with my grandparents was not my choice. My parents died in an accident and since then I've come to live with the two of them. I don't even remember my parents' faces. However, my grandmother says I have my mother's face, her eyes, and my father's only messy hair. It was funny how she talked about it.

After a short pause, my grandfather, frowning, asked:

“What are you looking at? Go get a brush and a bucket of paint and we'll finish soon!”

When I went up another ladder and started painting, my grandfather smiled.

“What was it?” I asked curious.

"Nothing…" he said while still smiling. “I just remembered something like this. When your father came from the United States to meet your mother, I couldn't take him seriously. That same relaxed smile you give and messy hair made me look at him with disdain. So he was not a good match for my daughter. As the time passed, I saw him differently. When I painted this house 15 years ago, your father rolled up his sleeves, took an extra brush and helped me to the end. In the late afternoon, I don't want to imagine someone better for my daughter."

My grandfather had shown that he was shaken. He admired my father and I'm sure that feeling was reciprocal. I glanced over at my dad's old car, which they were both trying to get started again, but now, fifteen years after his death, it was stopped. My grandfather told me that there was no point in making it work without him.

Why did he have to die? I didn't even know him. It's unfair...

However, the only thing I knew was: They were dead, but they never told me how.

This is even more unfair. I need to know how they died.

"How was the accident in which they died?" I asked.

“Alex, you know that we don’t talk about this here,” he replied sadly.

“But why?! You never told me anything about it." I replied.

“Alex, I won't go through with this. What part of “we didn't talk about this here” didn't you understand?” My grandfather said in an ultimatum tone.

“You're always like that, you never tell me anything.” I appealed.

“Alexandre! That's enough. You can enter the house. You've already helped a lot and we've painted well over half of the entire front. It's about time you started getting ready for camp.” He said and I left to get my backpack.