What can a brazilian 80's stickers album called "Impacto" (impact), an old arcade house by the sea, Zorro's "Z", Iron Maiden's Eddie, drawings of humanoid cow and chicken, a trip by balloon to the Moon, digging rupees in another world, taking a beating by Dhalsim and creating some gadget with paper clips and 2 or 3 other doodads to escape from death have in common?

P.S.: this is the first time I post something in parts, like I had planned to do since the beginning.

P.P.S.: finished in Feb 01, 2009.

Something old, a scrawl transformed from a long paragraph to a pseudo IRC transcript. Probably too "specific" for most tastes, though.

Something new, but it's a little hidden. Can you find all that red?

Not what it seems...

(One more short story, written sometime before last year's end.)

Here's the third short story, done at the end of 2007, just to practice simple dialogs.

Maybe this kind of exercise about conversations should become a small series.

I remember dialogues used to be my main concern (regarding writing, of course) a long time ago, when I was still a teenager.

I wanted to make them as natural as possible, which for me meant trying to mimic the way people interrupt one another all the time and also to include noise, like grunts and cries. Nowadays I'm not against more synthetic (artistic), functional approaches.

The Wikipedia entry about immortality mentions some symbols related to it, like the phoenix, the ouroboros, the "ankh" hieroglyph (☥) and "the Möbius strip in the shape of a trefoil knot".

This trefoil knot is a starting point for interesting matters in mathematics and history, even more here, combined with the Möbius band.

I had written that the previous story was my favorite among the few I've finished. After rereading and translating this one, I don't think so anymore.

This was written quickly, from start to finish. Without any planning, as far as I recall. The story came vivid to me as I was writing it.

...

What's the use of reading fiction? What are the limits of literature, which experiences, ideas, emotions, sensations can it transmit? Let's be practical: it's raining, I have this cup of tea and I'm free for the rest of the day, what can I do?