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Writer's pictureMiguel Fernández

And afterwards?

Whenever he passes the intersection of Rua Gomes Freire and Rua da Relação, he remembers this true episode that occurred around 1977, forgotten in the city's chronicles, which impressed him to the point of telling and retelling the story and philosophizing about it.


This intersection is in the center of Rio, on the edge of what is conventionally called Lapa. The two streets intersect at right angles. On one corner is the headquarters of the state civil police, with the neighborhood police station, on the other a modest and friendly 2-star hotel, now called Carioca.


Until recently, the name of this hotel was “Marialva”. A not very old building (from 1955 to 1965?), about 10 floors, with the entrance on the corner, that is, perpendicular to the bisector of the two streets, where the architect made sure that the building had a straight and steep section, making an angle of 45°, both in the building and on the sidewalk, forming a good setback in relation to the corner of the corner so that cars could stop to pick up or drop off passengers without disturbing traffic too much.


To improve the comfort of “arriving” and “departing” passengers, they installed a canvas awning in front of the entrance, which went about 3 meters beyond the curb, covering the car and protecting people from the rain and sun.


All this because, at that time, a citizen, about 50 years old, stayed there, on the 8th or 9th floor, apparently tired of living, bored with life, today we would say, depressed.


He took an entire bottle of pills with the intention of ending his life, lay down and waited to die, discreetly. A good person! So much so that he chose to commit suicide without fanfare, without hanging himself from the living room chandelier in front of his parents, or throwing himself out the window in front of his partner, or shooting himself in the head in front of his children.


At some point, he realized that it was taking too long to pass out. A rational man, he worried that the dose would not be enough to kill, since it took so long just to “pass out.”


So, he decided to hasten his death: he punched the mirror that was looking at him and, with a shard of glass, cut both his wrists. It was a rash decision. He had never liked the sight of blood, and had even stopped studying medicine for that reason. He was frightened by the blood and, to hasten his death, he threw himself out of the window of his apartment, on the corner of the Marialva Hotel.


He fell onto the awning, which cushioned his fall and threw him onto the hood of a parked car. No one understood what had happened, but at the door of the Civil Police and the neighborhood police station, the help was competent and immediate, and he was taken to the Souza Aguiar hospital, a nearby reference for emergencies of this type.


They washed his intestines, closed the cuts on his wrists and treated two small fractures, one in a rib and the other in his right arm. It was the subject of the newspapers for 48 hours. Was it luck or bad luck? After all, he wanted to die. It was demonstrated in practice that nothing he wanted to do worked.


Every time he passes by there, he wonders: what happened next? What happened to the guy? Did he give up? Did he persevere?




Miguel Fernández y Fernández

Engineer and columnist, Written on 22 Nov 2023   (3,028 hits)



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