by Augusto Cury
One day, a man of about sixty with a serious and tormented expression recognized the dreamseller on the street. He called to the dreamseller and hurried to catch up to us.
“Master,” he said. “For thirty years I worked for the same company. I truly started to come into my own as a manager and distinguished myself among my peers. But my boss didn’t like it and started finding all sorts of ways of making my life hell for years until he finally fired me. I gave that company my all, but I was tossed aside like trash. I became depressed. I felt betrayed and didn’t have the courage to start all over again with a new company. Besides, they prefer young employees who’ll take less pay. I hate my old boss with all my heart. What can I do?”
The man’s lips trembled. He appeared to be looking for some kind of relief amid the agony. The dreamseller looked first at us, then at him, and stated:
“Envy and revenge are phenomena exclusive to the human race. No other species has them. He envied you because you had something he didn’t. But there’s a way to exact revenge on him.”
I was confused. “What kind of man am I following?” I thought. “Isn’t he the master of forgiveness?”
Bartholomew liked the dreamseller’s attitude. Echoing his words, he said, “That’s right. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Give the guy a good punch in the mouth.”
Dimas puffed out his chest. “If you need somebody to get your back, you found him,” he said and began making karate gestures.
Honeymouth was emboldened. He began to shout and make disjointed karate chops like he was some kind of sensei. The two started play-fighting and Dimas, without meaning to, popped Honeymouth upside the head and dropped him like a bad habit. He went out cold and was slow to get up. When we rushed to his side, he rubbed his head and told Dimas, “Are you mad at me?”
Bartholomew realized this eye-for-an-eye was a dangerous business. The fired manager, watching this, didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“How should I get even?” he asked the dreamseller.
“By killing him,” the dreamseller replied flatly.
My legs buckled. I never thought I’d hear those words come out of the dreamseller’s mouth. My heart was pounding and I even thought about leaving the group that very moment. Then, dripping hatred, the man bared his true intent.
“You’re right. That’s what I’m going to do. That son of bitch doesn’t deserve to live.” But before the man could leave, the dreamseller searched for the root of his hate.
“The greatest revenge you can take against any enemy is to forgive him. Kill him inside yourself.”
“How do I do that?” the man asked, surprised.
“The weak kill their enemies’ body; the strong kill how they regard their enemies. Those who kill the body are murderers. Those who kill what they represent are wise.”
The man started to feel light-headed. We had to grab him and lean him against the closest wall. The dreamseller went up to him again, looked him straight in the eyes and said:
“Take your revenge by reclaiming your peace of mind and by shining even more in your next job. Otherwise, he will haunt you for the rest of your life.”
The man stood paralyzed for several seconds. Then he regained his composure and realized that he couldn’t behave like a victim, like a poor fool who only fuels his anger. He should take action, but a different kind. He gave the dreamseller a long embrace, the way a son hugs his father. And when he left, he was clearly headed down a different path.
That’s when I noticed the revolver bulging under his shirt. I was flabbergasted. The man really was ready to commit murder. Only then did I understand the dreamseller’s shocking attitude. No gentle words would have dissuaded this man, just like when I tried to commit suicide. The dreamseller hadn’t wiped out his desire for vengeance; he had just redirected it.
“What kind of therapy is this?” I wondered.
Days later, the Consumer Electronics Show, the greatest consumer electronics fair in the world, was taking place in the wealthiest part of the city. More than 2,500 companies were participating and some 140,000 visitors from more than 130 countries were expected. Even in a down economy, end-users and retailers eagerly flocked to the event, which proved the industry had experienced uninterrupted growth.
The dreamseller turned his attention toward the big event; he wanted to stand in the temple of electronics. We couldn’t understand why he was so interested in the event since it looked like he had never even used a computer. But he simply said, “Let’s go to the fair.”
Skittish, we followed him. The event was way too upscale for people like us. After all, we were unkempt in torn shirts and frayed and patched jeans. We weren’t part of any corporation, and of course, didn’t have an invitation. We looked as if we had teleported from some rural area of the 1900s into the peak of the twenty-first century.
Bartholomew, trying to put us at ease, repeated his famous phrase: “Guys! Let’s pretend we’re ‘normals.’” Immediately, our posture improved, we tried to smooth our hair and walked upright and confident.
As we approached the doors, Dimas put his arm around Solomon’s shoulder and tried to keep his nervous tics under wraps. Pulling away from him, Solomon joked, “Watch it, Nimble Fingers. I’m all man, here!”
“Hey, it’s Angel Hand or Saint’s Hand, to you,” Dimas said.
“More like Devil’s Hand,” Bartholomew joked.
Dimas didn’t like the joke and his eyes grew wide and angry.
“In the old days, Dimas. In the old days—many hours ago,” he joked again, and ran away, afraid of retaliation.
Our group was impossible; I swear we were like children, sometimes. But our sense of humor faded as soon as we set foot in the fair. Seeing the apprehension on our faces, the dreamseller told us:
“Does rejection still frighten you? Do these tense settings still threaten you? Haven’t you learned that someone can injure your body but not your mind, unless you let him?”
His words just fueled our anxiety. The entrance hall alone intimated us: a beautiful patio with a multicolored water fountain. Dozens of vases with roses, hibiscuses, daisies and tulips decorated the place.
Endless panels of illuminated ads for the major corporations glowed at the entrance. A red carpet led visitors inside. But to get in, besides showing an invitation and ID, guests had to submit to a full-body scan and a metal detector. It’s a dangerous world and a man’s word apparently was worth little.
In that moment, I realized that I, the intellectual of the group, was the most insecure of all. I drifted behind the others. The dreamseller didn’t actually want to go into the fair, he wanted to stand in the entrance hall and watch people. But Bartholomew, demonstrating uncommon boldness, tried to get in. But two security officers quickly intercepted him. One of them asked him to spread his arms and ran a security wand over every part of his body. When the guard began to touch his private parts, Bartholomew jumped: “Easy, there, buddy!”
We went to his aid. The dreamseller tried to calm him and asked the rest of us to hang back. When several other security officers approached, they took one look at our band of misfits and asked to see invitations. Since we had none, they started scanning us with their machines and frisking us as they’d done to Bartholomew. The guards got angry when Solomon said he was ticklish and wouldn’t let himself be searched. They tried to throw us out of a public area.
Then, one of the guards recognized Angel Hand from his past life. He gave him a hard shove and said, “Get outta here, you crook.”
As he fell, he stole the guard’s wallet in a moment of weakness. But he regretted it before he even hit the floor and returned the wallet. The dreamseller was pleased, but it only made the guards more suspicious.
Edson was fuming. I felt if he actually had supernatural powers, he would have rained down fire on those guards. But the dreamseller displayed a disquieting calm, like he had fully expected that situation.
While pushing us toward the door, the guards be
gan mocking us.
“Maybe these guys are the clowns the fair hired as entertainment,” one of the guards said as they followed us to the door. And they all laughed. In fact, we did look like something out of a comedy—or a horror film. Another guard shoved the dreamseller, who almost fell.
“Why do you attack me when I didn’t attack you? What have I done to incur your wrath?” the dreamseller said, regaining his balance.
One of them said what the other guards were thinking. “Get lost, you lousy bunch of con artists.”
Suddenly, I said something I never imagined I’d ever say: “How I’d love to be a millionaire so I could give those guys a swift kick in the ass.”
I spoke before I realized what I’d said. For the first time, I had expressed a love of money. The power of money had subtly seduced me, but I had never admitted it, not even to myself. I loved luxurious cars, cruises and summer homes. It was a secret love. I criticized the petty bourgeoisie who traveled first class in planes, but deep down I envied them. I detested flying coach class, where we were packed in like sardines.
Since we couldn’t go inside the fair, we stayed outside in the reception hall. Undaunted, the dreamseller told us, “Let’s approach people as they enter and leave the event. After all, our stage is the world.”
“Approach people? But I thought we were here to see computers,” I said to myself. Angel Hand wondered aloud whether any kind of dream could be sold in a place like this.
But then I noticed something odd. What looked like a businessman, dressed impeccably in a suit and tie, examined us from head to toe as he walked by and into the event. His badge read Megasoft Group, one of the world’s largest computer companies. I looked out of the corner of my eye and saw him stop to talk to other men in suits, who we later learned were undercover antiterrorism agents. He pointed at us as he spoke.
The agents quickly approached, and one of them again asked the dreamseller to identity himself. They ignored the rest of us. When he couldn’t produce any kind of identification, they acted fast: One of them punched him unexpectedly in the face, dropping him to the floor with an awful thud. They pounced on him, shouting “terrorist!” and quickly overpowered him. It all happened so fast that for a few seconds we stood paralyzed. When we tried to protect the dreamseller, we were also attacked.
Honeymouth again feigned his karate pose but was knocked out by a single blow. I’d never seen such violence. In the confusion, one of the agents drew his gun, ready to shoot the dreamseller. He might have been shot dead on the spot if not for two local police officers who had been driving by in their patrol car and ran toward the commotion. Staring at the supposed criminal, one of the police officers drew his gun and shouted at the agents.
“Drop your weapons! I’m the police chief of this district,” he said. The agents lowered their guns. “I know this man. He’s no terrorist.”
“Yeah? Well, where’s his ID? Who is he?” the head agent asked.
The cop searched for a plausible answer. “He’s, uh . . . a salesman. A traveling salesman. And if you don’t leave him alone, I’m going to arrest you for using excessive force,” the chief threatened.
The police chief was the same one from the top of the San Pablo Building. Since that day, he had not been able to get the dreamseller out of his mind. He had spent several sleepless nights after the dreamseller’s comments about his relationship with his son, and had since followed the dreamseller’s “ministry” in the papers.
I was overjoyed and felt my faith in the police restored.
Though he was bleeding, the dreamseller tried to play down the situation and told the chief, “These are good men. There was just a misunderstanding.”
It was only then that Bartholomew started to regain consciousness and asked, “Where am I?”
Remembering he’d been knocked out but realizing the situation was under control, he jumped back up in a karate pose:
“Oh, now these guys are in trouble! I’m a black belt in judo, karate, kung fu and lots of other stuff. Hold me back or things are gonna get ugly.”
Instead of holding him back, we let him go. Honeymouth leaped up in a bound and seeing that the agents were eyeing him again, told them, “Yeah, well, I’m calm now . . .”
The agents moved on, and so did the police officer, but not before the chief thanked the dreamseller for the few words on that rooftop.
“My son would like to meet you,” the chief said.
“Someday. Tell him to have many dreams and to fight for them,” the dreamseller answered.
The dreamseller’s right eye was swollen, and blood was dripping from the left side of his lip, but he didn’t complain. We knew that following him meant running the risk of mockery and scorn, but now we realized we were also risking our lives.
I was shocked to see how quickly people could snap from tranquillity to brutality. What shook me most was that the specter of aggression was also inside me. I knew about my pridefulness, but not about the latent violence.
I was beginning to believe in the concept of harmony and solidarity, but I felt like attacking anyone who hurt the gentle dreamseller. I never imagined that love and aggression could live so close to each other. I never thought that peace and war could inhabit the same person. Mild-mannered people, as it turned out, also harbor monsters in the recesses of their minds.
Living Longer in a Shorter Time
THINGS HAD BEEN TOO INTENSE AT THE ELECTRONICS FAIR. We thought the dreamseller should see a doctor right away and then rest. We lifted him up under his arms and started to carry him outside. But instead he climbed onto a low wall surrounding a multicolored fountain and courageously started inviting people to hear about the latest innovations at the fair.
We couldn’t believe our eyes. Some began to approach us because they recognized the rabble-rouser described in the newspapers. Controversial as ever, he continued provoking the participants and exhibitors of the Consumer Electronics Show.
“The most vulnerable child has a more complex mind than all the computers in the world strung together. But where is more money and research invested, in helping children or in building machines?”
Paying attention only to the first part of the question, a scientist addressed the dreamseller:
“You don’t know anything about artificial intelligence. In a few years we’ll have machines superior to the human brain. They’ll have the programming of the human mind, but with superior memory. It’ll be the greatest invention. Just wait and see!”
The dreamseller accepted the challenge:
“Well, I disagree. Computers will forever be condemned to the sleep of unawareness. They will never know conflicts. Never be disturbed by the search for their origins and their purpose. Never produce philosophy or religion. They will always be slaves to their programming.”
I thought: “Where did the dreamseller learn that information? How does he manage to confidently discuss controversial matters?” On the other side, the computer engineers and programmers listening to him seemed at a loss.
“Can it be that computers will never know they exist?” the scientists asked.
“Our conflicts speak to our complexity. If we’re not capable of being happy because we have computers, at least we should admire them as the fruits of our ingenuity,” the dreamseller said.
I looked at some of the members of our group and realized that they understood nothing. Bartholomew, in particular, was lost. But I bit my tongue, and later he surprised me by reading my mind and whispering, “Hey, Superego, I’ve always been a deeply complex person, but I just can’t stand hearing all your back talk.”
Bartholomew was always giving me a hard time when he knew I couldn’t answer back. I wanted to crush him with my intellect, but I needed to work on something I’d never had: patience. I, who was never religious, asked, “God, grant me the patience to not lose my temper with this deeply complicated character.”
Meanwhile, the dreamseller, after criticizing blind faith in machines, turned
his guns on the Internet.
“The system produced the Internet and cell phones, sparking a revolution in communications the likes of which history had never seen. People lost their inhibitions to technology, and felt more comfortable dealing with machines than with other people. Not to engage others is a tolerable act, but to not engage oneself is indefensible.”
Now I understood why the dreamseller often isolated himself. When I first saw him talking to himself, I found it extremely odd. To me, such behavior had always been a sign of madness. But he turned the concept upside down, considering it a clear sign of sanity.
More and more people gathered, forcing him to speak louder. They had come to the magnificent fair to see the newest innovations in computers and instead discovered the latest news about their own mental “computers.” The dreamseller made an argument bolstered by numbers unknown to me to shine a light into the audience’s mind:
“Millions of people have never had an encounter with their own being. Their tombs will hold foreigners who never found their true home,” he said.
The people meditated on these words as if they were a prayer. At that moment, Honeymouth raised his hand. He should have kept his mouth shut to not spoil the mood. But he was even more addicted to the sound of his own voice than he was to alcohol. He said, “Chief, I think we’re in worse shape than everyone else here.”
“Why, Bartholomew?” he asked patiently.
“Because we don’t even have an address. We live under a bridge.”
The crowd roared with laughter and Bartholomew realized what a blunder he’d made. But the dreamseller just smiled at his disciple’s spontaneity. Honeymouth was a hyperactive, mischievous child. And to the dreamseller, freedom grew in that spontaneous terrain. Most people killed their spontaneity in school, church, at work, even here, at this electronics fair; they’re robots admiring other machines. They don’t say what they think. At that moment, I looked within myself and realized that I was no exception. In the name of discretion, I was formal, deliberate, guarded. I didn’t know myself or let others know me. I was an expert in pretending everything was fine. It wasn’t easy to admit that Honeymouth had an advantage over me.