Paulo Gallian

The Woman Who Sold Stillness [chapter 6]

She arrived at the address, after running for about twenty blocks. Gulliver was still desperately screaming and scratching, trying to make his way out of the small bag.

The place was an abandoned house where drug dealers received and distributed their products.

Lilly reached for the door knob but, before she turned it, she felt a pressure on her back. A woman whispered in her ear, telling her to stay quiet, or else the gun pressed against her would be discharged. The woman then opened the door, and they entered the house.

The moonlight, coming through the broken windows, was the only thing guiding her eyes at that moment. Lilly could see there were three men holding guns in different corners of the room, and one man in the middle, standing next to a chair.

Gulliver suddenly stopped moving, so she quickly asked them where was the key to the bag’s locks.

The man in the middle of the room told her to come closer and take a look at the person seated on the chair beside him. The woman behind her took the bag from her hand and threatened to shoot it, should she try and harm anyone.

Lilly walked three steps forward and got a glimpse of the man’s smirk. Two more steps and she felt something, an energy pulsing within, connecting her to the person on the chair. She knew this feeling.

When she finally got close enough, she recognized who it was. Hours before, she had trapped this man in her stillness. He was paralyzed and alive, probably in a lot of pain and listening to everything they were saying. Although he couldn’t move, he was aware of who she was.

She looked at the man standing beside the chair, and told him she didn’t know who that person was, then asked him for the key to the bag’s locks, once more.

He gave a sign with his hand to the woman at the door. She dropped the bag then took a shot at the floor. The cat screamed and tried to jump, but couldn’t quite move. The woman put her left foot on top of the bag and charged her gun. The man told Lilly to “fix” the person on the chair, or else her cat would get the next bullet.

She could’ve tried to make them all stay still, but Gulliver would not survive much longer, and if she had a chance to save him, she would take it. Her only concern was the reaction of the man on the chair, once he was able to speak and move.

the man and the fly, the dog and the duck

The itching was being caused by a fly inside his ear.

He ran, jumped and screamed, but the fly remained there, buzzing.

He dove into a lake, hoping it would die. It did not.

A dog and a duck pointed and laughed at the crazy man.

The fly stopped buzzing for a moment, so he tried not to move.

He could feel it leaving his ear. It was almost there, just a few more tiny steps.

But the fly was not ready yet, it was determined to drive him insane.

It went back inside and started buzzing again, as loud as it could.

The duck felt bad for the man and decided to help him.

The dog, however, couldn’t care less.

The duck started pecking at his ear.

The man twisted on the ground like a worm, as the fly buzzed and the duck pecked.

Finally, it all stopped. Everything was quiet again. The man stood up and walked to his house.

The dog asked the duck if the fly was dead.

The duck did not say a word.

The dog repeated the question.

The duck started shivering, its legs were trembling.

A few seconds later, it laid an egg.

The dog presumed that the fly was inside the egg.

The question remained unanswered.

The duck started humming.

The dog moved two steps away from the duck and said:

“Freak.”

The Woman Who Sold Stillness [chapter 5]

Lilly had turned 20, but there was nothing to be happy about. She received an eviction notice one day after her birthday, for not paying the last two months of rent.

She was fired from her last job, after a discussion with her former boss that ended with these exact words: “I don’t give a fuck about your business”.

She was tired of everything: Jobs, people, herself. There was not enough money for daily expenses so she ate poorly, and sometimes she fed her cat, Gulliver, instead of herself. He seemed to be the only being on Earth that she cared about.

One night, walking on the streets nearby her building, she was approached by a man in a black car. He had the wheel in one hand, and a gun in the other. He told her to give him money or else he would shoot her.

She turned, slowly, and didn’t say a word. Lilly just stared at him for a while, and suddenly, he was quiet. Then she walked close to him, and whispered in his ear: “If it was up to me, you would stay still forever… but in this neighbourhood, I’m pretty sure you won’t survive the night… see you in the morning, perhaps…”.

Continuing her walk, as if nothing had happened, she got to her apartment, closed the door and lay down on her dirty mattress on the floor. She noticed Gulliver wasn’t home and thought maybe he had found food in someone else’s home.

It was almost two o’clock and the night was cold. Lilly stared for a couple of minutes at the mildewed ceiling, thinking about fungus and the fact that they were everywhere in her apartment. She didn’t mind them. In fact, she related to the destructive nature of that organism. She just didn’t know which one was greater: her will to destroy or her will to die.

She closed her eyes and hoped not to have sweet dreams, as they were a reminder of how far from sweet her real life was.

The sound of a cat crying loudly woke her up before dawn. She opened the door and there was a closed bag with a note on top of it, and she could hear Gulliver screaming from inside. For the first time since her mother died, Lilly was truly frightened. The bag had two locks and she immediately tried to break them with everything she had on her apartment, with no success.

She read the note in tears, while listening to the increasing sound of Gulliver fighting for his life. Then she picked up the bag and hurried to the address written on the piece of paper. Lilly was about to find out she wasn’t the only one feeding on destruction.

Daniel Lince updates

A couple of months ago, I posted a few words about the “Daniel Lince” project, which is a project I’ve been planning for almost 2 years, and now it’s finally happening!

Fabio Has worked on this project as a digital designer, creating a web interface to present the contents - text, image, music - in perfect harmony.

Kaori Nagata is the talented illustrator who is working with me since the beginning of this project, creating the beautiful art for the chapters of this tale.

Besides writing the story, I’m also composing original music for “Daniel Lince” so don’t forget to put on your headphones when visiting the website: http://daniellince.com

Read the official release page with synopsis and some other useful information. If you speak portuguese, check out this version of the same document.

To those of you who support “Daniel Lince” by tweeting and blogging about it, I say thank you very much!

I leave you now with the poster art by Kaori Nagata. Cheers!

The Woman Who Sold Stillness [chapter 4]

Very differently from her mother, Lilly’s father encouraged her to deal with the fact that she wasn’t like everyone else. He couldn’t believe her mother never told him anything, even though they were very distant from each other, but he felt it was wrong to go on pretending there was nothing to be concerned about.

Lilly took her father’s advice and tried not to feel scared of the things she could do. She didn’t want to go back to school, so her father suggested she get a job at some place where she would have to communicate with different people everyday.

She worked at a convenience store for 2 months and quit, without ever telling her boss the real reason. Then she tried working as a waitress and got fired after 3 months, for being too immature when dealing with client’s complaints.

One day she went to her father’s studio, where he worked as a photographer, and she saw him taking pictures of woman for a fashion magazine. She couldn’t help but notice how hard it was for him to manage a shooting session all by himself so, at the end of the day, she asked him if she could work there as his assistant.

He thought about it for a couple of days and eventually said yes, but made it very clear that he was going to pay her as a regular employee and he expected a high level of professionalism and dedication on her part.

Lilly didn’t know exactly what she was getting into, and it was not easy for her to handle the pressure of working with her father. He was intentionally testing her strength, day after day, being strict and demanding, not holding back with criticism and not favoring her in any way.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t ready for that kind of treatment, and he failed to notice that his behaviour at work was affecting the good relationship he had with his daughter at home. And when she told him she wanted to quit, after 8 months of hard work, he didn’t take it well. He got mad at her and said she would never be able to live by herself unless she stopped being selfish and spoiled. They were having breakfast at the moment, and she threw her coffee mug on the floor, which scared both her father and Gulliver, her cat.

She looked at her father with wet eyes and began to understand why her mother hid so many things from her about their relationship. Very calmly, her father stood up and told her to clean up the mess on the floor. He said he was already late for work and, since she wasn’t going to assist him anymore, he would not leave the studio early that day.

He left, and Lilly started crying. She was angry and frustrated with the situation, and all she could think about is how badly she wanted her mother to be there and comfort her.

After hours of thinking, she made up her mind and started writing a letter to her father, telling that she wanted to scream at him, and explaining why she just threw that coffee mug on the floor instead. She was afraid that if she focused all her anger on him, he could be trapped in her stillness, and as much as she hated him on that moment, she decided to control herself.

Her father came home from work and saw the letter on the table. He noticed that the shattered coffee mug was still on the floor, and nothing had been cleaned up. He shouted Lilly’s name a couple of times, but she didn’t answer. He looked for Gulliver, but didn’t find him anywhere. After reading her daughter’s letter, he realized Lilly was not coming back anymore.