^{WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE?¹}

He’s 65 or 66 years old, depending on how the counting is done. When he was young he was a parachutist during Portuguese fascism and colonial war. From those times, there are two photographs in a wall that captured him with the typical camouflage uniform and a weapon on his hands. It’s the past insisting on being present.

He’s an electrician by profession, and is retired for almost two years. Once in a while, he still makes some occasional jobs. Survives with a modest pension, isolated in a small mountain in Alentejo, Portugal – a land with good sights – he inherited in court. Doesn’t have a landline, nor the signal from the mobile phone network reaches there, except in a very singular location, a cement column that sustains a porch. He lives surrounded by silence and mostly by himself, but also by horses, chickens, dogs, cats and pigeons. And flies. It wasn’t always like that. He used to be a foreigner in Germany, as many other Portuguese on his age. Since he receives that tiny pension from the Government, he started letting himself go into a lethargy and isolation, both result of a depression that has been affecting him for two decades – as some that know him well say. Among other tragedies, he had an elder brother that, still in his teen days, died drowned in a dam. He had an ex-wife – the great love of his life – that committed suicide. And he had a son that died in a car crash. He always dresses tragically in black and, when he wears a hat, he looks a bit like a lonesome cowboy from the American cinema imaginary, western style.

Today, the 31st of August, it’s his birthday eve, although his mother has told him that in reality he was born on the 28th of May. The Birth Register office was far from home, and the roads where, at that time, slow and unpaved. In those times, and around these areas that are still faraway, the road was literally made by walking². The same happened with his other six brothers. Today, a celebration was made, two roosters were killed from the hennery for lunch. And it was noticed that Armando, normally reserved, was happy to have the family and some friends around. Oficially, tomorrow he’ll be 66, but he has made them already.

José De Almeida
August 31, 2013 / Corte Brique, Portugal

¹ Title of a Pete Seeger song released in 1961. The first three stanzas were written by Pete Seeger in 1955. Additional stanzas were added by Joe Hickerson in 1960.

² «Wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking», from Proverbs and Songs 29, in Campos de Castilla (1912), Antonio Machado (1875–1939).