My childhood, boy? I am not sure I have been a child, boy. Have I? Who told you I have? You boy are too smart, you see a boy in me, hein? I must have been, let me think, boy. My childhood...
Is that the time when I've learned how to walk, boy? Let me tell you what they told me, boy.
I did not learn how to walk, I walked, but they tell me I learned how to swim first, or I was born swimming.
I had no teacher, boy, I did not learn, I knew how to swim, the other fishermen told me. They also told me my mother was a mermaid. This beautiful mermaid was under a spell, and she could not nurture me in land, so I always swam to find her and ask her for food, but I disliked breast milk, the fishermen told me, they told me I only kissed the fishes and licked their salt and the mermaid would cry sad tears of salt to be able to feed me and not lose me to the fish. She was very slippery and she could not hold me, the spell was a strong one and did not allow her to touch me for long.
Is that a childhood, boy? They tell me it was, but I am not sure I was a child, all I remember is the ocean, and the lighthouse, and the taste of salt in my lips.
Those old fishermen, they were silly, they told me stories, you know? Maybe those are true, boy.
I still dream of a mermaid and I feel her sleeping next to me, she is not ocean wet, and she is not salty. She is warm and smells like milk and strawberries. I've never eaten strawberries, boy.
O velho pescador monologa em resposta ao rapaz. Até à próxima, Senhor Hemingway. Gostámos de estudar consigo.
