Murilo Mendes

Yeti

Once again, the singular being has laughter in his unfathomable eyes: he's just seen a man from the other side of the earth come with an expedition to find him; said expedition has succeeded in capturing only his tracks.

o

Snow his floor, his ceiling and vehicle. Silence, his craft of being, his magic way of attaining "his" perfection, this creator of words and images only he interprets; snow's particular silence, fluid somnolent hum translated into communication.

o

The demons, that is, the men from the other side, wanting to destroy him, don't need lasso, sword or bomb: all they have to do is interview him, film him, put him on TV. If they can do that, they will have killed him. But, guided by an ageless instinct helping him sniff out any adverse force, Yeti, who has already escaped sun, wind and caribou, volatizes while radios unleashed over all the world discuss the existence or nonexistence of an "abominable" snowman, the last descendent of an extinct race, who trembles in fear before chaos, intimacy, paper, machines and nuclear physics.

[Trans. Chris Daniels]

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