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ince the Government decreed the black-out as one posture not very nice of energy economy, Marieta's night duties (a nurse in training) in "Santa Casa Misericordia", they became a case of mercy for the poor nurse. This, because she had a terrible weak point: the fear of darkness, or better, the fright of darkness. The darkness didn't make her normal aptitudes.

Nobody found strange, when Nurse Nilse entered in the Infirmary Station and being profiled before Marieta, she spoke in categorical tone:

After all, this was a sentence that lately she had already gotten used to hear, therefore of one times for here, a rotine in your night duties, there was a "package" to do. Resigned, she sighed and she went to take care of your macabre obligation.

She caught some sheets, a tray with gauzes, tweezers, cotton balls for the holes obstruct with tampones of the body, a crape strip to sustain the maxillary of the face of the cadaver and there she went pushing the stretcher with the material to prepare the body and to transport him to the Mortuary. In the road she went thinking: As it was difficult the apprenticeship in such poor hospital, where it lacked material, they lacked employees, they didn't only lack patient and... deceaseds. Imagine, that her alone (simple nurse in training), she was responsible for every masculine infirmary of that floor, always full with 40 patient.

Arriving at the room, Marieta looked at the man, that seemed to be calmly sleeping in the bed. Poor fellow! He was Francisco, an unhappy and solitary 48 year-old man and already with several current internments of your chronic alcoholism. There are days he had been isolated at that room, awaiting the last hour. In your handbook it was read: Ca - Hepatic. After all, the death for him had been a great relief.

Marieta, with a lot of effort and sacrifice (because he was thin, but very weighed), she placed him seated, supporting him with your body. But, even so she didn't get to sustain him and the body tumbled in the bed.

Hugging him, she tried once again to sit down him and .she achieved! However, on that exact moment, the light of the hospital turned off. The dreadful " black- out " happened.

Marieta frightened, she was paralyzed. The situation was pathetic, she hugged the cadaver with the arms (of him) pending on your shoulders, feeling the frozen contact of the death. That lasted about three endless seconds, that seemed hours. But, finally the light returned and Marieta, retaking the emotional balance, she activated the work, before it happened feared "other black-out", which in fact, it had become common in that hospital, sometimes extending for a longer time, because the old generator also enter in breakdown.

Then, of a lot of " gymnastics " with the deceased poor, she got to place him in the stretcher and to lead it to the elevator, sometimes stopping, because the stretcher was with defect, with an anormal fall for one on the sides, what put in risk the body of rolling to the ground. Finally, she entered in the elevator and it arrived to the earthy-floor, where it was the corridor, that took to the mortuary. When the door of the elevator opened up, Marieta forced the stretcher to leave and she left, but... DISASTER! With the jolt the body was projected to the ground ... accompanied for a new one... "BLACK - OUT "!

- " Not! Again not! ". Marieta screamed disoriented in the darkness corridor and soon he thought about asking help in the Entrance, that was some meters of there. Desperate, feeling the impotence sensation in the face of the fear, that inside of her it grew with the density of the mass of that darkness, she was leaned to the corridor's wall trying to calm down. And she remembered a strategy of childhood, that her still today used: to sing to win the fear. It is true, that this attitude, had sometimes already caused her upset and shame, as happened her last week when (as today), she transported a body to the mortuary and felt the " black-out ". Her, together with the deceased in the dark elevator, panicked and she began to sing, or better, to shout:

As soon as the light lit, the door of the elevator opened up and her front appeared the illustration all of white of Dr. Romualdo, that investigated of stared eyes: - Are you crazy? ! ! ! Marieta had been very embarrassed for the " flagrant ". It is, but now, there in that dark corridor, certainly there would not be anybody. She began to sing very high, walking slowly. Stealing artfully and fumbling in the darkness, if guiding for the corridor's wall, she followed singing heading for the entrance:

Something passed slapping her the face. She stopped, petrified, holding " that thing ". Marieta breathed alleviated, it was the samambaia plant (fern), that was in a great vase in the corridor and she continued going straight ahead singing:

Meanwhile, Mr. Francisco's body was there, extended in the corridor's ground.

It happens, that in that middle time to aid, the nurse assistant, Das Dores, that came on the way to the elevator carrying a curative tray, She had also gone it diffuses of surprise for the "black out " and fooling in the darkness, she tripped in the cadaver, that obstructed the way, falling for top of him with tray and everything that was entitled. Feeling the contact with that immense frozen volume and without understanding what it happened, she began to scream desperate:

Marieta, that at this time arrived with Augustinho (young man of the reception), she didn't believe in the one that road. It was really a picture of tragi-comedy. She saw the fat "Das Dores" with the opened eyes spread on Francisco's cadaver, amid the curative material, gauzes, ties adhesive plaster, solutions of Povidine, ether, physiologic serum etc, etc. Marieta and Augustinho, controlling the laughter, they helped her to lift and to recompose. Retaken the cleaning and the order, after the due explanations, the three already calmer they took care of to place the dead in the stretcher and to lead him finally to the mortuary.

Coming back to your position, Marieta found the Nurse-boss that investigated:

Finally, in three hours her duty would reach the end and there, with the help of God, would not there be more " black-out "and, with certainty, nor a "package" for her or... would there Be???

(Published in the Anthology " Shine and Shade " - Arnaldo Giraldo Editor - Săo Paulo - 2002 Pages 78 to 81 - First place in IX International Literary Contest of Autumn of Săo Paulo).

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"THE BLACK- OUT"