Short Stories

Saturday, 27 June 2020 Summer has begun in Portugal. Wolfgang, who has lived in his traditional house on the Costa Vicentina for 36 years, tells us that when he came here he had a plan. He came to live in Vila do Bispo in 1984, and his house was a ruin. He carefully renovated it, planted trees on the land and made a vegetable garden. That was a long time ago, but today he’s back where he started: the house is a ruin once again. Ashes and the smell of burning all around. Last Friday, his house burned down; only …

Saturday, June 20th, 2020 Do you still remember the first round-the-world flight of SOLARIMPULSE 2, the electric plane? In 2016, ECO123 wrote an exclusive report on this event. We interviewed the pilot after he had crossed the Atlantic, returned to Europe and landed in the Algarve. SOLARIMPULSE 2 covered 40,000 km and had permission to fly over densely-populated areas. The Swiss pilot duo, André Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard, are down in history as pioneers of electric aviation. They took advantage of solar energy, flying the entirety of the journey without fossil fuels and, therefore, without generating emissions. SOLARIMPULSE 2 flew …

Saturday, June 13th, 2020 Well, I used to wear a woollen hat. It was one of those times when I became interested in science fiction. I thought it was cool. Every Saturday, I watched Star Trek on TV and, at some point, I felt it was time for a change. Through the power of my thoughts, I just said goodbye to my daily routine and beamed myself away. Scotty was my great role model. Beaming was a totally cool thing. You just didn’t want to be part of things anymore when it was getting boring, or when it was getting …

Saturday, June 6th, 2020 by Uwe Heitkamp Consider the following facts. Due to climate change, it has been raining less and less in the south of Portugal for a number of years, with insufficient rainfall to supply its ten million annual travellers. The current annual rainfall is between 350 and 400 mm. During the last three winters, it has rained so little that the water reservoirs, the seven dams of Odeleite, Beliche, Arade, Silves, Odelouca, Bravura and Santa Clara, are on average only 22 percent full. The dams protrude from the earth and the reservoirs are almost empty. Last October, …

Wednesday, May 27th, 2020 by Uwe Heitkamp Drring. Drring. Drring. Click! This is Costa speaking. How can I help you? Good morning, Mr Costa. This is the press. We’re in trouble. The crisis has caused all of our advertising clients to disappear. What can we do? (…) I’ve read that, in these current times, the press are selling advertising to Costa. And you? Are you buying anything from them? It must be false. No, it’s true. No, no, no! I didn’t know the press could be bought in Portugal. It can’t be so, surely? Or can it? What’s going on? …

Saturday, May 23rd, 2020 by Uwe Heitkamp At a time when the most densely populated cities are slowly returning to public life as normal, here in the countryside we are reflecting on the essentials that we need to survive a crisis: good bread, our own honey, locally produced olive oil, carob flour, the nuts from which peanut butter is made, agricultural products, fresh foods like goat’s cheese and fleur de sel – all locally produced and much needed for a good breakfast, lunch or dinner. Before lunch, I harvest some rocket and endive leaves from the vegetable patch and wash …

Wednesday, 20th May 2020 by Leila Dregger Imagine – yes, I know this calls for a lot of fantasy as it’s highly unlikely to ever happen – but, despite everything, just imagine that a pandemic might put an end to all global trade forever. There would no longer be any cheap mass-produced goods coming from China and the container ships from Asia would no longer dock in our ports. It wouldn’t be just the whales who started to live with less stress. It would be ruinous for banks, and lots of multinationals would start collapsing like dominoes. The shelves in …

Saturday, May 16th, 2020 Today I received a letter from a reader in Tavira. It included the following sentence: Get off Facebook and go into the garden. Thank you! That’s what I’ve been doing since 17 March: I’ve been working in the garden, planting potatoes, lettuce, tomatoes, courgettes, onions and aromatic herbs. I live off the food from my vegetable patch. Being able to accept this offer from nature is a beautiful experience. I have to confess, that I belong to those two thirds of the population, a silent majority, who don’t have a Facebook account. As a journalist, it …

Wednesday, May 13th, 2020 by Siddharth Sareen Ruptures intensify contestation and collective efforts advance solidarity. The COVID-19 pandemic and our societal responses matter in ways whose full consequences are currently unforeseeable. Amidst the tragedy, there are countless heroic acts of human care. Many of these are performed away from public view, in contrast to strategic efforts to drain the public purse. Portugal, both as a state and as a society, has shown admirable resolve and fortitude, responding calmly in a spirit characterised by togetherness. I watch all of this unfold from afar, working from home in Bergen, Norway, where our …