Short Stories

Saturday, May 9th, 2020 A reflection by Dina Adão It’s nine in the morning. Sitting in front of the computer, impeccably made up and dressed as if she were going out, my daughter stares at the screen. She pulls a terrible face and mutters some insults. Her books are scattered all over the floor and she stares at her watch, visibly exasperated. The router is not responding. We live in a place in the countryside where only one telecommunications and multimedia company can reach us by cable: Meo. The service, which was never particularly good, only covering half the house …

Wednesday, May 6th, 2020 by Leila Dregger I am now suffering doubly from the crisis: I am in bed with neuritis; I have a fever and I can hardly do anything. But I’m still keeping in touch with people I haven’t seen for a long time. One of them told me something surprising: last year, he went to visit the Kogi people in the north of Colombia. These people live in the mountains and are still quite isolated, continuing to follow their traditions and speaking of being “our big brothers”. The reason for this is that they think they have …

Sunday, May 3rd, 2020 by Alfredo Cunhal Sendim The Commons are also an economic alternative that produces relationships of mutual reciprocity (giving), generosity and solidarity inside (local or global) communities, affording privilege to the value of using rather than trading. It is a collective way of life – and this collective is formed from people, from their creations and from the other human beings who coinhabit the Earth (which is itself a living being). Or, in other words, the Commons are a social and ecological system, a large-scale cultural transformation, resulting from a process grounded in affections, feelings and a …

Saturday, the 2 May 2020 by Alfredo Cunhal Sendim Only three months ago, the Lisbon bus-stops were proudly proclaiming the “generation without limits”, as part of an advertising campaign for one of the networks operating on the now universal prosthesis that we hold to our ears. Now, let’s think about this all together, as Agostinho da Silva used to say, without any limits, living, as we do, on a finite planet that is already beginning to shake and tremble a little. And, with eight billion people like us, it’s normal that all of this isn’t going to run smoothly. The …

Friday, May 1st, 2020 The First World War ended with the Spanish Flu in 1918. That sentence, such as it stands here, has never been written in a history book for schools. Why not? The number of those who died in that epidemic is said to have been three times greater than the number of those who died in battle. The Spanish flu has nothing to do with Spain. Did you know that? Spanish flu was brought to Europe from the United States. The mother of all pandemics, as it is also called, began when a virus at a chicken …

Thursday, the 30th Abril 2020 An Essay  by Theobald Tiger … some decisions would be made very differently. I spent a long time wondering whether I should start my story this way, or whether I should tell you this story at all. Because I can also do things very differently. So, I’d better start again and keep it short. If I were not a journalist, but instead a responsible prime minister, I would have spent these last few days thinking intensely about whether I should even be distributing state financial aid to sick companies at this point. This is a …

Wednesday, the 29th Abril 2020 by Leila Dregger On hearing of the death of a fellow actor, Madonna called the virus the “great equaliser”. The opposite is, in fact, true: the coronavirus crisis is exacerbating inequalities. International observers estimate that, in the global South, more people will die from hunger and the government’s violent enforcement of its measures than from Covid-19 itself. But hopeful news is now reaching us from some quarters: people living in slums and poor neighbourhoods are helping one another. This is now the time of sustainability and community wisdom. There have always been rays of hope …

Tuesday, the 28th Abril 2020 Message in a bottle by Stefanie Kreutzer Today I celebrate a very special anniversary. Exactly 25 years ago, I came to Portugal. Here, I feel at home and very comfortable. My friends used to ask me why Portugal and not Spain, France or Italy? My answer was then, as now, very simple. Portugal is a colourful, peace-loving country. The long period of dictatorship is a thing of the past. Portugal has been a strong democracy for 45 years. Should the economy collapse, I’ll become self-sufficient, grow potatoes, tomatoes and much more in my garden. Food …

Monday, the 27th Abril 2020 What does the term “systemic relevance” really mean? Who can guarantee that the State’s provision of short-term, life-sustaining financial support to airlines will really keep planes in the air or that their financial collapse will not happen in the near future? Besides jet fuel, TAP, Lufthansa, Air France, KLM, Alitalia and many other airlines – if and when they fly – will burn large amounts of government credit from May 2020 onwards, which will not make any sense either for the climate or for the economy. Investing money in black holes always goes hand in …

Sunday, the 26th Abril 2020 you have 500 words with which to tell me your story. Good morning. I’ve just woken up and discovered I’m blind. It’s still early in the morning. I open my eyes and I want to look at my phone to see what time it is. Everything’s dark. Is the phone broken or is it me…? This isn’t a dream. It’s more like a nightmare. This is real, isn’t it? I’m taking that test. I’m imagining myself having gone blind in an instant. Nothing that seemed familiar to me only moments ago is the same as …