The hole on my mole is worth a dole

Antes de finalmente calar os dedos e fechar os olhos:

Deixo aqui uma versão para o inglês de uma fabulinha miúda de minha autoria, cortesia da moça chamada Ana Ban. Gostei, a palavra "swollen" me fascina.

HOLE

Just another half-hour, thought José Leonel when the alarm clock screamed at wake-up time. Just another half-hour, please. He opened his eyes when his wife mumbled Get up, it’s time. Slowly, yawning, he sat himself upright. He scratched his back, thrust his feet in his slippers and stumbled towards the bathroom. He splashed a little water on his face and started to brush his teeth carefully, remembering his last visit to the dentist. Eight cavities, one abscess and swollen gums. When he proceeded to raise his head and examine himself on the mirror, he realized he had a hole right in the middle of his forehead.

It was a perfectly round hole, shaped like a ten-cent coin. There was no blood or bruising. The hole was simply there, undisturbed, as if it had always been part of his head. It looked bottomless. He resisted the urge to thrust his finger in there, and stood still for a few seconds, staring at his reflection. He blinked once, and again, and again, and again, but the hole would not vanish. He rushed back to the bedroom and shook his wife awake – she looked busy, chewing on bits of dreams. She woke up quickly, quite startled, and rubbed her eyes with her hands. Take a look at this, he repeated, pointing at the hole, Take a look at this.
Without uttering a single word, she felt the edges of the hole with her fingers, squeezing his eyebrows. When she was done with that, she let her head drop, and sighed. José Leonel was sitting on the bed beside her, mumbling Where did it come from, my god. She would not risk a guess. They sat there in silence for quite a while; he leaned against her at the edge of the bed, before she asked What did you say? and he replied Nothing, woman. But I did hear something, she insisted, and brought her ear close to the hole.

José, there’s someone speaking in there. Before his wife had the opportunity to press her ear against the hole to better understand the words that came out from there, José Leonel stood up and made into the living room. He grabbed the cordless phone and, hastily, dialed his brother’s phone number. He was a doctor, an expert; he would most likely have an answer for that. José Leonel could hardly hear the Hello coming from the other side of the line, as the voice from the hole had started to chatter really loudly. Before hanging up, his brother did ask a few times Leonel, is that you? Leonel? Leonel? then he hung up and left Leonel and the voice talking alone together. With his hands on his head, Leonel let his body drop on the couch and tried to figure out a solution. His wife knelt down next to him and asked What? even when he had said nothing. The voice, louder and louder, continued to come out from the hole; it echoed inside his skull and prevented him from making sense of his train of thought.

When the voice paused its monologue for a few seconds, José Leonel stood up and rushed to the kitchen. His wife followed him. Together, they fumbled through a drawer; she did not even know what they were looking for. But, José, a cork? his wife halted. As he was afraid he would lose his own train of thought, he ground his teeth and mumbled Stick it in there at once, I can’t stand it any more. And this is exactly what happened: she gently fitted the cork into the hole, until there was nothing left of it but a corked line. The noise was instantly over and, once again, José Leonel was able to think without interrupting himself. He took a shower, put on his Tuesday clothes and had his breakfast. He put his arm around his wife’s shoulders and she saw him to the car and he drove to work, where everyone greeted him as if they were not aware of the cork circle right between his eyebrows.

The following Tuesday, José Leonel woke up with a hole on the left side of his chest. It was a perfectly round hole, shaped like a ten-cent coin. There was no blood or bruising. The hole was simply there, undisturbed, as if it had always been part of his chest.

[Translation of “Buraco”, from O Livro das Cousas que Acontecem (The Book of Trivial Events), Livros do Mal press, Porto Alegre, 2002]