OLÍVIA

Olívia lived on the top floor of 242 Rua dos Caldeireiros and tells who knew her that she was very religious and so devoted to the Clérigos Church that she even decided to live there. Every day she thanked Our Lord Jesus Christ for having arranged such a nice little house so well arranged right there, close, glued, almost door to door, with the House of the Lord. And on top of that it was closer to heaven.

Faced with the impossibility of moving her suitcases and luggage to the place of worship, she had to find a solution and recreated the much-loved church, mind you, at home.

She, who even had a very nice house with a pleasant decoration for the time, decided that the changes were going to be on the walls. Hers were already a sober color, but not enough to be closer to the Lord’s. As she could, she got two paint cans and a brush and there she started to paint the walls white, but always from the bottom up, so as to keep close to the clouds. She left it to dry for two days, because God forbid she could not have immaculate walls, and she began to organize everything: she returned the furniture to its place, put the chairs under the table, unrolled the carpets and put the pillows back on the sofa. . She has moved away from the room so that she can get a wider view of the situation and starts wrinkling her nose. The house that once seemed so full was bare, sad, colorless. The white walls, which even looked so good in the House of the Lord, did not bring any joy to the space.
She spent days working magic, trying to figure out how she could make her look even more like her beloved Church and that’s when she remembered the dear neighbors who lived on the floors below her. Although she didn’t get along very well with them, especially with the one on the first floor who was always in an undignified life, she kne w they had good taste and as modern women they were, they should always walk around the house, buying things new… For sure they had something that would fit. She went to knock on their door and came back with her arms full of old things that were going to help turn her little house into a little sanctuary.

From Faustina’s house, she brought a long, thin green carpet, similar to the one that Senhor Padre had at the Clérigos, which, despite being half broken because it was always shaking, allowed her to simulate the central area of the Church that leads down to the altar. From Carmen she brought a red cup, a color that Olivia only tolerated because it was the one the Cardinals use in celebrations, and which before being placed in the center of the table, was washed to scare away the bad things that lived in that house. And Amelia, the one neighbour she tolerated the most, brought a bunch of blue hydrangeas which, luckily, were just like the ones in the Church and would help to make a nice arrangement here and there.

Following all this, and achieving nirvana, Olivia lived the rest of her days happy and very close to what made her complete.