You'll Never Run This Fast

There’s this Portuguese expression that translates literally to “it’s all flies” and it characterizes the lack of people, or an empty space and so on. All and on the idea of all the things being flies rumbling around a room buzzing the ears of anyone who crosses it is quite annoying. As a kid, I have always been the high-grade correctness defying one. I loved to be a bum and to behave like one until my mother would raise that wooden long spoon knowing what I had done. Nonetheless, I couldn’t care. Pain is temporary but the fun of pissing people off lasts forever. So a couple of friends and I would cross this store on our way home where no customer was ever seen. Every single day we would shout “it’s all flies” and run as fast as we could. Every single day. Perhaps it would come to the point where the owner would turn out to be our friend or have a laugh with us, I don’t know. I think the store worked as a retail store for larger companies. I can’t tell you to this day. But the thing here is that one day there were two or three people inside, and suddenly a bunch of kids scream at the door and start running away. The owner drops a panic, killer face on us. I guarantee you I had never seen such a killer face before. So later that day I and two other kids decided we would go there and apologize to the owner. As simple as that, but we had a better idea. We decided to keep going with the bum screaming personas we had created. I must tell you the owner was ready. He was prepared to chase us. So he did. As soon as he sees us over the cars hiding and ready to shout to his store, he closes the door and starts running like a mad man. I guarantee you I had never run like that before.