Winter, 1979. Lisbon

The tram shuddered past Rua Augusta, its fogged windows smeared with November grime. Inside tavern, fado’s velvet ache coiled through cigarette haze,all saudade and smoke.

Such nights were when you’d "forget" him. The absinthe bit sharp, the South Americans’ Spanish sweet as candied almonds. Now you leaned toward a Santiago boy spinning tales of Antarctic whales in honeyed vowels, while Ricardo hunched over his glass in the shadows, brooding. Always brooding. Though tonight, perhaps, with a sharper edge.

Jealousy isn’t a sin between friends—he’d declared, and you’d believed him. How could you not? Even as he juggled clerical work at City Hall, even as his coat cuffs frayed and his lamp burned over poems never been published, he remained your oracle of Lisbon’s cobblestone soul, deeper than your transient spirit could fathom.

You’d drifted into Lisbon the previous spring, renting a room in a flaking apartment. First meal in a faded restaurant. Pushing cold cod across plate, you’d counted coins. When the owner cleared his throat a third time, a hand reached past your shoulder to tap the counter–Absinthe, and the lady’s tab. That began this grand friendship. With the one who'd cradled your neck as cough syrup slid down your throat when fever gripped you.Your dear Ricardo.

Your poet ordered another drink. You slipped from the Chilean’s nautical charts and slid onto the stool beside him.

"Thirsty night, Senhor Almeida?"

“Don’t call me that.”His fingers traced the edge of the glass, gaze fixed on the dancing motes before shifting to you. “Since when were you on first-name terms with strangers?”

The scent of absinthe clung to him. You suddenly recalled a rain-soaked night—his voice reciting Neruda as droplets drummed the attic skylight, poems dampened by your shared breath. The bartender's polishing like an alarm.You ached to touch the callus on his knuckle, forged by years of pen strokes. But his hands stayed shadowed.