# It all started in june, 2013

**Published by:** [LB Machado](https://paragraph.com/@lb-machado/)
**Published on:** 2024-03-14
**URL:** https://paragraph.com/@lb-machado/it-all-started-in-june-2013

## Content

I could start off by saying who I am now, but that won't be crucial for these stories. Who I am today is the remains of impressions I had in a time that seemed distant. But when I glance the translucid vision of the path I belonged, all I see is the rendesvouz, the radical events, the weird impressions of a youth full of shit and glory. Today, I look to it from a modern city in a radical time, full of apathy and superficiality, and also full of things that you take for granted everyday. June, 2013 "Get down!”, someone said. Shortly after, there was an explosion. We could smell pepper gas in the air, and suddenly, into our eyes it came, burning and dancing in our retinas. I wasn't that bad. Lens, who was besides me, was caught off guard and started screaming. “Jesus, Bass! My fucking eyes! Look at that!”. The bastard popped an ecstasy before going into a riot and he was having F-U-N. “My god, I can feel everything!”. I looked around the crowd, and some people were calling us. They had magnesium milk. Lens poured some into his eyes and started to feel better. He kept being loud, but again, it was a fucking riot. And it raged on. “BOOM!” Another explosion. Now, a car was on fire on the other side of street. “Lens! We gotta get out of here. The cops are starting to surround this place.”, I said, before people started pushing us ahead, straight to the cops. “Well, no way around that.", Lens conceded, his voice echoing an efervescent mind of exhilaration. We navigated through the sea of bodies, squeezing through all the different groups there. And there were many. “It's not only 20 cents! Not only 20 centes!”, people were chanting. Everything broke loose. Goddamit, my eyes would glance a moment where I would see ,for the first time in my life, the masses going into upheaval. July, 2013. The world spun on its tilted axis, each turn shadowed with turmoil, horror, even the unexpected. It was a global party gone awry, where every nation seemed to nurse its own peculiar hangover of discontent or revelry, depending on which side of the bed it woke up on. In the United States, the heat wasn't just climatic; it simmered in the streets and in the hearts of those who set ablaze with the kind of righteous anger that makes you wonder whether the melting pot was just a cauldron of boiling tensions ready to spill over. After the big whoop of 2008, the scene was setting: political polarization, the trumpester, and then, Biden, and now, again, probably Trump. And then there was Snowden, a name that ricocheted around the globe like a bullet, revealing the extent of the NSA's surveillance program. The whistleblower, now a fugitive, was caught in a Kafkaesque drama, seeking asylum while the world debated whether he was a hero, a traitor, or just another pawn in the great game of international espionage. Egypt, in the meantime, was rewriting its own history, yet again. The military ousted President Morsi, the country's first democratically elected president, in a move that was as much a coup as it was a desperate grasp at stability. Tahrir Square, once the heart of the Arab Spring's hopeful narrative, became a battleground of ideologies, a reminder that the road from revolution to democracy was paved with more than just good intentions. The world stage is a cacophony of crises, protests, and political machinations, each country glorifying its own play. Brazil is no different. In the sweltering winter of July 2013, Brazil transformed into a boiling pot of public fury, the kind that makes you wonder whether the whole country had suddenly decided to fuck around with the govs and break public patrimony. The fuse? A minor hike in bus fares that exploded like a cheap firework into a full-blown carnival of chaos. The scene was set against the backdrop of a country riding the high wave of economic boom, hosting the world’s eyes with the upcoming World Cup and Olympics. Yet, here were the people, the real flesh-and-blood Brazilians, not dancing, not drinking, but marching aimlessly to the beat of dozens of political flags. At first, we would only see leftwing groups. The black blocs were trending, the traditional left was also there, represented by thousands of students, union workers, teachers. Leftists flags all around. By the third day, it became a spectacle, a circus of weird interactions. Suddenly, the streets were covered with families, people of age, christian groups. Street vendors were selling beer, water, snacks, you name it. The rage, otherwise mainly filled with socialist wrath, got entangled in rightwing dissent and resentment. They called themselves the forgotten class, denouncing the media's left wing inclination in Brazil. This wasn’t just about the bus fares anymore. It was about a trembling status quo hanging in a thread of the cost of living, where the glittering stadiums stood in stark contrast to the crumbling façades of public hospitals and schools. The masses were live streaming via their smartphones the kind of righteous indignation that fuels revolutions and takes the streets. There it was, the civil war of my time. People declaring war on a system that works to serve them a stale slice of corruption and neglect. Economies teetered, governments wavered. While that, there's me, camera in hand, crazy enthusiasts all around, trying to escape a crowd through rubber bullets, gas and flaming vehicles. While being pushed by waves of the discontent, I could see Lens kinda vibing kinda suffering from the facts. My God, why would someone pop ecstasy in a place like that? My parties were different. How could you enjoy that? But He was different.* * In an exploration that teeters on the boundary of the macabre and the ecstatic, this act, ostensibly an oxymoron—a chemical usher to euphoria amidst a scenario that epitomizes societal breakdown—serves as a stark illumination of the human capacity for seeking transcendence or escape, even (or especially) in moments of profound collective turmoil. Simply chemically engineer a state of bliss and heightened empathy, before diving headfirst into an environment defined by anger, fear, and often violence, as if, by this action, one seeks to overlay the grim reality of the riot with a veneer of artificially induced camaraderie and understanding, a desperate attempt to find or force some semblance of unity in the most divisive of circumstances. The ingestion, inhalation, or injection of psychoactive substances by combatants becomes a coping mechanism, a tool for survival in environments that, by their very nature, push the human mind to its outermost limits. From the amphetamines distributed to keep soldiers alert during World War II, to the heroin that shadowed the troops in Vietnam, and the designer drugs that may permeate modern conflicts, the story is one of grim pragmatism colliding with the raw edge of human vulnerability. I was trying to think quickly. Rioters and protesters were marching, all coming to the same meeting point at the congress house. Moments before, I was at Cinelandia, voting where would we go together. Sound cars were being used to voice leaderships and direct the crowds. The majority decided to go to the congress house. There was dissent, people claiming the authorities would incite us to violence. I should have listened to that. But now, we were all trapped as the police was stopping and checking everyone on a 10 kilometer radius. We had to go through the alleys and keep away from the streets until we reach the subway. There, we could regroup with the others. "MOVE AWAY NOW! ANY CITIZEN RESISTING WILL BE RIGHTFULLY PERSECUTED BY LAW", police warned. I zoomed back. “Fuck, where is he!?", I thought. I couldn't see his bald head anywhere. Gladly, at least he wasn't wearing a mask. I would tap everyone looking for someone else in that crowd. I tried raising my arm, so he could see me and do something about it. In a stroke of coincidence, gun shots were fired and as I got on the ground I watched Lens jump from a bustop into a window shop. His legs were stiff and crossed the motherfucker as if it were butter. The glass splattered on the streets. High pitched screams filled my head. Come on, you are already here, is glass your weakspot!? A cop was muttering in a megaphone, all I could see was looters invading the store and collecting items. “I SAID, THAT'S PRIVATE PROPERTY! YOU ARE UNDER ARREST!" Ah, of course. Lens, you genius, now you are their leader. I run into the store to check him. “Motherfucker, could not act as a kamikaze for 20 minutes!?”, I demanded. “There is no time for that. I can't feel shit, see?", Lens argued, showing a left arm full of glass cuts with shards all over his head. “Yeah, you became king rioter, but now we are outta here!”. I pulled him from the ground and we started running, pushing the looters and protesters who were still engaged in fighting the police. Hundreds of people later, we could hear the sirens getting distant as we got away from the melting pot. At least for now, this silliness is over. "Dude! Did you see me there? I was ready to bite their face off!" ”Yeah. And they were ready to blow your head.” ”Animals, right? I mean, look at me, how could I hurt anyone?" There was a ongoing myth about Lens. Some of my informants (and friends) said that, by the age of 16, he had killed his father when the old stupid man tried to teach him a lesson on physical pain. Lens would always have a smile in his face. Although I would look to it as a honest gesture, I must admit that was a cunning sentiment behind it, as if that poor soul had seen too much from whatever he had for a childhood. I smirked, “You? Nah. They would probably take you to a room and set you free with a ticket." "Shame. A ticket? I deserve at least a judgement." ”On what?" ”I don't know, man. But we showed them!." Next stop, subway. For 20 minutes we walked, going around the riots through some historical grounds. We tried to call our friends who were still at the high temperature zone, but no one would answer their phones. We got into Cinelandia's Subway station, proceeding to Uruguaiana station where a checkpoint was estabilished. A couple of young protesters went inside the train. I was standing by the door with Lens, and they sat down by the end of the wagon, right next to us.I could hear the boy saying “Wow! That was so exciting!"And the girl responded, “Yes! We are making a change. It was so fun!"Poor youngsters. Probably you don't know shit. I was about to lecture them in my head when a man stood up and started talking. “What the fuck are you talking about? Are you out of your mind?" "What? No. I mean-", the girl stuttered. ”I know what you meant. And you have no clue about what is happening. Do you think this is fun? Some of my friends got arrested, some got shot, you are here enjoying these acts as a music show." ”Look, man, we are saying that-", the boy tried to continue. ”You are saying some stupid shit, some stupid naive shit from apartment kids. Do you think disgrace is fun? I was there in Friburgo when people were buried in landslides. Do you think this is also fun?" ”Look, just leave us alone.”, the white boy asked. ”You are hallucinating your own nation. Please, shut the fuck up." “NEXT STATION, CARIOCA” “Phew”, Lens sighted. “The ecstasy is waning." ”How was the experience?", I asked. ”Well, my dear psychonaut,” he said, acting all pompous, "I have to say that this experience was rather authentic. I could not imagine how I would feel in such a setting. I fell in love, I got mad, I wanted to punch and dismember and make love to everyone out there." ”Did you drop acid as well?” "Just a little bit, for spiciness." ”Hmm, it's a winning combination, can't deny that." ”And when you put some cocai-…” ”NEXT STATION, URUGUAIANA" ”Look, that's our stop." Up the stairs, there it was: the big open market of Uruguaiana, where everyone is selling products, illegal or not, for a living. You can find shoes, glasses, clothes, house necessities, Peruvian fashion, videogames, all through the streets, from morning till noon. It was a strategic point, since the police wouldn't want to involve the merchants in the conflicts. No way. You can keep on selling and paying the local bribes, we gotta beat down these nervous hysterical civilians. There was no police activity near the station, we walked past closing stores, sellers drinking beers by the hot night of that day. Televisions were covering what was happening at the same time in more than 20 cities. The mainstream media, those stalwart sentinels of the status quo, initially stumbled in their response, caught between their allegiances to their corporate sponsors and the undeniable magnitude of the public's discontent. Their coverage was a cocktail of bewilderment and caution, as if they were trying to navigate a minefield blindfolded, unsure of which step would blow them into losing their money. On the other hand, those scrappy insurgents of the alternative were armed with smartphones and social media accounts, going into a crusade for so called truth. They streamed, tweeted, and blogged with a fervor that turned the narrative into something personal, a live diary of raw, unfiltered, and immediate testimonies, where the line between observer and participant was as thin as the tear gas in the air. “Look! They are talking about us!”, Lens glared. ”Luckily, no photos.”, the last thing that I needed was showing up on TV. ”I don't the need the fame. I want the glory!" ”I want a cigarette. And a bed. Revolution can wait 24 hours." By the next corner, we got into the meeting point. I checked the Facebook group. "Great. It's all over now. They're saying the crowds have dispersed. 'We recommend everyone to gather at the meeting points so safety can be assured’, I read, "Please, contact us with anyone you know is missing." Lens looked around. “Well, we are missing four people. Can you message them?" he asked. ”Nope. There is no signal in this zone. We are on the verge of medieval action." ”Jesus, sometimes you scare me." We were at a plaza, lots of protesters with us. Probably from the same groups, just trying to recover from a combo of sensations we were not ready for. Some of them were beaten, some were shot, some were robbed. We would look around for undercover agents, always police looking lads with macho faces. Universities students looked fragile in general. “So, what do we do?”, Lens asked. “Do we wait for them or go home? I need a place to chill." ”Was there any plan C?" ”Plan C is: each one to its own. Come on, nobody dies in these things." The idea of just going away started to invade my mind. Well, after all, I had enough of that day. We travelled 30 kilometers from the suburbs to the city to be bombarded blindly. My friends would think the same. Shit, for what I know, they probably could have left earlier! “You know what? I-" Sirens went off and red and blue lights started surrounding us again. “Goddamit, here we go again!", I said pulling Lens by his collar. Cops and batons, isn't it a love story? Arms would hammer resisting protesters to the ground in a blink of an eye. There were a lot of skinny university kids with us, they wouldn't last a fight. So we did what any smart person from the hood would do: fuck these assholes, let them be our human shields. The cops were encircling the whole plaza. The crowd was resisting pathetically, screaming and pushing the cops to the ground while getting open fractures and handcuffs. Their parents would not like that. Lens and I went straight into the nearest alley, and, simply because we were not stupid to die for the headless hydra of june 2013, we didn't looked back, we didn't think twice. It was over, whatever movement was dawning from the protests, it was sadly dissolving into politics and concessions until we get nothing for ourselves. Innocent people as martyrs, citizens as plastic heroes, and barren examples of what happens to you if you get out of the line. We kept running until we couldn't see more cops. We passed through protesters being cuffed while people drank beer to the sound of samba. Waling by the illusory end of civility, we crossed a broken city, tired of its own shit. We all know who rules this place. We all know who runs the show. Still, we break the rules in the name of what is right. And just when there was no more danger around, Lens and I, defiants of the great man, laughed at each other as, after all the rioting, we stopped running to wait for the traffic light to go green.

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