 |
The first message returns. A hill, old laughter, and the sense she might be |
Left Page
"Voltei ao caderno.
Primeira mensagem: as alturas, risos, memórias esquecidos no ar.
Uma colina. Um lugar que guardasse vozes antigas.
Pensei logo no Teatro Romano.
As ruínas ainda guardam tudo, gargalhadas, segredos, histórias que ninguém escreveu."
I returned to the notebook.
First message: the heights, laughter, memories forgotten in the air.
A hill. A place that held ancient voices.
I immediately thought of the Roman Theatre.
The ruins still hold everything, laughter, secrets, stories no one ever wrote.
Right Page
"Parecia uma ideia louca.
Seguir frases numa moldura de Polaroid?
Deixar tudo para vir até aqui com esta câmara?
Fiquei a perguntar-me se não sou eu a fazer isto.
Se não é tudo um truque da minha cabeça.
Ando sem dormir bem.
Tenho feito os exercícios do Monroe – projeção, separação –"
It felt like a mad idea.
Following phrases on a Polaroid frame?
Leaving everything behind to come here with this camera?
I kept wondering if I’m the one doing this.
If it’s all just a trick of my mind.
I haven’t been sleeping well.
I’ve been doing Monroe’s exercises – projection, separation –
She returned to the notebook the same way you return to a place you left something behind, not sure what’s missing, only that something is. Her first entry still echoes: the heights, the laughter, the forgotten memories in the air. A place of altitude, yes, but also of ghosts.
She thought of the Roman Theatre. She chose it. The old stones, the hollowed steps, the lingering voices, all of it fit the message like a key fits a lock. She wanted a place that remembered.
And now she’s questioning it all.
Was it madness to follow these phrases?
To trust a camera with intent?
She wonders if it’s all coming from inside her, if she’s the one writing the messages. The handwriting, the signs, the sense of pursuit. Is she projecting meaning into the silence, or receiving it?
She hasn’t been sleeping.
And she’s been practicing the techniques of Robert Monroe, the man who claimed we could leave our bodies.
Projection. Separation.
It’s no longer just a metaphor.
 |
A photo in daylight. Faces whisper. Her handwriting again, |
"Às vezes fico no limiar, meio acordada, meio fora do corpo.
Talvez tenha sido assim.
Mas hoje não.
Trouxe a câmara.
Andei à volta, procurei o ângulo certo.
Vi o mural – rostos a gritar ou a sussurrar, não sei.
Pareciam sussurros.
Tirei a foto. Esperei.
Revelei ali mesmo, no meio da rua.
Gente a passar.
Luz do dia. Eu sem caneta."
Sometimes I stay on the threshold, half awake, half out of my body.
Maybe that’s how it happened.
But not today.
I brought the camera.
Walked around, searched for the right angle.
I saw the mural – faces screaming or whispering, I don’t know.
They felt like whispers.
I took the photo. Waited.
Developed it right there, in the middle of the street.
People walking past.
Daylight. I had no pen.
Right Page
“Nos sussurros à tua volta encontrarás o próximo passo.”
A minha letra. Mas não sou eu.
Foi ali no meio de tudo que percebi: não estou a sonhar.
Não estou a projetar.
Isto está aqui.
É como se fosse uma conversa, mas só de um lado.
As vozes que ficaram aqui…
a cidade inteira sussurra,
se eu souber ouvir."“In the whispers around you, you’ll find the next step.”
My handwriting. But it isn’t me.
It was right there, in the middle of everything, that I realized: I’m not dreaming.
I’m not projecting.
This is here.
It’s like a conversation, but only from one side.
The voices that stayed here…
the whole city whispers,
if I know how to listen.
She wasn’t floating this time.
She wasn’t halfway out of her body, hovering in some liminal state.
This was daylight. Movement. People around her. A street. A mural.
And yet the message came.
She saw the mural: twisted faces, mouths open wide. Screaming? Whispering? It didn’t matter.
She felt it.
They were whispering.
She didn’t bring a pen. Maybe she didn’t need one.
Because the camera remembered for her.
And when the photo developed, the phrase was already there:
“In the whispers around you, you’ll find the next step.”
Her handwriting. Again.
But this time, she doesn’t deny it. Doesn’t resist the possibility.
She simply says: “It isn’t me.”
And then:
I’m not dreaming.
I’m not projecting.
This is here.
The doubt hasn’t left, but something else is settling in its place. A quiet knowing. Like she’s realizing that whatever’s speaking to her has been doing it for a while. That the city has its own voice. Its own breath. And it’s been whispering all along.
 |
A mural full of mouths, but it’s the whispers that reach her. A voice in her |
 |
A tour stops. A name is spoken. The whisper finds her. The message shifts. |
Left Page
"E foi mesmo ali que ouvi o “sussurro”.
Um grupo passou, visita guiada de arte urbana.
Pararam junto ao mural.
O guia começou a falar do Panorâmico de Monsanto como parte do circuito, das pinturas escondidas, do eco.
A frase na moldura.
O sussurro certo no momento certo.
É para lá que vou."
And it was right there that I heard the whisper.
A group passed by, a guided urban art tour.
They stopped near the mural.
The guide started talking about the Panorâmico de Monsanto as part of the circuit, the hidden paintings, the echo.
The phrase in the frame.
The right whisper at the right moment.
That’s where I’m going.
Right Page
"Volto sempre ao primeiro enigma.
“Procura as alturas onde risos e memórias esquecidas pairam no ar.”
Era mesmo o Teatro Romano?
Ou fui eu que forcei a resposta?
Às vezes penso que a câmara sabia o que eu ia fazer.
Que me deixou tropeçar de propósito.
E se não fosse para ser um lugar certo, mas um estado de espírito?
Gargalhadas, risos, segredos,"
I keep coming back to the first riddle.
“Seek the heights where laughter and forgotten memories float in the air.”
Was it really the Roman Theatre?
Or did I force the answer?
Sometimes I think the camera knew what I was going to do.
That it let me stumble on purpose.
What if it’s not about a specific place, but a state of mind?
Laughter, giggles, secrets,
 |
She knows where to go. But the spiral tightens. The trail feeds on doubt. |
"tanto faz onde. Bastava eu querer ouvir. E ouvi.
O sussurro veio de quem passava, não das pedras.
Talvez nunca tenha sido sobre o teatro.
Talvez o trilho se alimente do erro."
the place didn’t matter. It was enough that I wanted to hear. And I did.
The whisper came from those passing by, not from the stones.
Maybe it was never about the theatre.
Maybe the trail feeds on the mistake.
Right Page
"Sei para onde tenho de ir.
O sussurro foi claro —
Panorâmico de Monsanto.
Mas… e se houver mais? Mais sinais escondidos?
Mais respostas?
Parte de mim quer tirar outras fotos antes. Testar.
Forçar a câmara a falar de novo.
Mas outra parte sussurra: para quê?
Já sei o próximo passo.
Talvez baste.
Ou talvez o trilho queira que eu me perca a tentar saber tudo.
Tenho de ir."
I know where I have to go.
The whisper was clear —
Panorâmico de Monsanto.
But… what if there are more? More hidden signs?
More answers?
Part of me wants to take more photos first. To test.
To force the camera to speak again.
But another part whispers: what for?
I already know the next step.
Maybe that’s enough.
Or maybe the trail wants me to get lost trying to know everything.
I have to go.
The whisper didn’t come in a dream this time. It came in the middle of the street. Tourists, a guide, voices overlapping, and then a thread pulled tight. “The right whisper at the right moment.”
The tour stopped at the mural.
The guide mentioned the Panorâmico de Monsanto, a new name, a new location. Hidden paintings. Echo.
And that was it.
That was the pull.
She heard it, and she knew.
“That’s where I’m going.”
But then, the doubt comes back. Not fear, just reckoning.
She circles back to the first message:
“Seek the heights where laughter and forgotten memories float in the air.”
She wonders if she chose wrong.
Or maybe she chose too quickly.
Maybe the camera let her get it wrong, as if it knew the detour was part of the process.
Because maybe that first message wasn’t pointing to the Roman Theatre.
Maybe it wasn’t pointing to anywhere at all.
Maybe it was describing a feeling.
A frequency.
A state of presence that reveals the truth, wherever you are.
She writes:
“The whisper came from those passing by, not from the stones.”
That feels like a revelation.
Like she’s finally understanding that meaning doesn’t echo from the past, it moves with the present. It travels through us. Through voices overheard, paths crossed, photos taken by instinct rather than logic.
And still, she hesitates.
Just for a moment.
“Part of me wants to take more photos. To test. To make the camera speak again.”
That’s the temptation: to seek more.
More clues. More certainty. More messages.
But something inside her whispers louder than all of that:
“What for?”
She already knows the next step.
And maybe that is the answer.
Not the photo. Not the message. Not even the destination.
But the surrender.
The listening.
She says it simply: “Tenho de ir.”
I have to go.
And that’s what the trail asks for.
Not clarity.
Not proof.
Just motion.
At the bottom of the page, a new collage: darker than the last. A black spiral stretches outward, hypnotic and precise. In the center: a warped slice of green. Two eyes, mirrored and distorted, half-lost behind vertical bars or trees. The same image from before, but now it floats at the spiral’s center, like a target. Or a warning.
It echoes the collage from Log 08, but this one feels more focused. Less like a whisper. More like a signal tightening.
The spiral is no longer between the eyes.
The eyes are the spiral now.
These pages are fragments left behind by Isabel S., no more and no less. © I.S.
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