Jéssica and Luana were returning from work, it was Saturday, it was already after 14pm and they were both hungry. Luana boasted that she had lost 10 kilos in just "one month", her incredulous friend asked "how" and she told her that a "one dollar" magazine that featured the magic formula on its cover had shown her the way. She was happy. Her mood had changed. She felt that the people around her noticed her, not that it didn't happen before, but that now it happened in a different way. Jéssica was suspicious of that formula, but was happy for her friend. She asked for the magazine. Luana, knowing that this would happen, or wanting it to happen, already had the publication in her bag and gave it to her friend as a "gift". A smile remained between the two. The conversation stopped. All that was left were the looks and the noise of the subway and the kid who passed by and left a note with words explaining that he was from a big, poor family and that because of that he needed help. Luana disembarked first. Jéssica remained in the carriage and with the new wave of passengers, a man was looking for a seat, so she gave up her seat, felt good, and looked with pride at the sides. She thought about her friend and promised herself that she would start the regime, but she was completely in disbelief, as she kept thinking that a regime put on a cover costing one real could not work. She disembarked.
How many papers, how many books, how much anxiety! Jorge had been studying for months about these new people who insist on being featured on the 20pm television news, who buy cell phones, who buy cars and who run out of building plans with "tiny" apartments. "How can they?", he asks, "where does this money come from", there Jorge ran to his old Capital to understand the People, the new middle class... Sour gets when he remembers the student who mocks his concepts and says that he should throw his old Marx into the asylum. “No, I can't!” he screams alone in his apartment.
He opens his diary and remembers that he has a study group with the few who are still interested in the revolution. "We're still going to nationalize this country and this industry", he sighs and dreams... It's okay that there are just a few...
On the subway, listen attentively to the conversation of two girls who talk about a miraculous recipe that promises the loss of several kilos in a short time and are excited about the price of the magazine. Jorge gets angry, "how can they fall for that!?" and he thinks and sets up his class for the day: The Cultural Industry, TV and the dream factory, consumerism and the commodity fetish and the body industry. He gets excited, arrives at the university out of breath, decides not to drink coffee and goes straight to the classroom and that's it...
14 years old and Jonas already knows the city of São Paulo like no one else, more than Google Maps, that's for sure. Since he was eight, at least that's the age he remembers, he's been running around the streets and trying to raise some money to help around the house and also to buy his things, he also has his desires... Lately he's developed the habit of having a beer and smoking a joint, but it's all hidden, because he knows it's new and that such behavior would be frowned upon by his parents who are former crack users... He always asks himself: how did they get rid of this shit? Especially when he does some work around the city center and sees the kids turned to stone.
Jonas has a habit: he likes to stay at the end of the Bresser subway station, because there the view is wide, you can see the city and also the parked trains. He likes to hear the noise of the carriages mixed with the factories near the station. He can't explain why, but he likes it, it's good for him, sometimes he enjoys it so much that he laughs, especially on summer nights with the starry sky and that light wind, the carriages running, the people, the noise, always the noise, Deep down, Jonas likes to ride the subway…
The other day he had an experience that he classified as "interesting". One, among the various ways he found to raise money, was to distribute tickets with his family's story to subway passengers and on one of these trips, he was already a little tired and watched and came across three interesting guys: two girls, a little fat girls who talked endlessly about a magical recipe in a very cheap magazine and a guy who carried a book with a cover that said: Who is the new middle class and why do they spend so much?
Jonas laughed at the guy and the girls. Near his house he decided to have a beer. He thought it was funny. "Or yeah, they're spending so much because they're fucking earning!", he thought while drinking and then he thought again and thought and thought... He concluded that afterwards they would be trying to understand the debts and I don't know what and he found it all fucking boring.
He arrived at his house and found his mother with her boyfriend and some friends, they had also gotten some money, they had bought some beers and were talking, he still couldn't drink with them. When she saw those scenes she thought: “I wonder if this is the middle class?”
He decided it was more interesting to take a shower and masturbate.
