Portugal Unplugged

On Monday, April 28, 2025, the entire Iberian Peninsula was left without electricity. As the potential causes that come from the other side of the rational always elude the modern man, and he tries to explain everything in the long language of mathematics, this historical phenomenon was hastily attributed to some kind of meteorological oscillations. At that moment, we were on a bus on the Porto-Lisbon route, and that was not by chance, but a series of interesting events preceded it.

Arriving in this promised land a few days early, the bus to Porto generously escaped us and directed us along a high-speed train line full of fast wine right next to the Atlantic Ocean and the vast Portuguese vineyards. The price of the train ticket saved us from this pleasure on the way back, so we still decided to take the bus, which turned out to be the only way to Lisbon that day and which saved us from spending the night in some nice place where our train would have been stuck.

The first morning in Porto, in the Square of Carlos Alberto, the unsuspecting king of Sardinia, I came across Encyclopedia of Witchcraft Raymond Backland at the mysterious bookseller in black at the street market, as is usually the case when buying haunted things. I hoped that there might be something between the lines of this book that would eventually help the fallen head of our church, so I decided to market the book and try to help him save his soul, atone for his sins and support his flock in the fight against primal evil. Just as it is ordered by the God whom he serves.

I was reading my new book, and lo and behold, the next day, a good part of Europe was without electricity.

Chaos greeted us at the Oriente station in Lisbon because the metro lines were completely paralyzed, and the taxi drivers were also overwhelmed with rides. Let's say that something like this happened in Belgrade, where there is no metro and there are metro employees, nobody would even notice it. And all thanks to the ingenious moves of the city elders. It can be said that this is one of the advantages of continuous collapse - chaos becomes an inborn trait, and stress becomes a natural, existentially desirable state.

Eventually we caught a taxi and learned from the driver about the calamity that hit the country. I smiled, winked at the black cat and we were created in Alfama.

Alfama, by the way, looks like a labyrinth of an old yellow apple through which hordes of worms love thanks to all of us who, with our presence, turn its narrow passageways into hysterical fair processions, treating it like a worn-out photo model who at the same time has to serve the bacchanalia of every frame of numerous lenses. This time it appeared to us in the most beautiful light - without electricity and us, tourists. The famous twenty-eight trams, which now stopped silently every hundred meters, empty and peaceful, without pickpockets and drugged-up Englishmen, and only an imaginary guest as a mournful gesture of the refuge of the fado that is heard precisely in such silences.

Such an environment gives the tangible inner dimensions of the former fishing labyrinth, and what else is left for you but to get lost in those dimensions in the bars that serve chilled wine. Only now not from the valley of the river Duero, but from the valley of the river Tagus. Among the gallons we've shared this trip with, I've long since stopped counting varieties. I felt in my throat something closest to political correctness. All the wines were fair and excellent. Just like the one in Negotin. I think the only way to explain this is to drink all those wines. Don't let them lie to you with expensive words.

With the arrival of electricity in Portugal, the streets of Lisbon became ablaze as in Belgrade when young people call for light. They were here in the dark for a whole day and the problem was solved in the evening. The darkness that has made its home in our region does not give up so easily because it does not recognize the laws of civilization and human values. In that darkness, the principals of greed have no one closer than beasts and contempt, so it is not possible to illuminate such an abyss with units that figure in dignified human conditions. It is best seen from a distance.

The next day, everything returned to normal in Lisbon, so we followed in Crnjanski's footsteps to Cascais to visit the former resort of Bogova and look for traces of the mysterious Dusko Popov (see James Bond). The sky over the ocean was gray at first, then cleared, just long enough for time in a park to stop and life to take a deep breath before the cosmic rut mill gripped it again.

Crnjanski and Duško escorted our train to Lisbon in the evening. We sat down at Duque da Rua, ordered olives, the waitress poured us wine and sang the best fado in town from the bottom of her heart. Later, Vitor Fernandes joined, after whose performance two years ago I promised the universe that I would return.