Perdizes, in the west of São Paulo, is the neighborhood I chose to live in. I confess that I sometimes envy the resident chroniclers in more interesting corners.
Partridges is no Village, no Marais. It doesn’t have the pulsating chaos of Copacabana. It lacks muscle for the sensory beating that Pelourinho knows how to give. Avenida Paulista and Liberdade, with their incessant parade of types and figures, provide much more prose material.
If I am sometimes envious of other neighborhoods, most of the time I am quite comfortable here in Perdizes. Living in the eye of the hurricane is usually uncomfortable: it’s best to visit it only when the wind hits.
Little happens in Perdizes that is noteworthy. Here we work on average. The families are middle class, the streets are neither ugly nor pretty, almost nothing is bad or excellent.
My contacts on social media always ask for restaurant tips in the neighborhood where I live. I am obliged to reply “look well”. There are some nice foods around here, I like the pizza delivery, but nothing worth traveling from another part of town.
Until this week, what made Perdizes famous were the almost vertical slopes. The person who lives here (is the commoner?) exercises his calves well. Until this week, when something electrifying happened in Perdizes.
Sylas, a pet python snake, escaped who knows how from an apartment behind PUC. The neighborhood is in an uproar, feigning panic and unable to hide its excitement.
The zap group in my building, a mile from the escape scene, was flooded with snake emojis and terrified faces. “How absurd, no one deserves to go through this,” wrote a neighbor. Another commented that a terrified friend went into exile in another neighborhood until the snake appeared.
The disappearance also ignited the Facebook community called Dicas de Perdizes – something like an extended zap group, a gossip hub of this village.
Sylas, a male boa constrictor, was already looking for stardom before running away from home. His owner created a profile for him on Instagram, which now has 22,000 followers. There, Sylas appears in less-threatening poses, wearing a birthday party hat or knit cap.
The snake shared the apartment with a cat and a dog and, according to the owner –that’s how you say it, right?–, it’s absolutely harmless. When announcing Sylas’ disappearance, she asked that no one be scared or hurt the animal.
In fact, Sylas doesn’t seem to pose any danger. On the slope where he disappeared, he must have descended – he lacks legs to climb Vanderlei or Caiubi. He’s probably hungry.
If the region had the partridges that give it its name, maybe Sylas would find lunch there. The greater the chance, however, that the snake has entered a manhole and become a rat’s dinner.
The sewer rat doesn’t click or talk about the condominium group. Let’s let Partridges have a subject. That’s not common around here.
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