My first reaction is laughter — long, uncontrollable, necessary.
Because a life like mine, forced by destiny to be written down across fifty-five books,
is already proof that the impossible hides inside facts, not fantasies.

This morning’s incipit is just a way to make someone smile,
and think a little.

A Brief Chronicle of the Impossible

• 1965 – I am born at home. 5.8 kg. Cyanotic, almost black.
  No one smiles. Everyone just wants to know if I will make it.
• 1970 – Bicycle accident. A brake lever goes straight into my eye.
  I bleed, go to the hospital, and thirty minutes later I am back home as if nothing happened.
• 1977 – I spend twelve months living with my grandparents,
  in a village still ruled by Second World War logic —
  even though the war had ended 32 years earlier.
• 1981 – Major surgery under total anesthesia.
  No one notices I am awake.
  I silently follow every step of the operation.
  The oxygen tank is empty.
• 2001 – In Santo Domingo, declared dead after 14 hours of alcoholic coma.
  I get up and have breakfast.
• 2006 – Seven malignant tumors. Thirty days of life expectancy.
  Today it is 2026, and I am still laughing.
• 2015–2019 – Five episodes of clinical coma.
  Declared with only hours left to live.
  I receive a funeral invoice for €3,500 with the payment reason:
  “failure to die.”
• 2020 – COVID arrives.
  We are about twenty-five people at the beach.
  They watch me leave for South America, almost sorry I will be the first exposed.
  Everyone gets the virus.
  I watch them from afar, smiling.
• 2022 – I become a writer.
  Seventy-two books in three years.
  Published in twelve languages.
  I’m not an editor yet, and everyone else is chasing money to “find readers.”
  My literature cannot be bought by algorithm —
  it can only be reached by the will to read.
• 2025 – I live in Portugal for six months with only €70 a month for food.
  A house with nine people and hygienic conditions beyond comment.
• 2026 – A neighbor asks me to accompany him to his sister’s house,
  a few kilometers away, because he’s afraid of a black cat
  that brings him bad luck every time it sees him.
  We arrive.
  The black cat looks at me from afar, doesn’t speak,
  touches its balls, and runs away.

Nando

I survived enough to stop believing in coincidence.