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| The Birth of a World: The Books of Augustus: Book I
 | The book begins in the year 2003, with Augustus on death row. This is his story of how and when he was created and made immortal by Ziusudra in Rome 68 AD, while Nero led the Roman Empire and 200 years before the Coliseum was built. Augustus' story takes place all over the universe, all over time. And at this moment we find him telling his tale to a pair of Hollywood moguls, unafraid of his pending “death by execution” as he knows he'll be back again.
Ziusudra, Augustus' creator, was born in Atlantis almost 13,000 years ago, during the first ice age. Ziusudra had been banished from heaven for choosing the love of his people over the love of God. The only example of love similar in intensity to the one he himself chose over God, is the love Augustus has for Julia. This capacity, not alone, makes Augustus the first qualified to be Ziusudra's heir of eternity.
Apart from Augustus and Julia, every character we meet along their journey lived and is based in historical reality or Greek mythology, and every event really happened in one way or another.
Following, the main protagonists, Augustus and Ziusudra, we will travel back in time to the beginning of all, discovering mystic cities, dead civilizations, gods and goddesses, we encounter great philosophers such as Plato and Socrates and finally we will meet God, and the souls who have been waiting for all eternity to rejoin with him.
This is the story of normal men who chose earthbound love over the light of heaven and have had to live (are living?) with their choice. This is the story of the ones who will still be screaming in the dark when the sun has died.
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A Teaser: The Birth of a World, the prologue
THE BIRTH OF A WORLD: The Books of Augustus: BOOK I
Jose Da Silveira
© 2007 by Jose Da Silveira.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written
permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages
in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.
First printing
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real
persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
At the specific preference of the author, PublishAmerica allowed this work to
remain exactly as the author intended, verbatim, without editorial input.
ISBN: 1-4241-6627-6
PUBLISHED BY PUBLISHAMERICA, LLLP
www.publishamerica.com
Baltimore
Printed in the United States of America
I want to thank my family, my grand parents Paul and Fafa who taught me
the meaning of love, my parents Nicole and Georges who have followed
me in the most difficult times and allowed me to find myself again, my
sister Anne Paule who has linked her soul to mine when I was in need of
her warmth, and my Brother Marc who ahs shown me indulgence and
compassion when, the image he had of me started to include frailty and
a lack of strength. This family has demonstrated too many times, that I
was one of them, and that they loved me with no boundaries. Thank you.
I love you.
I want to thank Mike Nash for his friendship and the creation of such a
beautiful cover.
Thank you to you, Claudia and Russ, day after day your have been here,
showing me the beauty of life, proving your loyalty, and opening infinite
windows, for me to remember the colors of the world.
To Jennifer who was here when I was incomplete and gone when I had
found back the man that I still was inside.
To Marina for many years of love, which are not forgotten.
To my children Chloe and Paul who give Meaning to my life
PART I
Prologue
Is the world so empty of meaning that you can’t believe me? My life,
has it been for nothing? Little has really changed in the human heart after
two thousands years.
So many cold nights of wandering in the world, was it all for nothing?
I don’t know, after all, after the nights, so often, I felt the reassuring
warmth of the sun on my skin, giving me hope, almost making me forget
about my long dead friends, and so much killing…and the screams and
the repetitive begging.
Do you really think I would die so easily?
So they will lay me down on the metallic table as others before me, and
they will stick a needle in my arm, and then as society has ordered, death
will flow into my veins…and I could care less, and you don’t care either
because I am only another report, another number, another screenplay to
be written, another movie to be made; after all, you are Hollywood.
So, you got a phone call, and somebody told you about me, my life, and
about the few wandering souls that I am accused of killing, and for a day,
you left your studios, and your fancy cars, and your whores, and your
drugs to check me out. Do you really want to know who killed them if not
me?
I have agreed to meet with you, to talk to you in the hope that, perhaps,
JOSE DA SILVEIRA
8
you will be able to search for the real monster, the real killer, the one who
has framed me: my maker. More will die if you don’t get me out of here…I
am the only one who can stop him. But in all truth, why should I care?
And why should you? If you don’t want to fight for me, at least will you
help and hurry my sentence?
Bring death to me; bring it fast, death my sweet recognizable love with
her cold, sensuous and comfortable kiss, bring her fast, and don’t let me
rot in here. Let them throw away my dead body, and then I will be free.
No, I won’t plead my innocence; no one is innocent, not I and
certainly not you. Yes I am a killer, and perhaps even a monster, but I
haven’t killed in so long. I am not the one, and even if I were, you and me,
we are not so different. I know that for a fact gentlemen.
I know, because I have met your kind throughout the centuries, you,
the powerful of the era. You will politely listen in case there is money to
be made, and you will write my words down on paper, and you will file my
story as another story born of the tormented mind of a mad man, and you
will study it untouched by the sound of my voice. Is there a movie to be
made?
But in the end, years from now, when you are close to your last instant,
when fear fills your guts; with supplication in your voice, you will wonder
and you will cry: Perhaps he was telling us the truth?
Of course it is the truth; but I don’t expect you to understand. After so
many years I barely understand; so why would you? I feel so old today! He
said that I would never age, that I would never die; but I feel old. Two
thousands years of memories, of deceptions and disillusions. That will do
it to a mind.
But still, I am not the killer. I will die asserting it. Death my old love,
are you slowly walking towards our rendez vous?
To you gentlemen I look young, barely twenty, ageless, but it is an
illusion; as I have seen the death of your fathers, and of your father’s
fathers, and all those who came before them. I have seen empires that
could not fall, crumble; and I have even seen their mere memory fade
away, and I have seen fire, and I have seen kings beg for their lives, and
faithful queens fall in love with new kings.
THE BIRTH OF A WORLD: THE BOOKS OF AUGUSTUS BOOK I
9
I have roamed the world, like a man among men, but am I still a man?I think I am, but not when I look in your eyes; I can see my reflection, and
the way you see me, and in your eyes I have lost my mind. But only in your
eyes, because I know I am telling the truth, and I know that your eyes will
close and that your cheeks will become hollow, and that your flesh will rot
until you are only bones, and that even your bones will turn into dust; I
know, because I have seen it. Even your name will be forgotten and the
names of your children, and your children’s children. To me, you don’t
exist. You are a dream from which I can’t awaken.
I will even forget our meeting gentlemen; you are not so important for
me to remember. I will forget the way you looked at me; your pity and
your disgust, as if I were a mad man. I do understand that you need me to
be mad, I would want the same if I were you; but I am not you. And I will
still walk the earth even when all men are gone, and I am terrified.
One morning, there will be nothing left but the earth, and a few other
monsters, your killer and a few other killers, and me, alone; not another
mortal soul alive to talk to, only the few who broke the natural order, but
I don’t talk to them.
And then the earth will disappear into the sun, the burning sun; what
will it be of me, then? Yes, I am terrified, so much so, that I wish I were
mad; but I am not.
Will I ever die? I cannot die; I know, I have tried so many times; I
drowned myself, and I slit my wrist. I was even burned alive for
witchcraft, and I survived; I felt the fire on my skin and I begged for my
death. They listened to my cries and laughed as they wished me to hell.
They laughed at my torment, but how can I explain the unspeakable
horror of burning, when the flames enter your nose and your gasping
mouth and your exploding lungs.
And then, when all was done, when the night had passed and the fire
was cold, they checked me, and they saw I was alive, they burned me
again, and again and again until they realized that I was not of the kind that
JOSE DA SILVEIRA
10
dies from fire. They prayed to the gods, some useless mumbling to
sanctify my suffering, while they cut me into pieces. And they buried the
pieces and I was still alive; I was dismantled, unattached pieces of life. But
my body put itself together; it always put itself together.
I remember the lack of air as, for weeks, I dug myself back up with my
nails, and the feeling of the wind on my face after months underground.
And, I remember, hunting all of them down and finding them, one after
another.
One by one, I buried them alive in the same pit; their eyes emptied of
hope. How they screamed and cried, while I poured dust over their
trembling bodies. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, it is said.
So when, on the cold table, as it has been ordered, and as it will be
witnessed, death will come and give me her moist kiss, I will taste her and
feel her with my soul, and I will feel my mind drifting towards
nothingness, and I will abandon myself to the beautiful emptiness of not
being. And then, unable to keep me in her arms, as always she will release
me to the embrace of life. I will awaken again, as so many times before.
I cannot die. I told you. Believe it, just believe.
And, I am terrified as I should be, because I know that one day I will
be, forever waiting, in the eternal coldness of space, until the universe is
no more; and then?
Unless…unless I find her, as I know she is the beginning and she is the
end. After all, only loneliness is to be feared.
No I won’t die on the cold table for my maker’s killings. It isn’t that
easy, but only I know this.
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