Member-only story

Thick as Thieves

Pedro Góis Nogueira
7 min readJan 13, 2025

Zacarias woke up to a symphony of alarms. Three clocks screamed in unison, and the fourth — his last resort — was already hammering his skull, beeping for ten minutes straight. As a last resort, there was still the stereo alarm, set to go off in another half hour. That one would crescendo to a blaring tone, forcing Zacarias to flee the bed unless he were dead. Just in case, the stereo alarm was set as a final measure: 9 a.m., the point when hope no longer mattered.

Zacarias struggled hard with himself, which is why he was an expert in alarm clocks. Days pulled too hard on him. Exhaustion petrified him. What could he do? Chug a mug full of cold coffee from the nightstand. Light the first SG Gigante cigarette of the day. It was like hotwiring his body just to start the engine: a point where Zacarias finally knew where he stood. And time began to exist again. First, to turn on the TV — news blasting, loud. Then, to crank up the stereo so he could hear it in the shower. A champion’s Dolby surround system allowed such indulgences — the entire building could hear it, the street too. Angry neighbours? Zacarias couldn’t care less. He had a thick skin. Cop or robber, or robber cop, it all depended on the perspective, the angle from which one viewed the character.

A hustler cutting through life’s waves; an undercover thug or a crooked cop — it was all in the eye of the beholder. It’s the same thing…

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Pedro Góis Nogueira
Pedro Góis Nogueira

Written by Pedro Góis Nogueira

Poems, short stories, essays and aphorisms | Poemas, contos, ensaios e aforismos.

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