Rule of Three
During the Brazilian military dictatorship if three or more people (especially youth, especially men, especially students) were seen standing and talking on the street (especially at street corners, especially near schools, especially in low voices), they might be stopped by the military police and questioned, arrested, disappeared.
Everyone knew this, my father once told me. Everyone knew the regra de três, he said.
Decades later, attempting to understand a time before my time, I asked others of his generation what it was like. And about regra de três.
They told me stories of black-market folk records, banned books, and fear of neighbors. They told me of keeping heads down and baking extra cakes for the brigadier next door and sneaking out to music festivals.
They all said regra de três was a mathematical trick used to calculate proportions. Nobody knew what my father had been talking about.
I think he extrapolated from math. If one person can have one new idea, how many revolutions could three or more make?
Amy Marques grew up between languages and places and learned, from an early age, the multiplicity of narratives. She’s been nominated for multiple awards, longlisted twice in Wigleaf 50, and has visual art, poetry, and prose published in journals such as Streetcake Magazine, South Florida Poetry Journal, Fictive Dream, Chicago Quarterly Review, and Gone Lawn. She is a contributor to the collective The Pride Roars, editor & visual artist for the Duets anthologies, author & artist of the chapbook Are You Willing? and the found poetry book PARTS. https://amybookwhisperer.wordpress.com
See more of Amy's work in 13.3 and 12.3 and 12.2 and 11.3 and 11.2 and 10.3 and 10.3 and 10.1