Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho Read Free Book Online

outside a funfair. Since I can't afford to
     fritter my money away, I thought it best just to watch other people. I stood for a long time by the roller coaster, and I noticed that most people get on it in search of excitement, but that once it starts, they are terrified and want the cars to stop.
    What do they expect? Having chosen adventure, shouldn't
     they be prepared to go the whole way? Or do they think that the intelligent thing to do would be to avoid the ups and downs and spend all their
     time on a carousel, going round and round on the spot?
    At the moment, I'm far too lonely to think about love, but
     I have to believe that it will happen, that I will find a job and that I am here because I chose this fate. The roller
     coaster is my life; life is a fast, dizzying game; life is a parachute jump; it's taking chances, falling over and getting
     up again; it's mountaineering; it's wanting to get to the
     very top of yourself and to feel angry and dissatisfied when you don't manage it.
    It isn't easy being far from my family and from the
     language in which I can express all my feelings and emotions, but, from now on, whenever I feel depressed, I will remember that funfair. If I had fallen asleep and suddenly woken up on
     a roller coaster, what would I feel?
    Well, I would feel trapped and sick, terrified of every bend, wanting to get off. However, if I believe that the
     track is my destiny and that God is in charge of the machine, then the nightmare becomes something thrilling. It becomes exactly what it is, a roller coaster, a safe, reliable toy, which will eventually stop, but, while the journey lasts, I must look at the surrounding landscape and whoop with
     excitement.
    Although she was capable of writing very wise thoughts, she was quite incapable of following her own advice; her periods of depression became more frequent and the phone
     still refused to ring. To distract herself during these empty hours, and in order to practise her French, she began buying magazines about celebrities, but realised at once that she
     was spending too much money, and so she looked for the nearest lending library. The woman in charge told her that
     they didn't lend out magazines, but that she could suggest a few books that would help improve her French.
    'I haven't got time to read books.'
    'What do you mean you haven't got time? What are you doing?'
    'Lots of things: studying French, writing a diary, and
     ...'
    'And what?'
    She was about to say 'waiting for the phone to ring', but she thought it best to say nothing.
    'My dear, you're still very young, you've got your whole
     life ahead of you. Read. Forget everything you've been told about books and just read.'
    'I've read loads of books.'
    Suddenly, Maria remembered what Mailson the security
     officer had told her about 'vibes'. The librarian before her
     seemed a very sweet, sensitive person, someone who might
     be able to help her if all else failed. She needed to win her over; her instinct was telling her that this woman could
     become her friend. She quickly changed tack.
    'But I'd like to read more. Could you help me choose some books?'
    The woman brought her The Little Prince. She started
     leafing through it that same night, saw the drawings on the first page of what seemed to be a hat, but which, according to the author, all children would instantly recognise as a
     snake with an elephant inside it. 'Well, I don't think I can ever have been a child, then,' she thought. 'To me, it looks more like a hat.' In the absence of any television to watch, she accompanied the prince on his journeys, feeling sad whenever the word 'love' appeared, for she had forbidden
     herself to think about the subject at the risk of feeling suicidal. However, apart from the painful, romantic scenes between a prince, a fox and a rose, the book was really interesting, and she didn't keep checking every five minutes that the battery in her mobile phone was still fully charged
     (she was terrified