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Ninja could be an ordinary nickname for a 42 year old man, except that this guy has been a drug addict for 20 years. Nowadays he lives in Olhão, in an abandoned house, this represents paradise to him, especially when compared to the several cells, which he lived in over the last two decades. He allows lots of people in his house, people like him… he’s had many women, but the only one that he truly loves is called Heroin. From every corner of his house there are stories growing… stories of some other life that permeate the emptiness of his life. Down the hall, the stairs might suggest a terrace and from this terrace with Olhao as his backdrop, every day, come rain or shine, he washes his body in an outdoor, improvised bathroom... but his soul has not been cleansed for years. A threadbare curtain limits the border between the backyard and what were once rooms. The doors asphyxiate him, so the only one that exists in his house is the front door that still opens for the others that wander around there. In an old sink, unwashed dishes pile up. It is off them that he eats the food that the charity of neighbours provide him with. But the truth is that he rarely feels hungry. The house that Ninja has chosen to live in is surrounded by a building with two floors. The windows have been damaged by the weather and neither one remains intact. Through the windows you can see an old backyard that has been overrun by weeds, a clear demonstration of how undisturbed nature develops through time. A wash basin makes me think about the life that once existed there. Everything else is desert… Everything else is silence. His handsome face has long gone and faded into his veins. The beard and the rebel hair disguise the marks of age and addiction. The skinny, yet defined body is the only trace of the martial arts that he once practised. His ego is wrecked and I can see shame through his eyes. He wears some brown trousers, his favourites, maybe because they are the only ones that he possesses. They hold his fragile body with a belt that he had found somewhere. Immune to the cold he exposes his torso, where his tattoos symbolize a permanent reminder of a time when dreaming was allowed – they are now fading as much as his lucidity. The constant coming and going of people in Ninjas’s house contrasts with the sterile environment of the scenario. Most of them are men, other “Ninjas”! They all have similar stories, most of them spent behind bars. The host greets his visitors with humility, sorrow and great embarrassment for the mess and the trash around him. Without any permission he took this place as his home about a year ago. The first room is really tight, barely possible to walk in. On one of the walls, there is a hanging picture of The Virgin Mary and two scarves of the national football team. On another wall, there is a round clock showing the correct time; however, for Ninja his time is measured by his next fix. Bumbo is walking in the street from one side to another. He is 22 years old, the youngest person that passes there. Like all of the others that wander in that house, he also calls heroin his lover. He looks really agitated. His voice echoes shallow words, indecipherable. Even inside the house it is possible to hear his slurred, mumbling speech. Maybe he’s having withdrawal symptoms, maybe his “mistress” is demanding another visit, and Bumbo, as always a faithful lover, will do anything, even move mountains to please “his lover”. Ninja’s table is like a little Babylon. Syringes, broken mirrors, lighters, condoms, ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts, plastic bottles and a razor, these all make up the decor of his table, where the owner sits, always and without fail facing the door. He has inherited habits from someone that doesn’t like surprise visits from the authorities. Next, in a closet that was once a fridge, he keeps some food. To preserve the food he uses a bottle of water that he freezes in a nearby butcher’s. By his side, two boys with an empty look, listen to him telling his life story, which is basically an echo of their own. Ninja does not dissimulate; he is completely honest about his crimes and his addictions. He lived nearly twenty years behind bars, where the sun lurked but didn’t shine. He knew almost every prison in the country. He has a blurred memory and often visiting the past is a painful exercise. He squints and thickens the tone of his voice whenever his time in prison is invoked. At night, when it’s really dark he drowns in chilling nightmares…which are always the same: he’s dragged into the dark by some narrow corridors, he’s violently stabbed in fights with other prisoners; in the bathroom he feels really sickened by the rapes; they submit him; the silence and the loneliness are deadly diseases. So he always wakes breathless, sweaty and anxious. There is no electricity in the house. Ninja doesn’t like sleeping in the bedroom, so he sleeps in the living room, because there he can see the backyard and feel the breeze that blows at night … there, he feels safe from the ghosts that haunt him. He sighs, he searches for sleep again and again; his sleep is always fitful. He lives in debt and the interest is too high. Stealing, drug-dealing and assault. He did it to help those who really needed it, so he claims! Limited to misery and desperate for a better life (that he never reached), he let himself be seduced by crime. For him, Hope is just a word corrupted by time – it could be the name of a girlfriend, but not even that… it only represents a blurred silhouette of a flame that vanishes over the horizon. He barely remembers the first time that he tried heroin. He searches for the memory of that moment, but still it is a little cloudy. He said that they had been dating for almost half his life, but she betrayed him from the first day, when they first met and he had smoked her. He didn’t keep the memory of the “first kiss”, instead he remembers the sickness that came upon him and how he felt really bad. From then on he felt even worse when she was not around. It was a relationship of: neither with you, nor without you. Her absence gave him cramps, chills, terrible pain all over his body. He tried other partners: pellets, grass, cocaine… but for none he had fallen so hard. It was an unconditional love! He spent his days thinking of ways to find her and ease his pain. She prevents him from loving anything else. Kills his dreams and desires. Wants him only to want her, but has other lovers… Some of them even invade Ninja’s house to taste her with him; others just look for the privacy that the street doesn’t provide. Few are the ones that can set themselves free. Heroin is their lives. Ninja follows the dealers in their routines so that they won’t be robbed and, in exchange, receives another dose. In the street he collects old objects to sell so he can have money to buy more drugs. The wanderers that pass by his house share with him portions of that “poisoned love”, and that’s how the cycle of the addiction works. While he keeps talking, there are more people appearing, who automatically hide in the back rooms, after a shy greeting. Ninja gives them one of the “kits” that MAPS (Portuguese institution that works with drug addicts) leaves in his house. Those “kits” include two syringes, two filters, two wipes, two acids portfolios, two ampoules of water and a condom. Everything they need for another date with his lover. Although they have no obligation, many of the visitors give Ninja coins in exchange for the “kits”. It’s just a symbolic way to express their appreciation of their host’s kindness; they know how rare it is to give up on that love. Even if they make it, they will always fall in her arms again, as irrational dependents of a destiny that has been long set in stone. The visits are short. Those lost souls have nothing; sometimes not even their names, just a nickname… just a whisper for what they answer to. They return to the light living room, a few moments after their arrival and then leave with a pat on the shoulder and a “thank you, brother”. They leave in a hurry for their next mission, which is to find a way to be alone again with their lover. So they will always come back, day after day, night after night, week after week, life after life... Their last shred of respect is for Ninja, the host, which has only one rule, “no sharing needles”. Bumbo comes thundering into the house invoking afflictions impossible to decipher. He punches Ninja’s table and everything falls to the floor. I finally understand that his anger is related to his lover, and no one can explain the situation. Ninja tries to calm him down, while some other boy regrets that someone as young as young as him got carried away with drugs like that – because after all, she “takes care” of them all. One hour has passed since the time I arrived here. Ninja tries to hide with smiles the disturbance that is growing inside of him. It’s time for another dose. Ninja leads Bumbo to the street and returns hopping with a smile on his face. Opens his mouth and searches with his fingers for the little packet that he had hidden inside - It’s the “brown” - he explains, after understanding the curiosity that my look reveals. He returns to his sit and doesn’t stop chatting while preparing the “soup”. Normally he shoots just one dose, but sometimes he risks two. He is not afraid of dying! Automatically he sticks the syringe into his vein and never stops talking. He does that with a frightening spontaneity. Respecting the slowness of the process which the ritual requires, he empties his syringe. When that process ends, Ninja refills the syringe sucking the blood of the vein and then shoots it into his body again. Now he is finally at peace.