Chose a life in circuses
Jumped into the deepest end
Pushing himself to all extremes
Made it - people became his friend

Now they stood and noticed him
Wanted to be a part of it
Pulled out some poor machinery
So he worked till the pieces fit

I sit in the cockpit - the smallest place to be, tightly wrapped around the machinery, hearing nothing but the heavy sound of the motors all around me -and my mind goes blank for one brief second.

I'm no longer Marco Aurélio and Maria Alice's first son, Eleonora's dear husband. I'm no longer a Brazilian man in his thirties living in England; I'm no longer a man. I am part of this car, like a cog or the wheels. I am tied to the machine, I'm waiting to run away, beat the clock, and go faster than all the others.

The people were intrigued
His wife held back her fears
The headlines gave acclaim
He'd realized their dreams

I am Brazilian. I come from the "cradle of the kings" of Formula One - Fittipaldi, the Baron, Emmo the Great, the first Brazilian sovereign of racing. Piquet, the dear playboy, chasing Nigel Mansell and whoever else crossed his way, around the curves of Silverstone and Jacarepagua. Senna, the genius, the latest and the greatest of them all, gone too awfully soon

in a May morning. Da Matta, newcomer prince, calling attention, forcing the world to see him. Barrichello, "unlucky Rubens", talented man whose only fault was to be in the same place at the same time of one of the greatest pilots ever.

And now there's me. And all the eyes of my country are watching me, as I sit in this cockpit, as I wait for my turn to fly higher above their dreams. And then George comes to my mind.

Faster than a bullet from a gun
He is faster than everyone
Quicker than the blinking of an eye
Like a flash you could miss him going by
No one knows quite how he does it but it's true they say
He's the master of going faster

George, George Harrison, Hari Georgeson, Shy Beatle, Travelling Willbury - whatever you call him. George, who sang the glories of Emmo, Jack Stewart and Niki Lauda. George, my favorite Beatle, the one who loved racing so much he was taken into the circus of F1, loved here as one of us.

He didn't need that. The world loved him anyway - his songs, his life and times. But he was one of us too. When he was at the pit, watching everyone with dreamy eyes, he wanted to be one of us.  And to think the world wanted to be him for a moment, a Beatle, part of the demigods of music. Part of the dream.

And they didn't know that George Harrison too had a dream. Only those who could see his eyes as he gazed on the racing cars could notice that. He, too, wanted to go faster than the bullet. How dear I remember him. How much I miss him.

Now he moved into space
That the special people share
Right on the edge of do or die
Where there is nothing left to spare

Still the crowds came pouring in
Some had hoped to see him fall
Filling their hearts with jealousies
Crazy people with love so frail

Oh, I remember too well the times when I was forced to know how frail life was. First it was Senna, crashing his Williams at the Tamburello curve, at the San Marino Grand Prix, on the First of May. In a brief second, the latest and the greatest of them all was gone. All the greatest pilots came to São Paulo - Senna's hometown, my hometown - to pay their homages, to carry his coffin.

I was a young pilot then, and I remember how strange it was to run after that. Yes, the eerie feeling wore off, but never left. I carry it with me as a ghoulish memory - we dance with the death at every single curve. 

Then, one morning, George passed away as well. As people gathered around to cry for him, to mourn the thin, well-lived  life extinguished with three kind words - "love one another" - I remembered his dreams in his eyes. Once I was a young kid in Interlagos, São Paulo's racing court, in the Seventies; and I saw that tall, black-haired man in white Converses walking by the pit, looking at the cars. I didn't know he was a Beatle then. I didn't know what the Beatles were, then. I was just a young kid wanting to be like Lauda, Stewart, Fittipaldi.

And so was he.

Faster than a bullet from a gun
He is faster than everyone
Quicker than the blinking of an eye
Like a flash you could miss him going by
No one knows quite now he does it but it's true they say
He's the master of going faster

I sit in the cockpit - the smallest place to be, tight wrapped around the machinery, hearing nothing but the heavy sound of the motors all around me - and my mind goes blank for one brief second. Life is too frail, but it has to be lived or else it is just a waste of time and space. And that's how I live it. Faster than the bullet from the gun. That's what George taught me. That's what I believe.

Anna Carolina Fagundes was born in São Paulo, Brazil in January 1981, and has been writing Beatles-related fiction since 1997. Nowadays she's a journalist in her home country, planning to get a Masters Degree in Journalism abroad (probably England). She is also a songwriter, and is part of a rock duo called The Liverpool Affair with her fiance.

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