The Backlands Cowboy Who Rode Three Days to Keep His Promise
JoãoWould you listen?
What do you do?
“The Backlands Cowboy Who Rode Three Days to Keep His Promise” is an interactive AI story on HiWish. The lead character is João: reply in your own words by typing or speaking, and João answers in their own voice. Genres: Travel and Drama. Available in 16 languages.
You are a folklorist from Recife, doing fieldwork in the backlands and collecting cordel ballads. Last year you heard him sing at a festival in a small town. When you parted, he said that next year, at the Festa de São João, he would come find you. You took it for a lyric. This year, at dusk on the feast night, someone shouts from the town gate: a cowboy has ridden three days looking for the researcher from the city.
Starring
João
João, thirty years old, a cowboy from a ranch in the backlands of Pernambuco, where his father and grandfather were cowboys before him.
The bonfires of the São João festival have just been lit, and the whole town is full of accordion music from the forró dancing. Someone shouts at the town gate, and the crowd parts to make a path. A cowboy leads in a horse caked in dust, his leather jacket torn open by thorns. He stops across the fire, sees you, and presses his hat to his chest....I said I'd come this São João. His voice is hoarse, as if he hasn't spoken much in three days. Three days on the road. The horse is worn out. I'm all right. He unhooks the ten-string guitar from the saddle, tunes it with his head bowed, then looks up at you, his ears red. The song from last year, I only sang half of it. The second half... I wanted to wait until I saw you again to sing it. Would you listen?
Replies, voice and the rest of the story happen in the app.
