RADIO UNIVERSAL: Love Among Soldiers

Dogs

2009-08-21T03:09:00.012-03:00

Woke up in the middle of the night with weird noises outside. Panting and rubbing sounds or so it seemed. The atmosphere was of a sullen and nervous kind, a fair warning of the terror it is to run into the Obscure Police at night. I came downstairs feeling nauseous and feeling it almost impossible to breathe. The phone rang. I rubbed my laptop's touch pad with my index, bringing it back to life. It was 3:35 a.m.. I decided to answer the phone. It was the Mayor, still up at that time of the night.

"There are two dogs in front of your house. Try not to look through the windows."

I told him I heard those panting and rubbing sounds and he agreed. Said I should by no means look through the window and hung up. I went back to my room, astonished and haunted. What was that supposed to be now? Why would Andrés call me at that time? Maybe he "saw" I was going to look around until I found the source of the panting and rubbing noises and had decided to warn me against doing it.

The noises were loud; too loud for the still of the night and too weird to let me sleep. i decided, against all advice to look and see at once what the hell that was all about. When I opened the window, it was morning already. When I turned around to go down ad see what was outside, I couldn't help but screaming in total astonishment: my nightstand was turned upside down, the armchair in the corner had been turned too not to mention my closet door had been ripped off its hinges.

I started feeling pain all over my body and sat down on my bed, trying to understand what happened. It was long past three thirty a.m. when I heard the weird noises outside. Andrés called me and told me there were two dogs in front of my house. I tried to sleep and ended up trying to peek, but it was morning already. Only I got all this mess in my room right now. I started to try to think of what happened between me waking up and opening the window. Or did it happen when I opened the window?

My God. I do remember it now. It was not in the morning when I opened the window. It was 3:40 a.m. at most.What I saw sent me back ricocheting against the walls and furniture in my bedroom as a massive rubber-band ball breaking everything my body could touch on its way. It was two black dogs, one smaller than the other. The larger one covered the figure of the other. The horror of seeing them in the middle of the night in that wilderness was what had sent me back like a firearm kickback.

By the window, I heard the sound of a horse approaching. I looked through the window afraid of looking through the window. The things you see when looking through the window here in Taurinos. To think I had always dreamed of a large window kitchen where I could cook looking at the fields and mountains for Mother Nature's inspiration, but my plans seemed to have all fallen through.

It was master Danilo. Left all that mess behind. I went down and started boiling water for coffee. The old countryman heard me with attention as I told him about my sleeping night. He was astonished and while he proposed to help me tidy up my room, said he himself had heard the noises next to his house. I asked him what time and he said it was well past three in the morning.

"Master Danilo it was more or less the same time it happened here!"

I was nervous and he perceived my impatience. After the story of the dog at Anderson's hardware store when a black dog came springing on me when I was inside Duílio's car already I caught myself nervous thinking of dogs and all of these spooky things.

"Do you remember, could you see what they were doing? I didn't have the nerve to look you see, I'm not curious about this kind of thing at all, you know."

"Only saw the dogs. It was too fast for my eyes to follow, it's the only thing I remember", I said, skimming the coffee.

He was in silence for some time. I was nervous with it all and with his silence.

"Were they a female and a male dog?"

I was ready to ask him how in the world he expected me to have noticed something so stupid but I did remember the two were male and asked myself how in the world I could remember something so stupid.

He was silent for some more time when I answered his question. I wondered now what the reason was for his thoughtful silence.

"A candy for your thoughts, master Danilo."

"The wintertime. They always come in the wintertime."

"Who comes?"

He turned his eyes to me as though I knew it already.

"The dogs, "sá" Stella", he said it serious.

"Is this good or bad?"

"Neither good nor bad, it is just something that the dogs choose to do. But it's among them, it is not something for you to be looking through the windows at. I told you before to avoid looking through the windows; sometimes it is best to simply go outside and look, it will do you less harm than otherwise, however weird it might seem to you."

He also told me I had to be wary of people looking at me through the windows from the outside of my house, especially the kids. As on the day Arthur stuck his head through my window to encourage me to open the gift he gave me. I told him what had happened the day before, with Aparecida fainting in her kitchen and Renan's double lunch.

He told me it was the vision of the kid framed by the net door on top of the issue that was being discussed that took her nervous system to such a high rotation it simply collapsed. I thought he might be so right there. When Adriano and I looked at the scene, Renan had already walked in the kitchen and was helping her back on her feet again.

"And of course he was annoyed of being called a spook. He probably heard it from you, from a part of your talk…" noted the old countryman.

"Yes, he probably did, it was a relaxed talk after all."

"And he is right, even so the kid is just another inhabitant of this town, "sá" Stella. He gets offended for being considered as something different, as a ghost. As "sêo" Duílio said, he is just one more of these brats that live in this town."

Out of the blue, Andrés and Adriano appeared at the kitchen's window, scaring the hell out of me and frightening even the old countryman. After scolding the two brothers, I offered them breakfast. They did accept it as castaways would. The Mayor looked at me and said, "of course you had to go and open the windows to look in the middle of the night", and still hadn't told him about the mess in my room (in case he hadn't still "seen" it by himself).

"I was telling her pretty much the same, plump fellow", the old countryman smiled a strange smile, one that tried to create a better environment where there's visibly no perspective of improvement. The kids were looking at him and he was looking at the kids, all of us in total silence. This silence began to annoy me as hell.

"What is this now supposed to be? Can anybody tell me what this new sensation is?"

"What?", asked the Mayor innocently as he picked up the coffee pot from the tabletop.

"Andrés Silva Conselheiro, don't be so ridiculous, what else are we fucking talking about????"

"Easy, Miss Grisam, it was just a joke… Easy!" The Mayor was pale in the face. He was scared with my emotional outburst. Master Danilo himself seemed very impatient with his childhood mate. I was nervous. Let them perceive it well.

I've been neurotic about these bizarre things happening in town all the time. Things that won't stop happening, driving you mad all the time. Why I decided to stay here was a question that had unfortunately ceased to have the need of an answer.

"Every end of winter, the black dogs start coming and do nobody knows what, because nobody has the nerve to look", explained Adriano, bringing up the theme of the end of the winter that master Danilo had begun with.

"Well, she dared to", said the Mayor pointing at me.

"How many dogs are they?", I cut him short brusquely.

"It's two in every one of Taurinos' houses", Andrés answered slowly and a bit afraid of my reaction, it seemed, not looking very directly at me.

"What do you mean?", I asked him astonished.

"Yes, there are two dogs outside each house. At the same time Andrés called you there were two in front of our house, yours, Arthur's and so it goes", added Adriano.

"I told you I had heard them next to mine too, "sá" Stella", confirmed the old countryman.

"But where do they come from???"

"we expected you to know and tell us", explained Adriano. The other two just nodded.

"Me???"

I was bewildered. Now it was me who was supposed to know everything. Well, why not, since I had created that town and everything that exists in in. How could I expect them not to expect me to know everything about it?

"I have no clue what it can be. You yourselves have told me more than I'd ever dream to know about it. Why do you think I know anything about something Andrés told me about a few hours ago at 3:30 something in the morning?"

Night, endless night over the mountains of Taurinos. From today's meeting, only master Danilo and I remained talking, for lost time. We went out to the porch, I turned on the light and the moths and other nocturnal little creatures had already started to land on the porch wall attracted by the light, casting weird and twisted shadows across the brick surface.

Cold was certain to be hellish tonight. Hardly had the Sun gone down it went cold as hell in town. Something typical of the Mantiqueira Ridge without matter and without a spirit we live on. A crystal-clear night and an absolutely cloudless awaited us outside.

I went inside for a coat as master Danilo ransacked his backpack in search of a leather jacket of his own. I brought out a thermos jug, cups saucers and the like for some coffee, dumped it all on the porch coffee table. Outside the limitless starry sky in this legendary and imaginary town.

We stared at the sky in respectful contemplation. For lost time. It should be seven, eight in the evening, but who'd care to count the time before the greatest show on Earth?

Distant sounds of horses that would sooner or later be here. I glanced at master Danilo and he brought his ear close to the ground as he always did to assess our security in the fields. Said it was probably the two kids, but that there was no reason to go in. We were looking at the sky as the horses came in a crescendo in the still of that night wilderness. Only the natural sounds and the still distant horses were heard.

The two stopped at my gate and waved at us. I glanced at master Danilo and the two lads waved at us again, as though they were calling us. The old countryman seemed all cautious as I told him I was going to talk to the police officers.

"I don't like how their looks feel, calling us like that, from a distance, "sá" Stella", he declared.

"They're only inhabitants of this town, remember? Only some brats who live in town."

As we approached the gate I got those old chills coming up and down my spine, chills that only grew in intensity as the light of the porch got lost in the outer shadows of my land. Sometimes I thought of putting up a post at the gate for better lighting. Sometimes I thought if it was worth it. Sometimes I thought if answering a call from the Obscure Police at night was worth it.

The two never got off their horses, as if horses and boys were one piece only. The look of the two was shady, charged, fluorescent, still more by the penumbra the end of the porch light let in.

""Sá" Stella, don't you go any closer than that", the old countryman advised me.

"You two can come to the gate, there's no problem", said Renan's tiny voice. A mild tiny voice, obscure and shady as the night around us. The darkness made me nervous in that moment.

"What do you want?"

"We're telling people not to leave at night on account of the dogs that have been appearing in town, you know", explained the elder policeman.

"What about these dogs after all? Are they dangerous?"

"Did you see them dogs?", asked the younger policeman.

"Just a glimpse through the window."

"You could find yourself in deep trouble just by looking through the windows, you know", the elder policeman was talking to me again.

"I found myself in a big one this morning."

The eyes of the two were horrible at that time in that penumbra. The old countryman avoided looking directly at them. I stared, fascinated by that vision of the two in black, getting mingled with the darkness around them and the white of their eyes that was fluorescent in that moonless night darkness; my insistent stare made the two glance at each other. They asked me to find accommodation for master Danilo in my house and insisted that he should sleep over. Needless to stay we accepted the suggestion right away.

"Is it alright with you? Can you possibly stop staring at us like this?", asked Renan, seeing that I couldn't get my eyes off him and his partner.

Moony

2009-08-20T02:50:00.007-03:00

The phone rang. It was Donana, asking whether I had met Renan the night before. I said I did in the fields while I was watching the night sky. As everyone else in town, she wanted to know what made me stay in the fields at night watching the sky. I explained we had to spare some time to just do nothing, and so forth. She seemed not to have understood a thing just the same.

Still she changed subjects saying her son was moony as she had never seen. I said I always thought of Renan as something between an armored car and a soap bubble. Very mighty and very fragile, ready to explode at the slightest contact. She didn't grasp it at first but ended up agreeing with my vision.

"And they stopped at your side to stare at the sky too?"

"They were there with me for the remainder of the night, silent. All night without a word. They looked hypnotized."

"Don't you think it can do them harm? Never seen Renan doing this kind of thing, Miss Grisam"

"Well it might not do them good, but it sure will do them no harm, Donana."

"What do you think they do at night?"

"Well, don't they chase the outsiders or whatever out of town?"

"But is it all?", Donana inquired.

"I wouldn't say it's all. I think it must be hell doing what they do at night. If this does them no harm, what would watching the sky do?"

There was an extended pause on the other side of the wire. Then Donana said goodbye, said she had things in the oven. It was really ten in the morning, a time when women traditionally started cooking for lunch so it could be on the table by noon.

I dropped by the farm Taurinos a bit later. Andrés was at the Town Hall dispatching documents. Documents of what, seems there was nothing else to do in this town, there was never a street in bad conditions, never something missing or in need of repairs. Aparecida, Adriano and I were in the kitchen talking while I helped Aparecida with the cooking.

"And so she called you to ask you about the boy?", Aparecida inquired, absorbed in slicing kale so finely that I couldn't help but being afflicted by the thought she'd slash here fingers doing it.

"Actually she wanted to know if I had been with him", I answered as I went about slicing cucumber.

"Had you?", asked Adriano.

"Yes, the two showed up out of the blue in the fields…"

"Miss Grisam! Holy mother of God!", the woman was appalled at the very thought.

"But no, they weren't in armor, they were only in black and covered with blood", I answered trying to refrain from a seizure of laughter and making the Conselheiros' matriarch cross herself, "odd, they never said a word and we were there for the whole of the night in total silence…"

Adriano frowned and assumed an expression of one thinking deeply.

"So they didn't go there to scare you this time?", Aparecida asked.

"Well, it frightens you always a little bit, because I was alone and we always think they are coming in armor. But I didn't hear anything strange as I approached my ear from the ground…"

"For Mithra's sake, don't you ever do it, Miss Grisam! They say it's no good to hear them two approaching at night ear close to the ground…"

"Well, it's no good but better than sticking the ear to the ground anyhow, mom", said her eldest son, "if someone does it it is because they want to go insane, deaf or both, no?"

"Oh, there isn't a single thing I like about this talk… Can't we just change subjects?"

There was a pause, but it hadn't been five seconds since her request and Adriano and I heard her scream. When we turned our eyes to the scene, Renan was at her side, all in black, grumpy, staring serious at us, helping the poor woman back on her feet again. Adriano ran to his mother and got the little policeman rid of her weight. Renan was strange and shady as hell. Not that he wasn't usually strange and shady, but it was a different strange and shady look this time. I would never know how to explain but it filled my spine with chills.

"I hate it when you go talking about me and my partner as if we were spooks", he said in a tone that was as strange and shady as his looks.

"But you do like to frighten people, no? You're proud of how terrible you are", retorted Adriano still bringing his mother back to consciousness.

"Fuck you! I'm no spook, you hear me? I'm a lad as anyone else in this town!"

I signaled to Adriano so he could let the boy speak. I could see the moment when the boy was going to get armed in front of us and it would be hell on earth. Not to mention what would happen to Aparecida; the very subject was enough to get her all startled. The very sight of the brat all in black made her collapse to the floor.

"What's brought you here, Renan?", Adriano asked when the brat seemed to have relieved a bit of his emotional pressure.

"I came to ask you if I can have lunch with you today."

And he stayed for lunch. He was waiting and I called Adriano for some private words; asked him to take me t the farm Teixeira. He didn't get it, but took me anyhow. I couldn't believe Aparecida was brave enough to stay alone with Renan in her kitchen.

We got in the farm Teixeira and Donana came to welcome us. She invited us for lunch. I said we only wanted to talk to Renan, but followed me as we walked in the family's dining room. Renan was the first one to see and he beamed at us.

"You could have called first. So much trouble coming here."

Adriano stared at me, eyes wide open. Apparently the story of the aspects haunted him too. When we went back to the farm Taurinos, Renan and Aparecida were already having lunch. Obviously they had decided not to wait for us. Renan again told me I could have phoned him.

"If you asked me I'd have told you I was having lunch with my family" he observed, half shy, half murky.

At his side, Aparecida was none the wiser. I quickly changed subjects to avoid another collapse of the Conselheiros' matriarch. We talked a lot and Renan seemed especially amused by our talk and gave his contributions too. He was less and less shady as the meal progressed. At the end of the lunch, alone with him and Adriano on the porch I asked him why the heck he would want to have lunch in two places at once, places that were at least five kilometers far one from the other.

"We were too silent at my family's table today. I was sad."

Adriano and I glanced at each other. At the farm's gate, an unidentified car stopped and delivered Duílio at home, late for lunch.

Stargazing

2009-08-19T02:10:00.013-03:00

Downtown with Adriano buying for the month at the Souza's Serve Well To Serve For Life. I make a point of carrying all of the bags, he only has to drive. I found I gave too much trouble to the family already with my requests for staple transportation. The youth loved to drive so he agreed and even proposed to take me every month. Duílio wouldn't take long to agree, a sign that either he trusted his elder a lot or was fed up with my requests. I hoped for the first alternative but since I had Adriano as a helping hand I wouldn't need to pester Duílio any longer.

Adriano and I went to Zé of the Depths to eat. Incredible, he even had Minas cheese pastries and all that jazz. The snack window on the counter didn't look like a toothless mouth this time. We walked in without noticing a table in the background. We crossed the bar and sat at a table beside that one. I felt a chill up my spine that bothered me but it was something at first I could not identify. I started moving my eyes slowly to my left side. Anderson was sitting at the table in the darkest corner of the bar, exactly by our side. If I reached out I could touch him. Adriano saw him and stood up from the table with his pastries and a bottle of Coke.

"I'll be waiting in the car", he growled, not happy with the company. Anderson was silently looking at him as he got out of the bar heading for the car. His eyes fell on me as soon as Adriano disappeared from his field of vision.

"How much do I owe you for the work on the lock?", it was the first thing I asked him.

"I've told you, you've paid for the lock already."

"So what you mean is that every time you got to fix something in my house this will be the price to pay? Nightmares and having you come out of your store as a black dog out of the blue? There's no Procon here, but there's the Council of Taurinos' Ancient Society."

"Next repair will be charged in money, I promise", he was quick to act.

"I hope so."

I got out of the bar with my things and went to eat in the car with Adriano. I wasn't angry with Anderson. I was in fact a bit afraid of him.

At night, went out on my own. Went to a field nearby to gaze at the night sky, spend some moments enjoying the beautiful starry skies of Taurinos. I opened a mat on the ground, sat down and let myself be absorbed by that wonder. The Southern Cross, the Air Pump, Coma Berenices. How many more constellations could I ever spot?

It hadn't been half an hour since I had gotten to that spot when I heard a distant murmur. In time, it grew clearer and I could tell what it was. Horses. As usual I wouldn't take long to have company. And it was likely to be bad company.

I wasn't moving. If those kids kept on playing these tricks, I'd bring them to Council myself. I was so sick of all of that. The horses came closer but unlike the other occasions, the sound of the night wouldn't die away. As carefully as I could I bent over and placed my ear near the ground. Nothing strange. The horses came closer and closer. I set my ear exactly on the ground against all recommendations from master Danilo and the Obscure Police itself. Again, nothing strange. The horses came closer and closer; now they could be seen, weren't they coming from somewhere behind me.

As usual, the horses slowed down as they approached me. I had the impression I heard a metal clash somewhere and the sounds of two people walking, one at each of my sides. They sat down. I looked at my left side with the corner of my eyes and there Anderson was, sitting. On the right side it was Renan. None of them said a word. I was in silence myself. The fact that on such vast fields the two would stop exactly by my side seemed to stubbornly mean something to me.

I didn't remember spending so long with those kids without a word like that. It was or seemed to be hours there. After a period that seemed an eternity, the policemen rose from the ground and once on their horses, disappeared in the last darkness of the night that preceeds the dawn as silent as they had appeared.

It hadn't been half an hour since they left when I saw the day's first break. I stood up, folded the mat and saw blood splats on the grass the two had been sitting upon. That indicated that their night had been hectic. I figured the time stargazing did them good. And like them, I took the long way home too.

The figure of the dog

2009-08-18T19:08:00.013-03:00

First it was the void. Then my body falling into the void, a chasm far beyond the wildest descriptions I could ever gather. An infinite chasm where I kept falling non-stop, a horror scream choked in my throat, unable to find a way out of it.

I woke up, don't know how I woke up from that and was sitting on my bed enjoying the sensation of horror and unreality of the post-sleep moment. When I moved my left leg an object almost pierced me. A screwdriver on my bed. How would it end up here?

Went down to the lower floor. The window facing the porch was ajar. Tried to open the door. It was locked. Locked??? That door had never been locked since the construction of the house. The lock was not the same anymore. I went to the window to look and stepped on something sharp, metallic that nearly pierced my bare foot. A key, on a key-chain on the floor. I tried it in the new lock and it worked smoothly and effortlessly. Went out to the porch and there was no one out there. A cold wind of a Sun half obscured by clouds plagued me for a while. I walked back in, shut the door but didn't lock it and went to the kitchen to make coffee. It was nine and something in the morning.

While I had coffee, master Danilo dropped by. I offered him coffee and he had hardly sat down to drink it when I went on to tell him about the horrific dream, the screwdriver on the bed and the change of the front door's lock. He heard me attentively and in time started to frown.

"The locksmith came to work, solved your problem with the lock and caused you some sleep disturbances", said the old countryman with no shadow of a doubt as he spoke.

"Do you think that…"

"I'm sure. He came here, fixed the lock and spent good time in your room strangling you. It was what I told you happened to my grandpa when he told me of Jurupari."

Anderson was checking some merchandising at the store's entrance at the end of the afternoon when Duílio turned the car to enter the square and parked the car by the curb on the side of the street. Master Danilo and I got off the car, Duílio stayed in waiting. Anderson beamed as he saw us but saw his smile met no correspondence.

"Did you like the new lock?", he asked a bit embarrassed, glancing at master Danilo and me alternately.

"Loved it. What I didn't like about it was the price."

"Ah, I wouldn't do it for the money", he beamed again.

"Only for the sheer pleasure of squeezing my throat would you do it, wouldn't you?"

His beam disappeared definitively now. He stared silently at me and then resumed his checking of his merchandise, "you sometimes speak too much."

Master Danilo and I glanced at each other.

"Yup, that is what I have always heard about Adriano, remember? By the way, his family only hasn't called you saints."

Anderson was silent. I told him that either I spoke too much or they'd admit to what they did too little. I asked him if they had expected me to be silent about their idiocy during the Jamboree. He wouldn't reply and only looked up on his clipboard for data. I handed him the screwdriver I had found on my bed. He snatched it from my hand, embarrassed and nervous and walked into the store to put the tool away.

"They are taking the matter to Council?", now he looked worried when he returned to the front of the store, "because if they are…"

"Are you going to reopen the case of the Celestial Gardener?"

Anderson was silent again. He now saw master Danilo and I were one step beyond their plan B. He asked us to go because he had already messed his calculations twice. The old countryman seemed willing to cooperate, but I intended to speak with the blacksmith some longer.

Anderson saw I wasn't going to leave so soon and beamed at me. A luminous smile, luminous and weird as hell, deforming the edges of his face, from edge to center turning all of his face into a horrific, grotesque and twisted smile from the ugly face I knew from so many nights on duty.

I got lost in the dead light of that beam until it got mixed with another and all of a sudden I had Duílio and master Danilo shaking my head as I collapsed on one of the square's benches.

"Eh, "sá" Stella, sometimes the time to go is sooner than we expect…"

"What do I do here, I want to go back there, talk to…"

"You're nuts, you're not going back there, let's get out of here before he decides to come to the square."

People started to gather to help or simply see what was going on; I feared they formed a circle around me. I looked at the hardware store entrance and in its inner penumbra, I had the impression of having seen a dog or something to that effect. There was no dog at the store.

"What dog is that one at the entrance of the store?", I asked the two as I rose from the bench, "this is why I tell you we must get out of here soon, for instance, right now", said Duílio opening his car's door and tucking me in. I wanted to open the window, but Duílio was faster and closed it again.

A black mass sprang from the inside of the store (spreading the people at the square all over like they were pigeons and they screamed running to the surrounding streets) and smashed its face and nose against the glass of the window I had wanted to open. A black dog. A monstrous one.

Desperately, Duílio maneuvered the car onwards brusquely hitting the dog on its side and making it almost go over the car, falling at our back. I never knew Duílio to drive so fast in the narrow streets of the town. We took no more than ten minutes to be back on the farm Taurinos safely.

Night fell over Taurinos. I asked Duílio to drive me home directly. I offered master Danilo to sleep over and he ended up agreeing to, so frightened he still was. When we got to the gate in front of my house, chills filled the spines of the three of us: there was a black horse tied to my house's gate. Duílio glanced at us interrogatively, master Danilo and I glanced at Duílio as interrogatively as he did. Renan? He didn't have the keys of my house. There was no one in front of the house, there seemed to be no one at the porch either. Unless they were behind…

…or inside the house.

Master Danilo, Duílio and I got in by the other side of the fence, avoiding to pass near that horse. The light of the stars was the only light in that dark pathway to my porch. We approached the house slowly using nothing more than our eyes used to the dark of the night to see through the path. No one at the porch.

I turned on the porch's light and the moths and other nocturnal little creatures had already started to land on the porch wall attracted by the light, casting weird and twisted shadows across the brick surface. I turned the key as slow as I could. The two men watched me in astonishment as I did it. I opened the door very slowly too. Turned on the room light and there he was, sitting in an armchair in the dark.

Knowing beforehand it might be him didn't soothe the impact of seeing him in the penumbra of my room. He had a key-chain in his hand. Said it was extra keys in case I needed them and dropped them on the coffee table. He stood up and went away, passing the men that stared more astonished than before. I went out to the porch to talk to him but there was no one there anymore. Neither he nor his horse were there any longer. Not even a sound of a horse departing and galloping away.

"He went home, "sá" Stella, or on Police duty, since he is in black", said master Danilo as he saw me back in the room. Duílio still had his eyes as big as saucers while he crossed himself madly on the couch.

I told Duílio that he could wait until coffee was ready. He did. We were talking about today. I insisted that what I saw leaving the store was a black dog. They said they had never said it was not. Said what they really doubted was that Anderson had any dog at his store.

"So the big dog which sprang from inside the store was…"

"It was, Miss Grisam. This is why I was crazy to get out of the place. Didn't you see the crowd being spilled all over like they were beans? That's what the people say, a horse, a dog or a duck, these things."

"If didn't shut the car window he'd get in the car, "sá" Stella; well it would be hell if he made it past the window. He's just passed me by and see the chills will never end."

"And he is just one of these boys that live in this town, that's all he is", added Duílio.

Whirlpool

2009-08-17T00:58:00.015-03:00

Adriano dropped by home today. Said his mother wanted to come but sent him first to see if it was possible. I told him old friends like us needed no frills like those.

Aparecida showed up a bit later, followed by Duílio. So I thought to myself now I realized it had been a week or so since we last talked. I stayed home like I had been grounded by invisible forces. Went places, but not to the farm Taurinos. So the mountain had to come to Mohamed.

"The event was so pretty", Aparecida was telling me, "never seen such polite youths in my life. They'd help me even with the chores in the kitchen, can you believe it?"

"I do believe you", and I remembered the scout Renato, his love of his honor and his correctness. Poor child wasting his precious time in this absurd town.

"And there were songs they sang", and she hummed The Tree In The Wood and some other lullabies, "they held some very pretty ceremonies there. The kids engaged in archery, so many things happening at the same time you wouldn't believe", and she sounded enthusiastic about the event.

Duílio said he had found it strange that I wouldn't be on the farm Taurinos any of the days during the event. Told him I felt much the same. That the presence of the scouts here twisted everything.

"I mean it in a good sense, but it changed everything in my routine", I played it by the ear to see what the talk would develop into.

The couple and Adriano eventually said they didn't understand why Andrés only returned home the day before. Asked me if he had been here all this time. I said he sometimes escaped to the Town Hall, but that he stayed here most of the time.

"Miss Grisam, he promoted the event and wasn't even there", explained Adriano, "we had to stand for him during the event, it sucked big time. It was a pretty event and all, but wasn't it weird that the host and his group did not appear?"

At this point, I started to think if I should tell them that Andrés and Bruno, as well as each and every scout in his group remained here because someone did them the favor of locking them in time within the first or second day of arrival, a day on which they should stay here and wait for the Jamboree to begin. And all of this probably due to the argument between the scout Renato and the fearsome duo downtown. I ended up telling them all about it. The Obscure Police didn't even ask me to keep it secret anyhow. The Conselheiros didn't like a speck of my account, however small. I made them see the boys from Taurinos played their games among themselves and we were always in the middle of the whirlpool.

"See if we get it from the beginning it was Andrés and Renan together up to their necks in that story of the Celestial Gardener with Arthur getting at them", I explained what my theory was, "now it's Andrés and Bruno together up to their necks in this story of the Jamboree. The actors change, though the game is always the same: rules of one are broken and one tries to fight back. In the case of the Celestial Gardener I needed nothing more than going into the Sanctuary to set the wheel in motion. In the case of the Obscure Police master Danilo needed nothing more than saying chupacabras invaded my land to get things down and running. It is much like an uncontrollable and permanent feud of all against all, where what is the least important is the reasons why, and the most important thing is the feud itself."

"My good Mithra! Chupacabras, Miss Grisam? Like those in Varginha?", asked Aparecida, frightened. I explained to them what had happened and what had been arranged with the Obscure Police. The feeling of strangeness of the scouting group and the promise master Danilo and I made to each other of not letting the scouts find out about the weird happenings in town. What was just like trying to empty the sea, with some five hundred people coming to and fro within the rural area of Taurinos. Adriano didn't like my explanation much, it seemed.

"Master Danilo and I had to make up an excuse very quickly", I added, "Renan learned about his excuse somehow and made his own mountain out of a molehill from that fact. As if it were revenge for the time in the Sanctuary or even his old dislike of the nicknames he's given as the Obscure Police itself, you see. But it's all just like Duílio said the other day, those brats are always fighting for no reason at all and we just keep getting caught in the middle of this whirlpool."

The Conselheiros didn't know what to do, this was clear to me. The anger was the anger they naturally nourished against Renan and now Anderson, the newest "millennial" member of the Obscure Police. Other than that, it was like they themselves were trapped in that same feeling of stupor the scouts all fell prey to. Would it be the Obscure Police bringing time to a stop again?

"These children are all deranged, and we don't know what to do anymore", said an uncomplaining Duílio.

Duílio does his part, beating his two little creatures to a pulp whenever "necessary". This has never solved any problems, "sêo" Octávio beating Renan to a pulp has never solved any problems; what good would it be after all? Where would it end? Because they knew nothing would solve the problem, the parents preferred to vent their spleen on the kids whenever they felt they "needed" it (though I'm against beatings, sometimes I can't crucify the parents for that — at least not like the Obscure Police crucified Taurinos' ex-Mayor some ten days ago).

"What are going to do?", asked the patriarch.

"I'd love to take the Police to a Council", affirmed the Mayor's elder brother.

"What for? You'll put Renan working with cattle with Andrés or paying communitarian service at the Town Hall for two weeks or two months, then it happens all over again?", I questioned the solutions of the land to these issues though I had no better ideas myself.

"I don't know if it's going to be any good, but it is for sure better than letting them get away with it, no?", declared Adriano, upset with my questioning.

The young constructor was such a sweet teenager, but had a history of conflicts with me that was worth considering no matter what I said to him. However, I told him that he was right: the humblest of punishments was far better than just no punishment at all.

"I too agree with my son. If we can't stop them from doing what they do let's at least make them see that what they do has its consequences", declared Aparecida, supported by her husband. The Conselheiros seemed in agreement on this issue.

Andrés appeared soon after. He wasn't very enthusiastic about taking the officers to Council. Even advised us against it. We all wanted to know why. He never explained his reasoning beyond two or three superficial reasons.

Would it be because Renan considered him a traitor for joining Bruno with such a nature-oriented purpose after the "humanization" of the bulls in the very dawn of Taurinos? Because he didn't want to further the policeman's irritation since Renan already considered him a traitor? Eventually I gave up raising those mysterious and ancient points with Aparecida so close and so prone to fits and faints.

"There's a point we haven't looked at", I added, "what if there's punishment for Renan and Anderson for that reason (and for the crucifixion of the ex-Mayor too) and what if Renan accepts it but calls for punishment for the Celestial Gardener too? After all the Gardener left signs of a garden I told him to remove entirely from my house and this was seen by the scouts who made it a campsite during the event. By the way, he'd be right in invoking something like this and I'd support him on this one, if you ask me. If there was no punishment for the Celestial Gardener, why punish the Obscure Police?"

"Lend your ears to this voice of wisdom", recommended Andrés. Funny things was, it didn't sound as a satire or mocking, he did speak serious. Like me, he seemed to understand the implications of it all.

"And maybe that's even their plan after all", Andrés went on in mild voice, "as on the day Renan had it out with Anderson at the Mithraeum. He played to lose, because he wanted to drag the locksmith to the chasm together with him. What if he's thinking of doing the same with the Celestial Gardener? Who can assure he's not? Who knows what goes on on that little mind?"

Master Danilo showed up a bit after and found it strange to meet the whole of the Conselheiro clan reunited in my house. But said that in spite of the harm done he agreed with Andrés none of them should be taken to Council. He agreed with Andrés' theory it might be their plan, said it was perfectly possible, "we don't know what has remained loaded there from the time of the Sanctuary punishment and then there was Andrés joining Bruno and it might have been like treason to him. I'm not even speaking about the ancient times, but right from this episode of the Celestial Gardener recently."

There was a huge, almost eternal limitless pause.

Leutenant

2009-08-16T03:39:00.013-03:00

I woke up from one of the most frightening nightmares I had ever had. I turned on my bedside lamp, appalled and there was a black thing on my bed looking like a weird protuberance amid the sheets. I rose, frightened with that and was just about to scream when the protuberance or whatever it was, looked me in the eyes and screamed on its turn.

Then, I discovered the origin of the nightmares. It was Renan. Sleeping with me on my bed. He explained he had had a nightmare so he came to sleep in my bed. I thought he'd gone home, but he had slept here instead, the 'lil devil. This is why I had the fucking harsh nightmare. I was looking at him as he spoke, sleepy, but still scared with the nightmare. And he remained there. Talking to me. A tiny nightmare that hadn't even taken off his boots to sleep.

"I don't want you to sleep in your boots", I said severely and the little black thing shrunk. Took off his boots and let himself fall on the bed again. I stroked his head slightly, thinking of the reality of those people outside trapped on any day almost a week away from us now. I got up, left the boy fallen on the bed and went to make coffee. When I came down to the kitchen, ran into the other policeman sleeping on the couch. I was well-guarded and the nightmares were only collateral damages of having the two little monsters sleeping in my house at once. I didn't wake Anderson up, but didn't try to be silent as I did the things I usually do when I make coffee. The blacksmith woke up spontaneously and apologized for not telling me beforehand they were going to sleep here.

When coffee was ready, we heard Renan coming down the stairs. We were having breakfast in silence for some time.

"What are going to do now?", inquired the blacksmith breaking the spell of silence.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm going to eat some more cheese-bread", asserted Renan, with his usual tiny luminous smile.

"I'm talking about the scouts, Renan; this problem with their time still like this", Anderson was impatient with his partner.

"Beats me! Andrés and Bruno bring this bunch of hipsters to town, fall in the same spell as the others and there's still a garden that is here and is not here that is a work of the two other hipsters, of my elder brother too that is another fucking hipster."

The little boy voiced my thoughts. Master Danilo arrived and joined the Dunno Club here at home. The old countryman himself couldn't think of anything noticeable.

At about six o'clock, I paid a long overdue visit to master Danilo at the traditional time we once set for visits in his house. The house had changed a lot; it was a house more in the sense of its masonry now. CEMIG's standard electricity post in front of his house. I even brought my laptop, counting on the electricity. The old countryman wasn't expecting me so soon and was happy with the surprise.

"Now come on inside, "sá" Stella", he said beaming, "I was just about to boil some water for coffee."

And he showed me the power-points in his house, the electric bulbs now everywhere, happy as he was with his new source of light. He told me now he could spend more time reading.

"Kriosene lightens well, but you haven't a clue they dirty everything; all around you is a mess." And he smiled again.

"And what now, master Danilo?", I asked bringing the subject back to the order of the day.

He was silent for a while. Eventually he said he had been thinking of what could have happened and that he came to no conclusion. It might be everything and it might be nothing, he said. I agreed. With a town this chaotic as Taurinos has always been, there might come a day when a knot is going to lock over town and we are finally going to run out of absurd solutions to our problems and the know won't unlock anymore. The old countryman agreed there was a possibility that this could happen, thought the idea simply frightened the hell out of him.

Coffee was ready and we drank in silence for some time. Master Danilo looked at me in a weird fashion and told me he had been examining his memory and that one of the things that happened on the day the scouts arrived in town was exactly that we had arranged for me to visit him in his newly-reformed house. I remember that we really did, something I ended up doing in such a spontaneous fashion. He said that from everything he could remember it was one of those really different things that happened on that day.

Night was beginning to fall and we suddenly heard the gallop of horses out there in the distance. I glanced at master Danilo. The two horses stopped in front of master Danilo's house and I was going to take a peek at the window when the countryman pulled me back by the arm.

"Never look through the window with a sound of horses at this time of night. The window frames whatever is outside with a lot of crispness and gives you a view just like it is one of these magnifying lenses. It was what happened when you saw Renan once through the window at your porch, remember?"

"So what do we do?"

"We wait", he whispered with his left index on his lips.

The horses had stopped. The sensation was that of the heavy stuffy air we had experienced so many times. An unbreathable air, when everything around us, coffee-pots, firewood stove, bulbs seemed to come to life, but of a different and morbid kind. The old countryman crossed himself.

"Master Danilo! Do come outside, let us talk!", the voice was that kind of deep bass vomit of a voice passed through a grinder and wrapped in the sound of hundreds of gasoline drums coming downstairs. It was Anderson speaking. I thought: what the hell would they want with master Danilo in that aspect? In that specter?

"You can open up now, master Danilo we're no longer armed", now it was Renan's tiny voice, "I even brought cheese-bread; you don't deserve it, but I did bring some", he said as he walked in, showing us a white handkerchief, "to celebrate your decision of finally coming to visit master Danilo's new home."

"Renan, there are at least twenty loaves of cheese-bread in that bag", laughed Anderson, glancing at master Danilo and me mischievously.

Master Danilo and I glanced at each other clueless. At least I did not understand a thing whereas he seemed to know a bit of what was being talked about.

"Master Danilo we highly respect you and your wisdom. You weren't dissing us with that chupacabras thing, were you?"

"Thought we had already discussed that, Renan", I made an attempt.

"You were wrong. But you did it right when you decided to visit master Danilo. The scouts have just left town", retorted Renan, "I'd only liberate them from their time if you decided to pay master Danilo a visit and now that you're here, they're gone. Your 'lil friend was crying as he stepped on the bus. I guess he didn't believe he lost seven days here n this town."

"So it was you all the time", the old countryman refused to believe what he heard.

"And they were in my house earlier today pretending to worry about the kids' fate out there on my lawn, can you believe it?"

Like the old countryman, I still refused to believe the two had held the scouts back on the day they first set foot here for a Jamboree. I was staring at the two boys in black while they rehearsed their best giggle, something typical of those tiny Mineiros. Infuriated, I said they should go away. Anderson replied I was not in my house.

"Neither is she nor are you, mister!", the old countryman cut him short, "this is hardly the way you treat your elders, sô Anderson! You've heard her, get your things and go."

They rose from the chairs "next time we're called any nickname whatever it is, things are going to boil in town, this I promise", growled Renan, snatching the cheese-bread bag from the table and going out sulky, followed by his loyal (and also sulky) lieutenant.

I was puzzled when I understood they had held time still until I came to visit master Danilo. The countryman said he had commented about the idea of the visit to them on the same day it came about, but would never figured out Renan and Anderson got it and used it as a limit for their curse of time. Because no one would ever imagine Renan and Anderson would get it and use it as a limit for their curse of time.

Circe

2009-08-15T01:31:00.016-03:00

Renato told me he couldn't wait until the Jamboree started. Miguel woke up early today. I saw him out of the tent at about eight. Offered him and Renato some coffee but they turned it down as usual, telling me they had already eaten. Andrés was nearby overhearing our conversation and told me he needed to talk to me. He had a certain laziness showing all over his body, a stupor I couldn't identify or classify. In the kitchen while I had (and he scavenged) some coffee he told me it was time for his scouting group to move to the stage of the Jamboree at last.

"When does the event start at all? I thought it was already going on…"

"Tomorrow", he took off his glasses and started cleansing the lenses slowly, like in slow motion, as he stared at me.

"God, it seems it's been days it should have started… Oh well…"

I was wondering whether I had already asked him about the event's starting date. Something didn't match anything at all. I already thought of my house as Circe's refuge. A sorcerer whose house no one had ever managed to leave. Echoes of Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel in his Exterminating Angel? Echoes of English writer William Golding in his Lord Of The Flies?

Even master Danilo was astonished when he learned the scouts still hadn't left my house for the Jamboree. But I remembered I had seen the scout Renato downtown. The leader of the scouts had never left it here. Not even when he was abducted by the Caipora in his eternal pursuit of cigarettes, but the scout really had. I remembered it had been already a week since I last went to the farm Taurinos myself. The old countryman seemed not to get the hang of anything at all. I myself seemed not to get the hang of anything at all.

Questioned, Renato left his circle of fellow scouts and joined us for a while. I asked him subtly what he thought of my house. I didn't know but I wasn't prepared to hear what he had to say to me. Neither was master Danilo.

"Wondrous", he replied, "I'm not sure if I have already told you how beautiful I think your garden is. I still haven't managed to explore it all and I don't think I'll have the time to."

He beamed a luminous smile as the children here usually do. Master Danilo and I nearly broke our necks when we glanced at each other, "you said garden?", we asked.

"Yes, this beautiful garden you got, falls, bridges and all", he nodded. Miguel walked up close and praised the garden like there was tomorrow too. Master Danilo and I couldn't stop glancing at each other. I asked the leader about today's date. He asked me why I cared so much about full dates and I came up with a story of a memory problem.

"Today's January the 24th 2011", he informed me shrugging, almost at the same time as the scout Renato, "can't wait until the Jamboree starts at once", and the two smiled that luminous smile that is so common here.

Later when Master Danilo and I were alone and he commented that their calendar was so different from ours, but I stopped him with a gesture.

"Master Danilo, not only is their calendar different from ours, but it is also the same date Miguel gave me when they first arrived in town. If it's what I think, they've been living on the same day for over five days now."

"Yup, you can tell by their talk they are trapped on the exact they they first set foot here", the old countryman was astonished, "what now, "sá" Stella?"

This was the reason why we had seen the boy scout Renato downtown, but never on the farm Taurinos, where everything was supposed to happen. They wouldn't go because it was not time yet: the Jamboree still hadn't started. And they'd never go because the Jamboree wouldn't start any more. Because it had already started and ended. Only then did I understand how big a mistake it had been to allow them to come and put up their tents in my land.

The Obscure Police showed up a bit later to complicate things a bit further. The two were once more irritated by the presence of the scouting group still in my house and came to ask me when they'd finally leave town. I told the Police that the Jamboree had not even started to them because they were yadda yadda yadda.

"Worst of all is this garden they say they can see around my house", I added leaving the two puzzled.

"Garden? What garden?", their vocal timing was just perfect.

The police officers promised not to take on the aspects of two black talking kids that spat fire from their mouths and went to pull out the Mayor and Bruno from their tents. With an embarrassed smile towards the scouts and their leader, we all went in my house and the Obscure Police was annoyed at the two they called hipsters, demanding explanation from them. Andrés and Bruno looked like two morons. As if they were lost in the spell of Circe. Master Danilo and I could notice they were part of it. As Andrés had been trapped in the Sanctuary, now he and Bruno shared the same fate of not being able to move on from the day when the scouts came to town. I said this to the Police when none of the scouts seemed to find the words to define what they were going through. The officers let their wave of youthful hate subside to fall in a deep abyss of perplexity.

"Wow there are even things like this", Anderson crossed himself as a good Christian would.

"And what about this garden thing?", Renan reminded, beginning to get annoyed and making me annoyed as well.

Andrés and Bruno affirmed they knew nothing about a garden. Asked them what day it was today. They frowned at the question but eventually said it was August the tenth, 2009. Renan frowned at the answer, Anderson frowned at the answer, Master Danilo and I frowned at it too. Only Andrés and Bruno didn't frown because they had fallen prey to that strange sensation of stupor that was no different than the one I saw in the other scouts of the same group. The long nights spent under the starry sky: stupor.

"Renan, Anderson, are you sure this technique of stopping time is safe?", was the first thing I asked.

"So we're to blame for this one too???", the youngest prepared to get at me.

"Renan, for Mithra's sake, I'm not blaming you, we only need an answer. We need to eliminate some possibilities to…"

The drone switched to a lower key. He eventually said if it were for their bringing time to a stop it would have been the first time. Master Danilo didn't know what to make of it all.

"So what about this garden? The scouts can see it while Andrés and Bruno can't", Anderson reminded, beginning to get annoyed and making me annoyed as well.

"On that night with the musicians from Rio…", the old countryman started, "oh, but you won't start sermonizing us again, will you?", Renan cut him short and I told him to shut up and listen first, "… did you notice if they were looking all around as if they were admiring something, "sá" Stella?"

"Didn't, if they at anytime saw there was a garden there either they disguised it well or didn't care much for gardening."

Renan added that when the Obscure Police arrived terror installed everywhere and even if they paid attention in the musicians' behavior they wouldn't be in position of enjoying any garden, what I found to be extremely logical.

"The rain", master Danilo said in an epiphany.

We looked at the window, see if it was going dark outside. The old countryman laughed and explained he was talking about the rain which fell on town just one day before the scouts arrived. The only incident we could take notice of in the sequence of days before the event.

"The rain has stopped it all, hasn't it?", said the Mayor from his corner, smiling like a moron.

I asked the Mayor if he couldn't notice days and nights were passing and judging by his answer, one could say he wouldn't tell days from nights at all. Bruno did not perform better as he tried to explain what the last days had been to him.

"I think it'd be better if we called Arthur; wasn't it him who sent this rain?", suggested Anderson.

Arthur arrived two hours later on his horse. He was staring at the tents as he progressed across the land to my porch. He seemed embarrassed when he walked in. Didn't seem to want to look anyone of us in the eye.

"Arthur, what was there in that rain you made fall?", was the first thing I asked him as he took a seat.

"Water, no?", he replied despite himself as if I had asked him the most absurdly obvious question ever. It was obvious too he wanted to be elsewhere not here in my house answering questions like that.

"And did no hidden, potential or magic seeds came along with the water?"

The young Feletti frowned.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

""Sêo" Arthur, the scouts can't leave "sá" Stella's house anymore. There's more though. They can see a garden around the house that none of us can see and by the looks it is the same garden you wanted to set here and had to remove."

We explained that there was even the issue of an eternal August the tenth 2009, that neither Andrés nor Bruno saw the garden but that they were equally affected by the stillness in time. Arthur's astonishment only grew at each new word he heard.

"When you told me to remove the garden it must have somehow remained there but could not be seen by anyone from Taurinos any longer", he explained much to our bewilderment, "and the rain must have shown it to them outsiders. It might have doubled its energy and now it can be seen but only by outsiders. "

"This no doubt explains why neither Andrés nor Bruno see the garden. But if I can ask you why did you let the garden remain here if I had asked you to remove it completely?"

"I thought I had done it but you've shown me something has remained. And I just don't know why."

"So there are things you can't control", I questioned him.

"Yes I guess I'm not so different than you in some respects."

And the boy smiled a satisfied smile when he saw my embarrassed expression. But rather than satisfied he seemed sad. Said he was not able to foresee what could happen when he set the garden in my house.

"We just wanted to do something good to you. There was no way of seeing it'd end like this…", and he began to appear nervous, glancing everywhere and nowhere with what seemed to be a lump in the throat.

"Arthur, no one is placing blame on you for anything. We only need to find a way out of this mess. Besides, we aren't even sure this garden is the cause of the issue with the scouting group."

"Yes, we still have the Police to blame", Renan reminded, beginning to get annoyed and making me annoyed as hell.

"Wasn't there the issue with the bell? Couldn't it be back in trouble?"

"Sure not", Anderson denied immediately, "and were the problem back it would affect all of us, wouldn't it?"

Anderson finished by saying they applied the technique of bringing time to a stop more times on the farm Taurinos during the Jamboree and this affected nothing in those people's time. Exactly as they did here, but more times.

He was right. Only the rain and the garden we couldn't see remained as likely causes.

Clint Eastwood

2009-08-14T01:56:00.005-03:00

Renato woke up today. He's been practically sleeping for twenty-four hours after experiencing the Obscure Police. It wasn't much for what he must have gone through. But he was way better, this I knew for sure. He ate well for breakfast what is good sign. My pantry is getting empty. I need to go to Souza's to buy things I need and replace the ones I lack.

"The kids were talking to me while I tried to sleep, Miss Grisam", the boy said it terrified as he remembered the experience.

"I know", I replied swallowing a gulp of coffee; he regarded me serious.

"I can see you don't believe in me. I know it's hard to believe it, but I swear, I'm not lying! The two were really talking to me. They only said bad words and swore at me all the time."

"I do believe in you."

He was eating without a word, staring at me, probably thinking of a way to "persuade" me he was being true.

"Nobody believes in me. Since I spoke about that man that was talking to Miguel…"

"I do believe in you and in him", I assured the boy; he almost choked with the bread.

"But how come the two things are true, Miss Grisam! How can't he be himself?"

"There are so many things in this town that got positively no explanation. How come two kids come and talk to you? Who's ever heard of talking kids? I believe it because I saw the two kids coming out of your tent and beside your bed up there in my guest room."

He was silent. Seemed not to have managed to think of something coherent to go with my argument.

"So you don't think it was your friend talking to Miguel?"

"I guess it was someone who looked like him but was definitely not him at all."

The Obscure Police appeared soon after, followed by master Danilo. I asked Anderson if he wasn't working as a shopper any longer. He told me his father was taking care of business during the Jamboree, while he patrolled the town with Renan. The two saw the boy scout and Renan was going to say something when I signaled to him to make him stop. They were quiet despite themselves because they were in my house. This never stopped them from fulminating the young boy scout with their fiery eyes. Renato was not afraid of them, what only made for greater risk; he had learned to smile in the face of difficulties early in his scouting life.

The boy scout excused himself and went out after washing the dish and cup he used in spite of my requests that he left it all in the sink. He passed the policemen by and greeted them even knowing who they were. He received a sulky silence as a retribution from them and went away.

"You need to control this hate that manifests in you sometimes, you know", said master Danilo when the boy left, prolonging their long face a little bit more,"it often disturbs much more than it helps. You'd be better off if you could save all this energy for your work and nothing more. People have nothing to do with this, kids."

"Fuck, one more scolding and I'll be fucked. My two ears are so hot from the scoldings that you could fry on either of them", the eldest flatfoot was infuriated and wouldn't stop the river of cuss words from running so soon.

"All that's wrong in town is wrong because it was done by the Police, I just can't stand it", added the the youngest flatfoot.

"Well I think you'd better stand it like the men you are", I said, "people who do things and never stand for them can be found in any garbage can. And you know this is absolutely not the case of you two. Another thing is I'll take you to Council if you come around again in aspects of black talking kids or whatever to torment my guests at home. My house is no ghost train."

"You can't stop criticizing us for a minute, can you? What the fuck!", Anderson was outraged and sulky.

"You did it wrong, can expect me to criticize you. The other day weren't it for my intervention you'd have killed three musicians from Rio de Janeiro. You stay up late watching those films on TV and think you're like the tough guys who can do anything. You're no Clint Eastwood."

Later on, master Danilo came to tell me what I already knew: that to the moment there were no signs of the troop leader who had vanished, Miguel. I'm starting to get nervous with the situation, thinking of what had become of the poor man. How did he disappear? Where was he right now? Who was the man who Renato saw talking to Miguel when he vanished, if not master Danilo? We had covered the whole town with Adriano, we even got back to the spot where the Obscure Police had its initiation. From there to the shores of the lake where Basilisk Island is and there was nothing of him to be found there.

We were interrupted by new voices outside. I'm nervous when it happens, I have regretted lending them the lot for camping so many times because of this. Andrés and Bruno were outside with the other scouts discussing something. At a distance I saw that Bruno had something in his hand looking like a little box.

"Did you start smoking again, master Danilo?", inquired Andrés, knowing the past habits of the old countryman.

The countryman glanced at me and back at him. Said he didn't. Andrés handled him the box Bruno had been holding. It was a box of Souza Paiol cigarettes. He looked at me not getting the hang of a single thing. I understood our current standings even less than him.

"I've just found it under my tent, half in and half out of the canvas", affirmed Renato, repeating what he had already said to Andrés and Bruno.

"If you're not smoking again, who'd pass by here and tuck this box under Renato's tent? He swears that the box of Souza Paiol was not there when he first put up his tent", questioned Bruno.

"I do swear for my honor", confirmed Renato.

Master Danilo turned to Renato again as though he had been enlightened by something new, "you were the last to see Miguel talking to a man you said looked exactly like me. Do you remember what they were talking about?"

The boy scout stopped for a while and thought back to that time. He didn't seem to be able to remember.

"It's important that you remember the most you can", advised the old countryman to the kid.

The boy scout thought back to that time a bit more. Still, he didn't seem to be able to remember.

"Nothing? No, nought, no nothing at all?", Andrés encouraged him.

The boy scout thought back to that time a little bit more. Now he seemed to be able to remember.

"He asked Miguel for a cigarette and Miguel said smoking was no good. I guess the man didn't like it but I didn't stay to hear any more of it, because it was none of my business anyway. Also I had to catch some firewood for the night. It was the last I saw of him."

"Lord, why didn't you tell us that before?", master Danilo glanced at me, reviving old echoes of ancient contacts with entities in the forest. Well, maybe not that ancient.

"Sorry, didn't feel it was important at all", the kid confessed, astonished.

I assured it made a world of difference, "now we practically know who it was who met Miguel before he vanished. But it was nice that you could remember what happened, we'd never have an idea weren't it for you. Actually, we only have to thank you."

"Do you know the man who took Miguel away?", he stared at us at the top of his suspense. Andrés and Bruno were in a state of suspense too, expecting to be surprised.

"We have an idea who he is. Master Danilo and I met him in a forest near here."

The old countryman confirmed. Said we'd need to get one or two boxes of Souza Paiol to get the man to return Miguel (of course he never told the kid it was the Caipora to avoid inspiring even more awe to the boy in such a weird town with talking kids and all). Bruno said he was going to town and could buy them. The old countryman said he'd go himself. That minors should never buy cigarettes even for the others.

"Did he abduct Miguel on account of cigarettes???", inquired Renato on the top of his perplexity.

"It seems so", replied the old countryman.

Renato made a point of coming with us. At first, I didn't want him to go, but in the end I thought it was good for him to see that master Danilo was not lying. The old countryman went to town and got back later, bringing two boxes of Souza Paiol. The five of us went to the forest.

It had been a while since we were walking maybe half an hour. Andrés discussed with me the best way to eradicate the Caipora of town, Bruno found his plan nasty, Renato understood nearly nothing, and master Danilo and I told him these things were not "eradicated". They were as part of everything else in the mental world of that forest as the plants and brooks of the place.

We were in a deeper part of the forest now. The three scouts followed us in suspense. Andrés looked like he was frightened. When we got to the clearing where I saw the Caipora for the first time we stopped and sat down on the ground, waiting. The old countryman opened the box of Souza Paiol, drew a cigarette from it and lit it. You could tell he took puffs from the cigarette despite himself as if it were an unalienable part of the ritual that he under no circumstances could skip. Renato looked, ignorant of what was being done, but didn't dare to ask us anything breaking the silence when no other did it, one more proof of both his sensitivity and sensibility. The old countryman smoked. It was Bruno who took our attention to a distant whistle.

"Here he comes. Well on the third puff I took… Hush now, everybody", master Danilo smiled.

"Master Danilo?! Is it you again, master Danilo?"

Renato was astonished. The voice was his voice. He stared at us in search of an explanation and only got requests for silence. The sticks and leaves were breaking on the way, trodden by something that approached us. Then it was time.

When he appeared at the clearing, it was the boy scout Renato. Appearing before the boy scout Renato himself. The young Varginhense shook and trembled all over, unable to move. Never thought the vision of oneself could inspire one with so much awe. Andrés and Bruno stared in astonishment; a bit less than Renato but astonishment anyhow.

"Eh, it's you again, master Danilo. And brought the best brand!"

The "boy scout Renato" and the old countryman sat together and smoked in silence. No one dared to say a word. The old countryman asked for the troop leader's whereabouts. The Caipora said he was in his tent. That he had never left the tent. I reasoned about it as being suspended animation or hibernation or something of the kind. He was there, but he was not there. Present and unavailable at once.

I ran into the boy scout Renato sitting by the porch wall in my house, still in the dark of the end of the day. I turned on the porch light and the moths and other nocturnal little creatures already started to land on the porch wall attracted by the light, casting weird and twisted shadows across the brick surface. I asked about Miguel and Renato said he had gone to bed after the day of discoveries. The boy was still in awe of everything he had seen and felt.

"This is why I told you I believed both you and master Danilo", I said when he brought up the subject.

"It was hard to believe until I saw it. We think it only exists in the Folklore Week at school…"

"Yup, they are not only stories people tell. They are alive in this town."

Master Danilo showed up soon later. Asked about Miguel too and got the same answer from the boy scout. Renato apologized to the old countryman for the confusion and the latter stroked his head slightly, "no worries, hadn't I seen it with my eyes I myself wouldn't have believed."

"I could never figure there was such a strange town right beside Varginha", confessed the kid, "what is this place where so many weird things happen?"

I glanced at the old countryman less than sure of what I had to do. He decided the issue for me, asking me if I had spotted any other constellation in the sky as on the other night. I said I didn't and we were going to start a totally new subject if it weren't for the boy's tenacity and persistence.

"What kind of place is this?", he insisted.

I made him give me his word of honor he would never tell anyone about it and told him about Taurinos. He heard me silent as if he were trapped in a well of wondering. Finally asked me if he had died. I said he hadn't. Asked me if Andrés and Bruno were devils. I said they weren't though I myself had my doubts.

""Sá" Stella, you might scare the kid like this…"

"He is a brave boy, master Danilo. Besides, now he knows exactly where he stands."

Temporary offer

2009-08-13T03:28:00.007-03:00

I called Andrés inside today. Told him Renato was having a nightmare after another. He woke up from one just to fall sleep again as if he was being sucked into a hole and the rigmarole of the nightmares started all over again.

No wonder his sleep was rather troubled after an encounter like that with the Obscure Police. Andrés was angry with that. He didn't expect so much confusion. Not to mention there was still no sign of Miguel anywhere near here. Also there was no sign of hope it'd be possible let alone easy to find him.

I took the Mayor to the guest room to show him the sleeping boy scout. As I opened the door, both our horror and astonishment were complete: the two black kids I saw coming out of his tent were silently watching the boy in the dark, one at each side of his bed, as tiny and heinous succubi. As I turned on the light, they were not there. As I turned off the light, they were there again.

"They're using the boy's own energy to watch him", said Andrés, whose astonished eyes let fear and concern shine through.

I called the Police. Anderson was the first lightning rod I found on my way. I told him what they were doing was an absurdity. I had promised to hold myself back and not to criticize them, but there was never a chance for self-control when it came to the Obscure Police. I called Renan and repeated the speech. I went back to the guest room to finally find the scout sleeping soundly and calmly again. No shadow of the two black kids at his sides.

Andrés was puzzled at how fast I got the Police to release Renato from their fatal charm using nothing but a telephone. I told him when we know the origin of the problem it gets easier to get to a solution. I said that besides telling the two off I had promised to give them some eats and drinks at the end of the day, more precisely at six. Andrés didn't like the story very much. Said I could bring out a habit in them as, for instance, giving food to a saint or entity to get them to solve your problems. I told him I thought it reminded me a lot of candomblé or umbanda, Afro-Brazilian cults in which food is exchanged for advantages, whatever they are.

"They'll end up eating breakfast, lunch and dinner whatever time they show up, so what difference does it make?", I inquired him.

Andrés said they could grow more and more demanding in time, but let the discussion about my offers die away. I thought of myself as a medicine woman putting up offers in food for gods somewhere in the city limits of Taurinos. Not to mention it was almost like giving them a prize for what they did, instead of punishing the duo for abuse of authority. So the tiny little night creatures would come and have coffee with me.

Renato spent the rest of the day sleeping. We spent the rest of the day looking for Miguel to no avail. No sign of him anywhere.

I told Andrés he could stay and eat with us if he wanted to. The scouts were reunited around a bonfire in front of my house, at the center of the circle they had formed with their tents. Andrés stayed. When they're invited to eat, these boys from Taurinos are always so sane and punctual. Six o'clock and the sound of the horses was heard. One or two minutes later, the two were knocking on my door. They walked in, complaining about the boy scouts they called hipsters. I thought they had no good will lost between them towards those people. They just asserted again the boy scouts were a bunch of obnoxious hipsters.

They were eating and staring at me and Andrés. Andrés and I were eating and staring at them.

"Don't you stare at us at this time of the day", warned the blacksmith.

"Well, so stop staring at us at any time of the day", asked Andrés.

"Did Andrés have to be here too? Why is he here so nosy?", complained Renan.

"For your information, Miss Grisam invited me especially for the event", clarified Andrés, eyes turned to me.

"How cute, Miss Grisam invited me especially for the event", Anderson scorned Andrés, "she promised the meal to us not to you."

"I promised the meal to the three of you that are with me now."

"But this is just not fair, Miss Grisam, it was us who…", Anderson started.

"…were torturing the scout? I know it was you."

"It was not what I meant, Miss Grisam", he was embarrassed.

"But this was what you had to say. It gives me the impression I'm rewarding you for that load of shit you did last night."

"And why did you have to do that shit to Renato? The fella is always so peaceful, does no harm to anyone…", Andrés questioned furious.

"This is not wat I came here for", Anderson stood up. I told him to stay and finish eating. Said it so assertively he seemed to be frightened. The younger one didn't feel intimidated. Said Renato was cheeky enough to give them moral lessons in the middle of the street. I said the scout was only saying something obvious to them. I asked him if he would find funny to find himself trapped in the Sanctuary again.

"No one here was laughing at your situation. not even the ones who trapped you into the Sanctuary. So you think it's a reason for laughing? Or what if Anderson disappeared, you'd be all concerned about his disappearance; can you picture us laughing at you in a situation like this?"

There was a huge, extended, almost eternal limitless never-ending pause. The two kept on eating and drinking normally (of course a bit sulkier than before). I knew it was going to be that shitty, it was always that shitty but I have to say that sometimes I toggled to a fuck off mode and let it all fuck off. They finished their meal and they'd have gone away in silence if Renan didn't ask me to talk to the boy scout.

"Tell the fellow to show some respect to people he doesn't know."

"No one failed to show respect to you or anyone else in town, dude", Andrés stared at Renan and just shook his head.

They uttered no other sounds and went away to patrol the town. I was doing the dishes and Andrés was staring at me in the kitchen. He seemed to see a ghost in me or something of the kind. I don't know if the offer I made to them worked out. The umbandistas live on the physical plan and their entities live in a kind of heaven called Aruanda. They'll always have a way of knowing if their offer worked out and brought them any benefit. I live on the same plan as these entities. Still I never know for sure if the agreements we make work out in any sense.

Kids

2009-08-12T02:38:00.012-03:00

The boy scouts from the group of Varginha were reunited in a council in front of my porch. It was eight in the morning. I heard their voices but tried to guess what it was through the window as I had breakfast. In time, I found out they spoke about their leader, Miguel. I went to the porch when the debate seemed to have subsided and Andrés almost used my nose as a knocker when I opened the door.

"I was really going to call you", he said smiling embarrassed.

"Tell me something I don't know. For instance, were you talking about Miguel? What happened to him?"

"He's gone. No one knows where he is, Miss Grisam."

Bruno approached us but said nothing that could add to what Andrés had already said. The two were worried. I was worried. None of the boy scouts of the group saw Miguel when they woke up. Renato joined us and said he had seen someone talking to Miguel the night before and that was the last he saw of him.

"Can you tell us what he looked like? Have you seen him in the city?", inquired Andrés.

"That's him coming there. The man I saw with Miguel", replied the boy scout seeming perfectly sure of who it was.

We looked that way and it was master Danilo coming up to us. We asked him if he had seen the leader of the troop but he didn't seem to understand what we were talking about.

"But I saw you talking to him last night", asserted the boy, absolutely baffling all of us. He seemed to be so sure of what he said, what only made for more and more confusion.

"The young man must have seen someone with the same look as me. I didn't talk to your leader anytime yesterday", master Danilo assured.

We were in an ever-growing process of confusion. The boy probably didn't believe in the old countryman, but didn't dare to discuss what would incur calling master Danilo a liar. Andrés and Bruno glanced at the two and at me alternately, not catching a thing of what was going on. I said we could spend the day discussing who was who or start looking for the leader immediately.

And we turned the city upside down. He was nowhere to be found. We asked the Obscure Police if they had happened to see him. They laughed a lot with the episode but promised to keep an eye on the man. Seeing a man disappear in Taurinos was not my idea of fun, but I tried to avoid criticizing the two and risk another little wave of hate from them. The last thing I'd ever need was the two tiny monsters able to help but not helping. But Renato didn't seem to think likewise. No wonder he didn't as he didn't know the duo as I did.

"It's wrong to laugh at people's misfortunes, did you know?", declared Renato, looking serious at the two, taking exactly the path I avoided taking. Renan and Anderson frowned at him, saw Renan stretch his neck as he always did when he was angry and hadn't I held them back they'd have sprung on to the boy scout. Renato prepared to defend himself and his viewpoint when I miraculously managed to get them all to hold their horses. The Obscure Police were glaring at the scout at the top of their rage.

I had to ask the old countryman if he had hidden something he could not say at that very moment. I said I didn't have any doubts about him, but that the boy had been so categorical and assertive about it being master Danilo that the idea occurred to me. Master Danilo denied having omitted or lied about anything at all. He simply had no reasons for that. I believed the countryman, but was absorbed like him, trying to figure out what was going on.

"Don't you have of of these… aspects?"

He laughed. Said he had no aspect other than the one I already knew. The more I thought about it, more confused I felt. He himself wasn't of help at that moment.

A t night, silence was everywhere. It should be eleven-thirty or so. I couldn't sleep a wink after a whole day looking for the leader of Andrés and Bruno's troop that mysteriously vanished from their campsite. To think I hoped he internet would send me to sleep quickly.

I went to the porch, but left the lights off to avoid the moths and other nocturnal little creatures landing on the porch wall attracted by the light. I sat in the rocking chair like a farmer in the country.

However, the still of the night didn't hide not everything was calm: Renato's tent shook in a weird fashion as if he tried to stretch and didn't fit the size of the tent. I let my eyes wander around and saw none of the other tents moved like his. As I looked overall, I caught sight of two black horses tied to my gate. I stood up from the rocking chair all but terrified. They were here. I ran to the boy scout's tent and opened the zipper in a single blow. From the inside there ran two heinous black kids with eyes more than just wicked, spitting fire from their open mouths, one of the most bizarre, absurd and frightening things I've ever seen and the poor boy scout all shrunk at the back of the tent, eyes as big as saucers, gazing at me. I looked back at my house's gate, but there was no shadow of horses there anymore.

"The kids were talking to me… You won't believe me, but the kids were talking to me…"

The tree in the wood

2009-08-11T03:18:00.006-03:00

Renan and I were standing in front of Anderson's hardware store. Waiting for Anderson so we could leave. Then I saw this boy scout from the group of Varginha who greeted us with a luminous smile, walking into the store for something. I was nervous, now I am nervous every time I see a scout walking in a store.

After some time, Anderson came out of the store. I asked them why ride in black on their black horses in this sun? They said they wanted to be an awe-inspiring Police even in broad daylight. Anderson changed subjects swiftly and said the scout was buying rope and that he was asking for an invoice.

"Can't your father tell him he's got no invoice book of his own?"

"Well, he can, but if the boy insists he'll give one to him for sure", said the blacksmith.

That cruel dilemma. Walking in and taking a chance of making things seem weird for the boy by attempting to stop Alberto from writing an invoice for him. The boy went away apparently tranquil and I said to myself, "what happened to solve the problem so easily?"

Anderson was about to walk in again, curious, when his father stepped out and explained to his son he had no invoice book. Said none of the shoppers in Taurinos he knew of had one. I thought to myself: living in Taurinos is living in formal informality.

"He is a mortal, isn't he?", asked the shopper to his son, curious, watching as the scout walked away.

"Yeah, Dad. He is a mortal."

Later I asked the two if they had visited me yesterday. They said I knew they did. That I should know at least, since the two spoke about helping out during the Jamboree by freezing time and acting in the in-betweens to cause the smallest impact possible. I said I understood the two, but finding the tent outside all covered with blood and guts and worst of it all, along with their leader, was not what I'd exactly call the smallest impact possible. They started to criticize me again, infuriated. And they were criticizing me all day long. I've noticed that the new tactic of the Obscure Police is to defend themselves by attacking. And by criticizing. I know I haven't been the nicest with them these days, but they haven't been any nicer than me on their turn.

"Now about this chupacabras thing, let's stop it while we still have a choice", Renan was annoyed as hell, "who the fuck called us chupacabras?"

"We invented it for the leader of the scouts. Would you like me to speak about the presence of the Obscure Police in town? Is it supposed to be obscure or not?"

"Well, Anderson and I understand the excuse, but let's stop it right now, get it? I've already had to swallow the Obscure Police thing", he said, glancing at Anderson and making him blush, "now if you start with this business of chupacabras we'll leave no stone unturned in this town, or I'm not Renan Augusto Giacomin Teixeira."

"And I'm not Anderson Nascimento Caldeira either", Anderson was quick to add.

Commented with master Danilo that the kids hated the comparison with the chupacabras. He laughed and found it natural. But agreed with me when I said the two were so horrible working they'd run rings around any chupacabras.

"The younger lad must have been mad. Calling him Obscure Police that was a pretty name made him want to kill you, let alone chupacabras. It was going to be another war like the one you, Andrés, Renan had with the Celestial Gardener."

"Do you really think it would?"

"Should the subject arise it's better to change subjects you know."

One of the scouts came to talk to us. Asked me who the two boys in black were he saw in town with me. I said they were agents.

"Police agents?", the kid asked me curious.

"Oh, they just ride their horses through town and tell the adults if they see something wrong going on."

"I know, they are like lollipop men", said the boy with an understanding smile.

"More or less… Some days they remind me of something in the same shape as a racket, I have to admit."

This time it was master Danilo who had to suppress a seizure of laughter that was brewing. Our desperation is our fuel. I recognized the scout. It was the one we saw at Anderson's hardware store earlier today. We were happy with the outcome of the invoices' episode, but now I suspected that that boy could tell his leader people wouldn't issue invoices in Taurinos. Wasn't I a bit paranoid about all of this invoice business, after all?

Andrés has been learning the life of a Mayor is full of responsibilities. Even more when he has to hide the fact he is a Mayor from five hundred fellow boy scouts. And he has had to address issues in infrastructure on the very farm Taurinos. He was lucky that the Department of Public Works slept next door to him. Adriano had created a complex infrastructure for the event on the farm Taurinos where all of the present scouting groups, except for the group from Varginha. Only Adriano knew how the complex really worked, but it was no real problem as the Jamboree would soon come to an end and the complex wouldn't be necessary any longer. Andrés said he was working to open more space on the farm Taurinos so that his group could join all of the others already there.

The invoice boy scout was called Renato. We ended up befriending each other. And Renato told me he was upset by the distance from here to the Jamboree.

"It is where everything is happening, Miss Grisam", he said with the eyes shining.

Oh it really is. I was picturing all of the five hundred boys around a bonfire singing something like this:

"All in a wood there grew a fine tree, the finest tree that ever you did see, and the green grass grew around, around, around. And the green grass grew around. And on this tree there grew a fine bough, the finest bough that ever you did see. And the bough on the tree, and the tree in the wood. And the green leaves flourished thereon. thereon, thereon. And the green leaves flourished thereon. And on this bough there a fine twig, the finest twig that ever you did see. And the twig on the bough, and the bough in the tree, and the tree in the wood, And the green leaves flourished thereon. And on this twig there stood a fine nest. The finest nest that ever you did see. And the nest on the twig, and the twig on the bough. And in this nest there sat a fine bird, the finest bird that ever you did see. And on this bird there grew a fine feather. The finest feather that ever you did see. And of this feather was made a fine bed. The finest bed that ever you did see. And on this bed was laid a fine mother, the finest mother that ever you did see. In the arms of this mother was laid a fine babe, the finest babe that ever you did see. And the babe he grew up and became a fine boy, the finest boy that ever you did see. And boy put an acorn all into the earth, the finest acorn that ever you did see. And out of this acorn there grew a fine tree, the finest tree that ever you did see."

The Tree In The Wood, nursery song, public domain.

"Have you lived here for long?", he inquired, pulling me out of my deliria.

"Some six months"

"Oh, so it's recent", said the boy beaming at me.

Recent. Some fifteen, sixteen thousand years ago only. But what are fifteen, sixteen thousand years in the time of our planet anyhow?

I asked Andrés why his group remained segregated here. I told him that the scouts here were upset they were so far from the stage of the Jamboree where things were really taking place. He said once again he was striving to get his group to join the others by opening more space on his farm.

"So you mean there was room for all of the scouting groups from Minas Gerais except for yours?"

Andrés didn't know what to say to me as an answer. Tried to change subjects by asking if I was not feeling fine with them occupying my land.

"If you don't want us to stay anymore, I can find another place for us to stay", he said a bit offbeat and disappointed, gazing at the ground. I got him by his chin and raised his head so his eyes met mine through the lenses full of the dust from the cerrado.

"Andrés, don't change subjects, you know perfectly well this is hardly the reason for my question. You can stay as long as you need, I don't mind."

"Well so that's it, there was room for all of the scouting groups from Minas Gerais except for mine", he now looked slightly annoyed.

I was silent. His explanation was not convincing but I had no better explanation to be perfectly honest. Out of the blue, my laptop started acting up inside my house again, sending a song to Winamp that soon got to the speakers and filled all my house with music, interrupting brusquely the activity the scouts were engaged in out here.

"It was an April morning when they told us we should go. As I turn to you, you smiled at me. How could we say no? With all the fun to have, to live the dreams we always had. Oh, the songs to sing, when we at last return again."

Achilles' Last Stand (fragment), written by Led Zeppelin in Presence, 1976, Swan Song, Atlantic.

I walked in to turn the player off and have dinner.

Chupacabras

2009-08-10T18:12:00.007-03:00

Aardvark Patrol. It was the first and only thing I could tell apart from the battle cry outside, within the sleep that still prevailed in me. If yesterday was a dull rainy day, today was full of promise. I went down to see what it was. Opened the door only to find tens of tents all over my land and a band of boys looking at me. I had forgotten about the event for the second time and more: forgotten I had agreed to let the scouts put up their tents on my land. I was staring at them still dizzy from the sleep, while the scouts saluted me with their battle cry. I heard it and it seemed it was worth some four roosters around my house. Their leader came to talk to me.

"Nice to meet you. My name is Miguel. We, from the Aardvark Patrol, salute you and the good people of Taurinos. Andrés has spoken a lot to us about you and the things you do for the defense of the town…"

I bet he only spoke about the maintenance, not about the creation of this loony bin. I smiled at the leader of the patrol and at the boys and greeted them good-morning. They responded in unison. I remembered how Sérgio Dias or his brother said in an interview that Mutantes retired to a farm to write songs for new records and live "as if they were one".

We started to talk and they offered me coffee. I turned it down politely. Miguel asked me a lot of things about Taurinos. I said she should take heed to Andrés' and Bruno's advice on where not to go in town as the vicinities had its hazards. Overall I tried to give him the nicest overview of Taurinos I could.

"Looks like it is a challenging region for the kids", Miguel smiled.

"It is a challenging region for everyone", and I smiled.

He looked serious all of a sudden. To greater strangeness, I asked him what today's date was. He said it was January 24th 2011. I thought to myself: we're done. I smiled again and asked about Andrés. Miguel said he was off to look for water with the other scouts. It didn't take him long to return with the other boys. They saluted us and I pulled Andrés aside for a talk in private, under a slight frown of his leader.

"Andrés, we're fucked up. Their calender, as Meire's, is one and a half years ahead of ours."

"Easy, Miss Grisam, there's always a solution", replied the Mayor-scout, furtively glancing at the leader that stared at us all the time.

"What do you mean by easy? What if they start talking about their current issues that are still in the future for us and you're not able to follow their conversation? Have you stopped to think about it?"

Andrés looked at his side and it was Bruno coming closer. The two would be hosted on my land during the Jamboree. He walked closer, saluted the leader and walked up to us. I repeated to him what I had already said to Andrés. He seemed worried. Asked what should be done. I told him to ask Andrés because it seemed Andrés had a solution up his sleeve. Of course he had none. I suggested that we visited all commercial houses in town and asked their owners to remove their wall calendars from view for the time of the Jamboree. The suggestion was promptly accepted by the two so absurd it was.

"And pray that they do not ask for invoices."

"You seem to take pleasure to fuck the hell out of us", Andrés was calmly furious. Bruno, as was his habit just said nothing at all.

"Do I fuck the hell out of you??? Have you lost your mind? Have you ever thought of half the trouble you'd take in this town with this event? "

We were interrupted by the leader of the patrol approaching us.

At the end of the afternoon, master Danilo dropped by. Tied his horse out of the land, came to have a gulp of coffee with me. He came along the path greeting all of the scouts on his way with the kind expression of one who's seen a lot in life. The look of one who understands the pains and joys (wherever they may roam) of living.

"Now there's going to be trouble in all this we didn't even imagine there would be, master Danilo."

I told him about the date I was given by Varginha's scouts leader and the talk with Andrés and Bruno. He goggled at me and then he was serious, thoughtful. As though he was measuring the consequences of it all. He agreed to the idea of taking calendars off view though he knew it was no fool-proof measure at all. He agreed to the idea because he knew any attempt would be valid in a situation like this.

He had brought a sack of cheese bread loaves right from the oven. Invited me to have coffee with him at his house, see the electric power installed, "you won't even recognize it", said he, with a satisfied beam.

As we had coffee and talked, I gave myself to some quick brooding. Really. How long had it been since I last went to visit him in his house, have some coffee and talk. Maybe since my definitive passage to Taurinos. To be perfectly honest, I couldn't remember it anymore.

Our reflections were cut but the distant sound of horses. The sound of the horses then stopped as if a CD had been paused and came back as if the pause had been toggled back to action, dying away in the distance now on the opposite side. I found it odd and commented it with the old countryman.

"Dusk, hope the Obscure Police is not a trouble", said master Danilo, sighing.

Not more than five seconds had passed since his voice died away and we heard a lot of noise from the scouts outside. By the sounds around I could tell it was no good thing. We looked at each other and went out in a hurry to see what was going on. We found the scouts around a tent, the flashlight pointed at its canvas; the canvas found itself covered… with blood and pieces of guts.

We stood still in a state of shock. Not in different state were the scouts all around us, Andrés and Bruno included. The leader goggled at us and at virtually everything, astonished at what he saw. At least master Danilo and I, if not Andrés and Bruno too, had a vague idea what had happened. The Obscure Police had probably stopped time, got in my yard, eliminated one of more entrants and set time in motion again when they were already far from here. That's what felt like a pausing CD at that moment. I helped the scouts directing them to the laundry where they could fill some buckets to wash the canvas and let themselves as good gentlemen to collect and discard the guts.

I was counting the seconds until the scouts leader came to talk to us about it. We tried to mislead him as much as we could.

"It might have been a chupacabras", master Danilo said naively what almost made me laugh as hell. I managed to suppress my shout after trying really hard. The leader stared at us and his stare was weirder and weirder in time while he tried to be nice, "is really there such a thing like a chupacabras?"

"Ah, they sometimes end up here", assured master Danilo, almost making me laugh again. I thought it was two little chupacabras, but they were so much more terrible I even felt sorry for the chupacabras.

Rain

2009-08-09T02:38:00.007-03:00

Today the sky was overcast. Rain, heavy rain we hadn't seen here for a while started to come down. It rained so little in Taurinos that every rain here was considered a supernatural phenomenon.

It was me, Andrés and master Danilo at my porch, watching the rain fall. Last I did it it was a mysterious night when the men from the farm Taurinos went out to dig big holes into the ground. I'd never forget that night whose rain lent it an aura of even greater mystery.

"I asked the Celestial Gardener to make it rain a bit. It's going to rain to the end of the afternoons", assured Andrés.

"It's easy to be a Mayor when you have such influential friends in town", I jested at Andrés. Far from feeling embarrassed, he winked at me with a mischievous, sly expression on his face.

"When do the scouts arrive, "sêo" Andrés?", asked master Danilo.

"Tomorrow morning", and Andrés stared at the rain.

I had even forgotten about the scouts. Only the latest incident with the Obscure Police was enough to distract me from everything else. But things were still going on at their normal pace though I never noticed it easily.

Speak of the devil. The Obscure Police showed up out of the blue. I asked them if they hadn't anything better to do on a Sunday than going out in the rain to hunt down entrants. The two were annoyed as hell with me firstly because they were all wet from the rain, secondly because they thought I was continually getting at them. They were criticizing me most of the time and they did criticize Andrés too. Only master Danilo escaped the stream of complaints from the two officers. Then they were quiet, sat down at the porch with us and were staring at the rain for lost time. Somehow the Obscure Police seemed to enjoy my house.

Town Hall

2009-08-08T08:23:00.007-03:00

Andrés complained about me not going to the ceremony that confirmed him as the new Mayor of Taurinos. I said I was sleeping and didn't want to get up early. I wouldn't go anyhow. I had been appalled at the Mayor's crucifixion episode and all of the circumstances around it. In my view going would only celebrate the miserable state the ex-Mayor was still in in hospital. But I told him he was welcome and that I really wanted to talk to him. Told him about the incident the night before with Kid Abelha and he said he had "seen" and "heard" it all.

"Well so you know the hell we went through. The mayhem. It was only me and master Danilo putting out the fire from the Obscure Police. The musicians were desperate, not knowing what in the world was going on."

"And in the end Anderson realized it", the new Mayor noted (so he had been watching us as we watched the starry sky and talked), "he realized he could have killed three real people."

"Even if they were only projections of them and what not, who can assure they weren't going to be shot here and appear there in Rio with eight holes on the head each as it happened to the guys from Santos that came to get me?"

"Hell… We need to talk to them, Miss Grisam", said Andrés, seeming alarmed.

"We need to sit down and talk, I have always said this has to have a limit. Weren't I there with master Danilo the three could be dead right now, Andrés. It's three people well-known by the media, not the rats that came for me. Picture it spreading through the media and drawing people like crazy bastards here. It would be a hell of a defeat of their own purpose."

I made an effort to make Andrés understand that we should convince the two that drawing more people here would end up doubling or more their workload for a week. Besides, it'd create an unwanted mystic aura to town, like what happened to São Thomé das Letras, a town very near here.

"On the current course of action we might end up as a stop for the Royal Road."

"Heaven forbid", and Andrés crossed himself.

We discussed the issue of the Obscure Police at the Town Hall. Attending the meeting were the Mayor, the Mayor's elder brother, the two policemen, master Danilo and me. The policemen glared at me with a certain hint of hate in their eyes. To them, I was complaining about their performance at the hard task of protecting me and the town.

"Renan, you didn't have to do all that", guaranteed the Mayor, closely supported by master Danilo, "if you can test them with coarse salt, then how much coarse salt do you need?"

Renan had that sulky expression, but said a grain of salt was enough for a test. Said the behavior of the entrant was different than that of a common person and that coarse salt would be used only in the cases that caused a lot of doubt, since the mere presence of the salt already denounced the entrant.

"So why submitting the musicians to an embarrassment like that? I mean couldn't you notice they were real people, not entrants of any kind?", I questioned the tiny police officers.

Renan and Anderson were silent; their eyes sporadically beamed their hatred at me.

"Renan or Anderson, Miss Grisam is asking any of you a question", Andrés reminded them.

"We're not deaf, Mr. Mayor of Taurinos", Renan was dry.

"So if you answer my question we'll know you're not mute either", I put pressure on them.

"We'll test anyone we have the slightest doubt about", declared Renan, while Anderson was divided between looking at us and at his partner.

"And look, be polite as you get to people's houses. I have told you I don't want the Police on horses on my land, much less pointing shotguns at people who are with me. This was and is abuse of authority. The action you carried out was by far unnecessary and uncalled for. It was me who took them in, foreseeing the trouble it'd be when you two arrived. They were here but meant no harm to anyone, were just lost and wanting to find a way out of town."

We say things in the hope they'll make a difference. Mere illusion of mine, I guess. The policemen still glared at me with a certain hint of hate in their eyes. To them, I was nevertheless complaining about their performance at the hard task of protecting me and the town.

And the Obscure Police went to surround me at home in a kind of anti-repressive lobby. Just what I needed now, the two little pestering pitbull police officers now complaining directly at home.

"So you think you'll be in the Internal Affairs Division now?", snarled Renan is affective (and effective) way.

"And what if I'm really in?", I snarled back at him paying him back with his own medicine.

"Why didn't you say this to us last night as we watched the sky? Why did you have to be the tell-tale…"

"Renan, firstly Andrés "saw" and "heard" it all. I talked to him because I knew he would have already "seen" and "heard" that, I was never the tell-tale. Secondly, I wanted to relax after all that mess and talking about it there would only make me more nervous. And I'll tell you more: you're pretty silly if you think you can do something here that the town won't be commenting on the following day."

Renan said nothing, but almost ended up pouting. I felt like hugging and cuddling him tight when he had that expression on his face, that sulky handsome little face. But sometimes I couldn't be too fuzzy and warm towards him or he'd think that was a good excuse to carry out other thrashing actions like that. So I didn't hugged or cuddled him, but was enjoying discreetly his little pout. He looked like a butterfly looking for food.

Anderson came too but was silent. He too pouted at me but never said a thing. They'd usually play the game of "see how much I suffer to protect you". I knew what it was. There were times at which I could guess their game, their intention, the eternal conflict of interests in town. There were times at which nothing ever made sense (not even in light of their game, their intention or the eternal conflict of interests in town).

Air pump

2009-08-07T17:02:00.018-03:00

Back from Varginha, where Duílio, Aparecida, master Danilo and I went to visit the Mayor of Taurinos. I felt very sorry for the poor man. He wasn't any better than the state of shock described by master Danilo. The Conselheiros were themselves in shock at seeing him hands and feet covered by bandages. The Mayor had left a resignation letter with Duílio given to him by one of the nurses on duty. He was sleeping and the nurse said he'd left it with her so she could deliver it to the first Taurinian coming to visit him. He'd not be the Mayor of Taurinos any longer and would only go back to town for obvious reasons of residence there. Well, no wonder he did it. I'd never place blame on him.

"The vice-Mayor will have to take on office now", said master Danilo, almost sotto voce to me while we kept a certain distance from the Conselheiros.

"And just who's the vice-Mayor?"

"An ex-patient of yours in town", said the old countryman.

"My good Mithra… Andrés???"

"Himself. Our good old Andrés, "sá" Stella."

"And now this is what we got."

"But, "sá" Stella the kid was already the Mayor in fact. The Mayor himself, the official one had no say. Don't you remember the Law of the Bulls? It was the plump one all the time in command in town…"

"Master Danilo, for Mithra's sake, there's an army of teenagers coming to town soon, how come the brat will be the Mayor of Taurinos and a boy scout at the same time???", and I added it would be no fun at all having Andrés say things to his group like, "sorry, I'm unable to help you put up the tents now because I got to go to the Town Hall for paperwork."

The old countryman scratched his head. Course he hadn't thought of it before. In the meantime even if the Mayor hadn't resigned, Taurinos still wouldn't have a Mayor with the man all battered in the Hospital of Varginha. Andrés would have to take on office anyway.

"But just what is this party that lets children be part of it?", I asked him only to realize how naive I was being.

"Come on, there's no party at all, "sá" Stella; do you think things in Taurinos work the same way as in Santos? Andrés was the Mayor and have always been, he only put the little man there as figurehead."

I was silent. Yes, what difference would it make right now? Master Danilo was right. I knew where the command in town came or seemed to come from. I bet not even their surname was something casual.

"Really not, their name Conselheiro (Counselor) comes from their very function in Taurinos' society", master Danilo explained.

When we arrived at the farm Taurinos, Duílio gave his youngest the Mayor's resignation letter. Andrés grabbed the letter confused, glanced at us all, cleaned his glasses before opening the envelope. He read it and signs of dismay clearly showed on his face.

"I'm the Mayor of Taurinos now", he said it with not much conviction.

"So you are", said master Danilo, "now the helm is in your hands, handle it wisely."

I laughed out loud. The old countryman and the Conselheiros turned their eyes to me astonished at my episode of laughter. I apologized and went home, followed by master Danilo.

"Sorry, master Danilo, but it struck me as funny that you advised him to handle the helm wisely. You're such an incurable optimist", I said the moment we took seat at my house's porch.

"I had to say something to him as he seemed so discouraged…"

"I do understand what you mean", and I laughed again.

There was a huge, extended, almost eternal pause. I turned off light at the porch where moths and other nocturnal little creatures had already started to land on the porch wall attracted by the light, casting weird and twisted shadows across the brick surface. We were contemplating the night sky. From one direction of the road, we could hear the sounds of horses in the distance. From the opposite direction, the sound of a car engine. I was going to comment on how the two sounds overlapped when master Danilo stopped me with a gesture. He squatted, positioned his ear close to the ground and stood up soon with a grimace.

"Them?"

"So it's them. They're still far, but it's easy to tell who it is."

The car I had heard from the opposite side now was at my gate. A man got off, called me and waited at the gate. I turned on the porch light and went to see who it was followed by master Danilo that showed to be alarmed by the confluence of factors we had there. Lighted only by the porch light I had left behind, coming closer, his face suggested me someone I had seen before. Yes, I had seen the guy before. But just where? Where? I was afraid of these situations when faces and voices seemed familiar to me.

"Good evening, ma'am", the man said politely, "could you tell us if we are too far past Varginha now?"

"Two hundred kilometers, I dare say. Haven't I seen your face before?"

""Sá" Stella, time is nearly out, they're coming", master Danilo was really frightened.

"Maybe. We have a band and play southern Minas a lot. We're going to perform in Varginha tonight so that's where we're heading for", the man was disturbed at master Danilo's concern and asked what was going on.

"Nothing good at the moment. How many of you in the car?"

"We are three, my friend who is driving is our singer and my friend at the back seat is the saxophonist."

When I heard the word "saxophonist" I immediately remembered who they were.

"So your friend driving is called Paula and your friend at the back seat is George, right? So you're Bruno?"

"We'll so you know us", he seemed relieved, "yes, ma'am we're just looking for the way out of this town so we can get to Varginha in time for the…"

"Look Bruno, pay attention now: you got no time to look for the way out right now. Get your friends and let's go in my house for some time before these horses arrive here", Paula already stuck her head out of the car through the window to see what was going on. I got them to step out of the car and tucked everyone in my house in a hurry, "sorry, people, can't explain it right now". I turned off the lights and we waited in silence in the dark of my dining room. The musicians couldn't be more astonished and obviously were frightened by something they could hardly understand in a country town.

"They're here, "sá" Stella", the old countryman whispered.

The horses approached the porch slowly. The air got heavy as a mantle of lead being placed on the house like a blanket on a cage. The musicians started feeling out of breath. The brass knocker knocked five times as if it were going to crack the door down.

"Miss Grisam! Open up in the name of the Law!", the voice was that of a thunder wrapped in the sound of hundreds of gasoline drums coming downstairs with the staircase being dynamited; what followed was sinister giggling sounds from a teenager and a pre-teenager, "cool phrasing, eh, Miss Grisam, now please open up. There's a car outside with a license plate from Rio de Janeiro and I guess they're there with you", said a microscopic voice outside my door. Paula was frightened as she commented she'd never heard such a weird big voice mutated into something so small and so weird likewise in such a short amount of time.

"I'm opening, just give me some time", I said nervously.

"We ain't got the night to wait, Miss Grisam", said Anderson on the other side of the door. The sinister atmosphere of the Police had been soothed but would soon return in full force. I told the musicians that there were two kids on the other side of the door that had come to kill them all.

"They kill whoever is here without an authorization. If I can't prove you are you there's going to be deep shit here."

Paula was nervous and accused the guitarist of the group of misleading her and taking them all to deep trouble. I asked them to be calm and said I'd talk to the two kids outside. Master Danilo tried to calm down the singer and the other two musicians his own way. I opened the door and the two boys stared at me with their little faces tilted as little puppies which see something weird in you. They carried a shotgun each with a flashlight fixed to the barrel and hadn't come to talk.

"So, Miss Grisam, give us the outsiders and we'll take care of the rest", Renan smiled aluminous smile and stretched his neck to try to see in the penumbra of my dining room.

"Renan and Anderson, the three who are here…"

"Yes, a woman and two men. We know. We've been tracking them since they got to Taurinos. Come on, give us the three, Miss Grisam", clarified Anderson on the edge of his good will and patience.

"Look, they are a group of musicians from Rio de Janeiro. They came to perform in Varginha and lost their way."

"Way lost, I'd say", Renan replied, "they're two hundred kilometers from where they should be. Do you know them, Miss Grisam?"

"I do. They got a group in Rio called Kid Abelha, they started back in the eighties."

The two laughed at the name of the group and only Anderson seemed to know what was being talked about. He seemed to have heard of the group even that not being his favorite kind of music at all.

"Tell them to come out. One by one", Renan and Anderson aimed their shotguns at the door.

"Boys, I don't think you need to aim…"

"Boys, my fucking ass! Isn't this how you word your things? Now tell them to come out. One by one."

The perspectives were shady. The little devil used my speech against me now. I could even see myself watching hopelessly the dismemberment, mutilation and total annihilation of the group Kid Abelha, a group that composed themes that marked many occasions of my life. I was in a hurry and was interested in so many things. But nothing that much, it seemed.

First the saxophonist came out, pale as hell from seeing the two little creatures in black aiming at his head with a shotgun each. Then the singer came out and the last was the guitarist, followed by master Danilo. All of them were aimed at by the shotguns and lighted by the strong focus of their flashlights.

"Could you possibly take off your shades?", asked Renan to the saxophonist, confused as to why one would wear shades at night, "better now, at least you don't look like a fly anymore."

"Taurinos is a party right now you know, boy scouts coming and now musicians coming from everywhere. Where will it end? I've seen this lady on the Internet, I do know her", said Anderson with his flashlight on Paula.

Anderson asked who played what. The musicians answered a bit embarrassed and the blacksmith asked them to play a song by themselves to prove who they were. The three motioned to go, but Anderson held Paula by the arm.

"The lady is staying here. And please try not to be smart and depart, we'll kill the lady here and get the two of you before you dream of reaching Varginha."

She broke loose of Anderson's grip, frightened and revolted. The blacksmith apologized to her and the two other musicians brought their instruments after what felt like an eternity. The guitarist still tried to tune his instrument, but the singer almost hit him with his guitar on the top of her impatience. Then halfway between frightened and appalled at the situation, they played what seemed to be what follows next:

"I only have time for headlines in the subway. And what is going on in the soap opera, someone can always tell me in the aisles. I choose the movies I won't watch in the elevator. Using their rating I find in the critics section of the newspaper. I'm in a hurry and so many things get me interested, but nothing that much. I only concentrate in booklets, something that's so normal. I read the touristic booklets while the TV shows the commercial breaks. I know almost the world world by postcards. I know a bit of almost everything and I know so little about it all. I'm in a hurry and so many things get me interested, but nothing that much."

Nothing That Much, written by Kid Abelha in Seu Espião, 1984, WEA.

Renan loved the song. I see that Renan is somewhat attracted by pop music from Rio de Janeiro because I've already heard him singing a funk from Rio in the shower at home. He requested other songs but the musicians said they would not be able to peform them there.

"Look, Mr. Policeman, if you're going to kill us, do it right now, all of us. Because if we miss the time for our show in Varginha, it's them who are going to kill us, so let's just do it beforehand if it has to be done."

"All right you can go away", Anderson authorized them, "all you have to do is to turn 180 degrees and go down that road two hundred kilometers till you hit Varginha. It's the only thing at the end of this road, so you can't miss it… again."

Well, thanks to Mithra, the Obscure Police called it a day and by magic we could avoid them killing the three musicians of Kid Abelha what was good enough for many nights in my viewpoint. I came back to the porch with master Danilo and called the two kids to come sit down there with us; asked Renan if he was feeling better after acting so badly towards me as I did to him. The little devil said he did. Anderson gazed at the starry sky and master Danilo followed his gaze to infinity. Then Anderson glanced at everyone and said, "my good Mithra, it was real people."

"What are you talking about, dude?", inquired Renan.

"The musicians, Renan. We could've killed them all."

"Well shit happens, dude."

"Hell, no, Renan; if Miss Grisam didn't let us know they were true musicians and were really lost we'd have them leveled to the ground."

"We could have tested them with coarse salt. But you were in the mood for some music, preferred to hear them sing…"

I was looking at master Danilo. They could test them with coarse salt and they didn't? And real people could be at risk in town? The musicians would be in a ditch right now if they hadn't met me.

And the night followed on. I pointed at another constellation I had found next to the Southern Cross and that I had been fighting a lot to locate: the Air Pump. It was not a very attractive or defined constellation; it was more like a group of stars forming a square in space. I have always wanted to find it mostly because of its unusual name. Renan asked me why the name and I said that some astronomers liked to give the constellation names of groundbreaking inventions of their time.

Master Danilo would say later in many other occasions that the night spent gazing at the night sky with me and the Obscure Police was one of the weirdest and most fascinating nights in his lifetime.

Passion play

2009-08-06T03:10:00.028-03:00

Bruno showed up for the first time in my house. He came along with Andrés. I say it was the first time because he'd never been here in fact though he had come around a couple of times. It was the first time he ever walked in the house. He looked around at the interior attentively and never said a word. He was cautious, we were still under the cultural shock of the Celestial Gardener episode as if it weren't enough that he was distrustful of me right from the start in Taurinos. I offered them coffee and the two turned it down. We sat down on the sofa and I asked them what made them pay me a visit.

"You are such a strange duo here together. I'd never dream of seeing you together on my sofa some twenty days ago."

They glanced at each other. Bruno seemed embarrassed as he smiled. Andrés' smile was no different from his. They said they hadn't come to talk about it. I said I was as willing as they were to talk about it but needed to ask Bruno a few questions.

"Why the silence?"

Bruno was silent. It sounded like a joke but he responded with more silence. "Why talk?", he said to me in the end, after a never-ending pause.

"Wasn't it me who spoiled the attempts of communication between the Celestial Gardener and the town? Were you supposed to communicate with the city like this? In silence?"

"In silence I did more for the town than many people did by speaking. Because speaking is speaking, not doing, Miss Grisam. We came to the conclusion that you had created the situation and that you could redress the situation you created. And it was what happened in the end, no?"

"And you came to the conclusion that I had created the situation because you came to the conclusion that I had created the situation."

"I didn't get it…"

"What made you come to the conclusion I had created that or any other situation besides everything I had already created?"

Bruno was silent. Andrés was silent. I was silent. Bruno ended up saying something not very different from what Anderson's father said to me at the square yesterday. That as the Creator of Taurinos I was like God, beginning and end. So no leaf from a tree would fall if it weren't my desire that it happened. A desire I just could not control. I thought it was an oversimplified explanation and said it to him.

"Within this reality you're all trying to convince me of, you're nothing but puppets in my hands."

They were upset at my portrait of them, but I dared them to give me a better explanation. They were silent. I asked them if they had a will of their own or if they just followed mine blindly. And I didn't even know where that will came from. They were silent. It was really hard to deal with them little pestering brats.

"Miss Grisam, actually we want to talk about…", Bruno first hesitated then let it out, "…we want to know whether you can host our scouting group around your house."

I said so. I said I was already supporting the event so it wouldn't be so hard to help them with this either, so everything could run smooth or as smooth as possible at least. But I had questions to ask.

"What about the Mayor of Taurinos?"

"What about the Mayor of Taurinos what?", the two lads asked in impressive synchronicity.

"What do you mean by what about the Mayor of Taurinos what? The man was nailed to a cross on account of an agreement he didn't make alone about something that has nothing to do with him personally. It's certain that what the two did to him you seven have done to each other mutually for some time now. But it's easy to put the Mayor in this shit and pretend nothing happened, no? Well, Andrés at least was here to try and give the poor man a helping hand…", I added, making Bruno go red as pepper.

I showed them a nail I had collected from the cross as Anderson set the Mayor free. The tip was still stained with blood. They were astonished at the size of it. Bruno was dizzy at the very sight of the nail. Andrés took off his glasses, astonished as Bruno.

"I just did it so you two could have an idea what was really going on at the main square. The nails were forged by Anderson, our great blacksmith and future inventor of the guillotine. Beautiful, no?"

The two regarded me astonished. A sound of a horse outside and it was master Danilo. He came in, greeted us all and said he was back from Varginha where he'd gone to see the Mayor. The man was in a state of shock according to the old countryman, outcome of the stress of being nailed to a cross by his hands and feet. The physician (that knew him from earlier occasions) submitted him to a query on the existence of a sect of religious fanatics in Taurinos, or anything to that effect. The two were looking at us astonished.

"We wouldn't ever imagine that Renan would…"

"That's where the problem lies. No one ever imagines that Renan will."

Master Danilo agreed with me. Said an event like this had necessarily to be examined by the Council to avoid this kind of problem.

"Master Danilo, they persuaded, see, they persuaded the Mayor to make the cross for himself and probably even nail himself to the cross. You didn't see the size of the nails", and I showed him the nail I got, "have you any clue what they did to the Mayor for the whole of the night until he ended up crucified at the main square in the morning? Neither do I, but it shouldn't have been something very nice, I'm sure. Andrés himself would find his way to the cross if I hadn't shoved him into his family's car Adriano happened to be passing by in…"

"How shitty…", Andrés mumbled, glancing at a Bruno in total dismay.

"So my dear boy scouts, what was your good deed yesterday?"

I sent a shock wave towards their pride. I said they knew they were dealing with a wild and highly specialized Police (a corporation that was also both randomly unpredictable and insanely monstrous to look at). Said they had to discuss the issue with everyone first. I told them what they knew from times ago when Meire visited me in town and was almost burned alive by Renan. I asked them what the boy scouts would ask in case they saw the Mayor's crucifixion at the main square. And what would we answer to them? Would we say it was a Passion play out of season?

"And picture this multiplied by five hundred", added master Danilo.

"Yes!"

"You want to discourage us", sniffed Andrés, while Bruno shoe-gazed.

"If "sêo" Andrés and "sêo" Bruno do want help, we can help you."

"I want to help, like master Danilo. But are the boy scouts prepared for what they'll find here? I know their motto is Be Prepared, but how prepared do you think they are to Taurinos? How are we supposed to conceal all weird things in town from them? We can try, but the risk is high if you know ten per cent of the town's potential for strangeness."

They glanced at each other. I told them that if they wanted to really go ahead we'd help them. I was going to talk to the Obscure Police at night and see if I could involve them somehow and get them to carry out lighter patrols at night.

From the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, only two appeared, Renan and Anderson. I was finishing making dinner helped by master Danilo. Thanks to Mithra, they came in plain clothes, simple for the cold of the night; still they came on their black horses. They meant to respect my right not to entertain them in uniform while keeping the official aspect of an Obscure Police visit, not a mere social meeting with the Taurinian citizens Anderson Nascimento Caldeira and Renan Augusto Giacomin Teixeira.

They greeted master Danilo and took seat on the sofa. I made them come to the kitchen where supper was ready. We sat around the table and I served them spaghetti with Bolognese sauce and meatballs. Renan asked me if I had Coca-Cola. I made him get one in the fridge and fill four glasses for us. He left the bottle uncapped on the sink and I made him cap the bottle before he sat at the table again.

"What exactly do you want?", asked Renan between one and another movement of his fork.

"I don't want to let the boy scouts realize this is a madhouse."

"Hahaha, so you think it depends on us alone?", the youngest policeman laughed amused.

"On you too. It'll depend on everyone. For instance you could run "lighter patrols" at night. What do you think?"

I explained to them that any testimony of weird things happening in town from the scouting groups might incur unwanted advertising, drawing more and more outsiders to town, crazy to learn about the mysteries of Taurinos, as it had happened some time in the past in the neighbor city of Varginha because of its world famous case of the E.T. The two were really impressed with the way I presented them with the facts and were thinking of the consequences this weird image of Taurinos could incur in today's media.

"Miss Grisam, we can help, we can bring time to a stop so the scouts can't see what's going on, but there can always be unpredictable things going on too", explained the older policeman.

"And also there's no such thing as "running lighter patrols". This is the Obscure Police, not a duo of Care Bears or instructors on origami", added Renan, angry at my attempt to tame them, "hand out some manual for survival in Taurinos, decree a curb, whatever, but there's no such thing as "running lighter patrols"!"

"Of course, who would even mention that?", I let it pass; after all I managed to do something nearly impossible: getting the two to cooperate. It was the world as far as the Police was concerned.

"And don't you forget I was upset, really upset with you when I called you Mom and you…"

"Renan, this is hardly the time to bring on the beloved child. We're in an official visit of the Obscure Police, remember?", interrupted Anderson, smiling embarrassed at me and saving me by the bell.

"What idea was that of crucifying the Mayor, kids?", inquired master Danilo, facing the terrifying duo.

"If the Mayor came to talk to us when the hippies went to him with the event's project we'd talk to the hippies themselves, you know? In the Council, at the Mithraeum. He approved the project by himself, that's what he got", Renan replied.

"It was too good to see the Mayor of Taurinos agonizing up on that cross", added the blacksmith, who seemed to have been completely absorbed and corrupted by the sadistic traits of the institution he belonged to.

Thinking of it again, hadn't I caught myself thinking of the Mayor of Santos nervously agonizing up a cross himself? I see myself sometimes as Dr. Finnegan, a character of Márcio de Souza's Mad Maria, an Irish doctor working for the Madeira-Mamoré Railway Co. that becomes insensitive to the massacre of hundreds of workers during the construction of the railway in the Amazon, getting to the stage of killing them himself at the end of the story.

"Anderson said you convinced the Mayor to make a cross for himself. How did you do it?"

Renan smiled that fiendish smile of a bear cub and glanced mischievously at Anderson, who bore much the same smile as the former.

"Do you really want to know?"

""Sá" Stella, ignorance is bliss", advised the old countryman, coated in cold sweat at the very thought.

"Listen to master Danilo, he knows it all", added the little pest. I gave up hearing their account. God knows what could still be lurking in those depths.

The boys loved the spaghetti and the meatballs. And of course the river of Coke. I told Renan to stay longer. Of course he used the invitation to eat some more. When he finished I told him I was angry with him because of his thoughtless attitude. This was why I just burst out at Zé's. But I did hear him say Mom. I said it to him because I didn't want him to feel rejected. It was an attitude of him I rejected, not the whole of him. I wondered why even happy moments like that had to come all clad in a shell of sheer tension.

"So you were not rejecting me? What am I without my attitudes?", and he faced me.

"It's true you are the sum of all of your attitudes. But it is also true that not all of them are good attitudes. Some might not be extremely bad, but are thoughtless attitudes. Choosing the Mayor as a scapegoat was one of them. Extremely bad, extremely thoughtless attitude."

He stopped for a while as he always did when he was thoughtful.

Crucifying

2009-08-05T04:01:00.021-03:00

Andrés came knocking on my door. It was nine in the morning, a time at which I'm not used to waking up. There's usually a little pest on duty to wake me up at seven, but today the little pests on duty were a bit late. Andrés walked in, a bit agitated, and went to the kitchen with me.

"So what's new?", I asked still sleepy, lighting the stove to make coffee. The reader of my diaries will come gradually and logically to the conclusion that I live on coffee and nothing else. They'll come to the conclusion that if they die and go to hell, coffee will be the only meal they'll have every day. But it happens only because I love coffee and love to describe the moments around it.

"Downtown is sheer hell today", he said while he cleaned his glasses a bit nervously.

"I asked what is new, Andrés. Sheer hell downtown is hardly what I'd call something new."

He smiled a bitter quasi-smile. Then he put his glasses back on.

"Anderson and Renan have nailed the Mayor of Taurinos to a cross at the main square. They are there right now, the whole town around it, like ants around an anthill."

"And just where would they find wood for that cross?"

He looked at me puzzled at my reply, attentively following me with his eyes behind those strong lenses, "but I'm telling you that Renan and Anderson have nailed the Mayor of Taurinos to a cross and all you got to ask me is where they'd find wood for that cross??? Don't you find it strange that the Mayor has been nailed to a cross???"

"Had you lived in a town like Santos like I did, you'd know well how it feels to want to see the Mayor nailed to a cross."

I watched the water as it released its first air bubbles on its way to boiling. Thought of the Mayor of Santos delightfully nailed to a beautiful cross and the very thought of it gave me immeasurable pleasure.

"Besides, what do you want me to do? An imitation of Donald Trump or Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva? Juggling with eggs or a crazy quilt?"

"I didn't get it…"

"I mean, I'm not running to town like a madwoman every time one of the seven of you does something weird. Andrés. Do you have a clue how many weird things you all do a day? Don't I need to eat, to drink, to take a shower, don't I?"

There was an extended, almost eternal pause. The water came to a boil in the meantime and the songbirds distracted me from the pause left by Andrés. I poured the water watching calmly as it came through the coffee powder then pouring more to break down the cliffs formed by the wet powder. All this while the Mayor of the town was still in vertical position,
nailed to an obnoxious cross.

Andrés was in silence. He had breakfast with me and made me promise we'd go to town as soon as we were finished. I was beginning to get nervous with him and with the obnoxious perspective of getting to town and finding the Mayor of the town nailed to a cross.

Well, as announced before, there the Mayor was, nailed to the cross. From a distance, we could see the hubbub around the event. And I thought of the lack of something better to do for the locals, leaving the beans on the stove fire to burn to come see this shit going on the main square. From here it was plain to see Anderson mounted guard in front of the cross and spoke out to the crowd swarming all around so he could better get his point across.

"May this be a warning to all those wanting to come to agreements that aim to bring outsiders to Taurinos!"

Woke up in a medieval and phantasmagorical community, a medieval Golgotha in the dead center of the main square. Passing by the hardware store, we saw Alberto passively contemplating the public torture for want of better things to do for the morning. Not that I loved the Mayor but didn't want to wake up every day and have to talk children out of crucifying people, not to mention at the main square.

"Alberto, aren't you going to intervene? Isn't that lad over there your son, all in black on that horse and speaking that load of medieval crap? Are you going to wait until they invent the guillotine and install one at the main square too?"

"Don't you yourself create all this? So that's it!"

"I think it's parents shitting in their pants afraid of their offspring who create this. But right you are, blame it on God for everything! It makes it so easy to walk without the burden of our own omissions!"

Andrés heard the argument, but said nothing. Alberto heard my curse and kept looking like an idiot. We started making our way through the compact crowd until there was no one else in front of us but Anderson. And the cross on which the Mayor was nailed to, ruckling, of course. He saw us emerge from the depths of the general ruck and smiled.

"See, Andrés quickly went to call Miss Grisam to the rescue. Did you know he should be on that cross together with the Mayor? And so should Bruno!"

I instinctively glanced at Andrés. As a tiny plump chameleon, he assumed a body language of absolute disguise. I knew that language as few people did in Taurinos.

"Andrés, is there no holding you? Can't you spare five minutes from one shit to the other? What did you do this time? It's the Celestial Gardener now, then back to the Obscure Police, can't you give us even a ghost of a fucking break?"

I turned to Anderson. He was going to start the monotonous chanting of the may this be a warning to all those wanting to come to agreements that aim to bring outsiders to Taurinos when I cut him short.

"Beautiful cross, eh, Anderson? I just loved it. I'll bet you didn't even make it. Now that I have loved the cross, can you please take the Mayor off it?"

Anderson laughed, "you're always in a good mood, eh, Miss Grisam? You bet really right; we "gently persuaded" the Mayor to make the cross for himself. If Renan authorizes it, I'll take him out of the punishment. But it's still very recent you know, not even the vultures have realized he has no choice but staying there."

"But what the heck has the Mayor done for this VIP treatment?"

"He and Mr. Andrés Silva Conselheiro had an agreement to bring outsiders to town. They're Bruno's and Andrés' little friends that live in all of this region and beyond."

"Take the Mayor down and we can discuss that at the Mithraeum", I insisted.

"I've told you, Miss Grisam, only Renan can let him off the cross 'cause it was Renan who put him there." Anderson scowled at Andrés, who wouldn't utter a word.

"And just where'd Renan go at a time like this?"

"He went to Zé's for a snack and will be back soon."

"Well, I'll go and bring Renan back here even if it has to be by the ears to put an end to this new madness of you."

"I recommend against trying to bring Renan here by the ears. It's not exactly Renan you're dealing with. It's the Obscure Police."

"Really? I want you to know that the Obscure Police is dealing with the Council of Taurinos' Ancient Society. Either you take him off that thing or I'll summon a meeting of the Council for today to discuss your attitude", I said and left the older policeman there ass-faced on his horse.

Andrés and I went to Zé's. I did because I wanted to find Renan and put an end to that madness. He did, because he was afraid of being crucified by Anderson in the meantime. There Renan was, at his usual outside table, drinking a 600ml Coke and eating what seemed to be his third snack while the damn Mayor agonized nailed to that nefarious cross. He saw me and beamed but soon was serious as he saw Andrés right behind me.

"Good morning, Mom", he was divided into trying to smile at me, be astonished at my expression and scowl at Andrés.

"Good morning, Mom my fucking ass. Take the Mayor off that cross and put an end to this mockery, Renan!"

"But Miss Gri… Hey, wait you just can't order the Obscure Police around!", he was astonished at my attitude and furious with what he deemed as interference.

"Well, I can't, but the Council of Taurinos' Ancient Society can. Take him off the cross or I'll bring the two of you to Council today!"

Renan was even more astonished with the promise, "would you really bring us to…", and I was quick to cut him short, "there's no would, I will if you don't take the Mayor off that fucking cross!"

"That fella at your side deserves a cross too. And so does Bruno, whose whereabouts I don't even know!"

"Cross my ass! Don't even know where you got this idea from!"

Out of the blue, Adriano appeared coming down the street and pulled the car to the curb as he saw us; I opened the car's door and tucked Andrés in, much to his elder brother's astonishment.

"Take your brother away from here. we'll meet at the Mithraeum later. Go, go!"

"That's it take the guilty away from harm! We'll see to that at the meeting!", Renan objurgated as Adriano departed with his younger brother looking frightened through the window of the car, seriously risking imminent crucification.

"You can be dead sure we'll see to it, young man", I guaranteed, "now can you possibly do as I ask or will we have to discuss the method at the first meeting already?"

When I arrived home, I ran into a horseman coming close to my gate. It was master Danilo. He probably planned to go to town judging by the direction he was coming from. He was appalled to learn about the Mayor's crucification, "but how deranged can they go next, "sá" Stella, there's no holding these youths?!?"

I told him the Mayor ended up in Varginha's General Hospital. There must be an aisle in that hospital only for the natives of Taurinos coming all broken down in pieces for treatment. Told him that I called the members of the Council right from downtown to summon a meeting for today. That I had scheduled the meeting for three p.m. at the Mithraeum.

Mithraeum. Adriano is the Officiant for today. And he has already opened the works asking for silence. Andrés and Bruno glanced at each other sometimes, in the same enigmatic vibe as always, watched attentively by Guilherme and Arthur. Renan and Anderson attended the meeting in black and sat down together fulminating Andrés and Bruno with their fiery eyes. I was going to pick at them for coming to meeting in black, but master Danilo strongly advised me against ranting at details.

"I'll give voice to the police officers so they can explain what happened at the main square today", determined the Officiant, "will brother Renan or Anderson speak?"

Renan stood up and was going to start speaking when the Officiant warned him to remain sitting. Renan sat back on the grandstands, upset.

"Yesterday it came to our attention that the Mayor, Bruno and Andrés sealed a pact to bring outsiders to town. We still don't know what it is but it does involve a lot of people coming to Taurinos, what only makes matters worse for them. So Anderson and I decided we'd crucify the Mayor immediately as an example that no one is above the law in Taurinos. The Police itself has proven it so many times. Weren't it for Miss Grisam he'd still be there on the cross", and looked at me in that mix of frustration and anger that had long been a trait of the lads here.

"Are you finished?", inquired the Officiant as he felt it was too long a pause by Renan.

"For now", growled Renan.

"Brother Renan is called to moderate his tone of voice towards the Officiant or any other member of the Council. I ask brother Bruno where he was when all of the events took place."

"In Varginha, with Arthur", was the answer of a serious Bruno.

"Does brother Andrés want to make any statement?", said the Officiant.

Andrés, mute as a fish since my breakfast table, decided to turn into a new leaf and spoke for the very first time.

"I want to declare that neither Bruno nor I want outsiders to come and fix in town of course. It's a meeting that occurs from time to time in different towns; Bruno and I take part in this event. People come, meet for the event and after some days they go away exactly as they came. No one is going to remain in town, we guarantee."

"Can brother Andrés or Bruno tell us what kind of meeting that is?"

Andrés glanced at Bruno, as if he were wary of telling us what it was. I glanced at master Danilo and he had fallen prey to the same general feeling of suspense all around.

"It's a… It's a… A jamboree."

"Wouldn't it be jabuti?", asked Anderson naively, reminding me of Google's search spelling corrector and making me laugh a shout. Immediately, all the members of the Obscure Police fulminated me with the eyes.

"Silence!", demanded the Officiant, "brother Anderson talks only when given voice to. I also ask for the collaboration from Miss Grisam so the meeting can run more smoothly and fast. Brother Andrés, if you can clarify to this Council what this is…"

"A jamboree is a meeting of boy scouts from a given country, of a continent or region or from all over the world. A meeting in a smaller region like Minas Gerais isn't usually called a jamboree as far as I know, but we decided to keep this name just the same. Bruno and I are part of the Scouting Group from Varginha. All scouting groups from the state have been invited and all have confirmed their presence", he said the last phrase a bit afraid of what it might mean to the others.

There was a huge pause. Astonishment was in the order of the day. Even to them, who came up to me to tell me things as if they had always existed in town for decades.

"You've never told us you were a boy scout, Andrés", said the Officiant, baffled.

"Mr. Officiant, I had never been asked about it before", replied Andrés, causing general laughter to wash over us. Even the Officiant and the Obscure Police had to laugh at Taurinos' most beaten spoken commonplace.

"Now I understand why Bruno and Andrés go to Varginha together once a week", added Arthur.

"Brother Arthur needs to request and wait for voice before speaking. Please I do ask the members of this council to request voice before speaking or the meeting is to be voided unconditionally. I give voice to brother Bruno so he can explain what the meeting is made up of."

Bruno glanced at Andrés, the sudden complicity, maybe only sudden to my eyes.

"It's to work together, sing together, learn, explore together. It's to exchange experiences that are valuable for everyone. To celebrate nature. To build one's character. Many people together learning new things and confirming many old ones."

Anderson requested voice, closely followed by Renan. I glanced again at master Danilo and master Danilo again glanced back at me. Their request was watched with more interest by Arthur and Guilherme than by Andrés and Bruno. And of course by the Officiant, who was supposed to queue the requests.

"I think it's all very nice, but how many people are coming?"

The Officiant gave voice to Bruno, "some five hundred."

"Confirmed?", asked the Officiant.

"Yes, confirmed."

"Are you aware this number accounts for a quarter of this town's population?"

"Yes", Bruno glanced at Andrés in suspense. Renan raised his hand again to request voice and the Officiant reminded him he had him written down and queued.

"I give brother Renan voice now."

"Can the brother of infinite celestial agriculture tell us…"

"Brother Renan, cut down sarcasm and disrespect for a member of the council. Avoid nullifying this meeting", the current Officiant conducted one of the most complicated meetings of Mithraeum's recent history.

"Can brother Bruno tell this Council how come a group this large is going to stay in town without causing trouble and impact on the nature you're so very fond of?", Renan glanced at the Officiant to check that he approved of his new tone of voice and phrasing.

Bruno also glanced at the Officiant and answered.

"I would like to remind brother Renan that we are in the same boat here so it is the nature we all like. Your concern about nature in Taurinos is recent as far as I know. Now to answer your question, boy scouts have proposals for the conservation of the town and the nature of Taurinos during the event. Something that some Agents of law don't have…"

Renan was going to stand up, infuriated when the Officiant told him to take his seat again, "brother Bruno is called to limit his answers to the question asked by brother Renan."

Bruno and Andrés took turns to explain their action plan in details for the meeting. Anderson still raised the issue of groups going to special places in town like the Basilisk Island or the Sanctuary where no outsiders should ever go. Andrés and Bruno took the burden of responsibility for this item and for the rest of it all. The Council had fewer and fewer questions in time until none was left to ask. Their permission to hold the event was voted what had its approval as an outcome by 6 votes against 2. Needless to say who voted against. Renan request voice and was allowed to speak.

"I want to tell you something, Andrés and Bruno: what if outsiders start coming to town and take refuge among the tents and what if have to go where their tents are to chase the damn outsiders in the evening or at night? Bring your little boy scout friends if you wish. But I don't want to hear complaints when things start to go weird. Police are going wherever the outsiders go. Have you thought of how cute it would be to hunt one down by the light of a bonfire and have him slaughtered in front of all them kids? You know how weird it is. Good luck, brothers in the Council and in the Scout Fraternity!", and he laughed a tiny fiendish with a cute and satanic little face all at once.

Persephone

2009-08-04T01:12:00.009-03:00

Donana appeared in her car this morning. Found breakfast on the table, but turned down the meal politely, saying she had already eaten. I had breakfast thinking of how bad it was to have breakfast with someone who didn't want to have breakfast with me. I figured she hadn't exactly come to sit around and turn down my breakfast. She didn't take long to start talking.

"Renan is at home now, he's been so sad these days."

"Why would he?", I was being much of a smart-ass asking that thing.

"He came here yesterday, didn't he? And you talked about him."

"Donana, it's no secret for anyone in town I really got emotionally attached to the kid and the other way round during the month or so he stayed in my house. I think it was even commented during my birthday party I was absent from, no?"

She was in silence. Said that since the boy returned home she had been sad for fim and for everything. I let my psychologist side flow for a while and tried to encourage that poor woman. But I decided I wouldn't hide my reflections on the issue I had had one day before.

"Hey, stop it Donana, you got a husband that loves you and cares for the family, have such handsome, healthy children; count your blessings not your troubles. Reinforce your troubles and they'll take over you. You got everything in your hands, my friend. Don't let it go to waste, don't let it slip through your fingers!"

"I'm really sad this all has happened. My husband acted motivated by rage and cast out the boy. I was shocked too by what had happened, all that shouting and screaming in front of Anderson's store. He could only find shelter in your house. You took care of him like I'd do, it was natural that you'd develop the same feelings. I'm so very sad, really so very sad with what happened. I'm sorry it's made you suffer, Miss Grisam."

"Donana, even in a town like Taurinos, do you what it means to make a ten-year-old child a homeless desperately looking for shelter? Were you really going to leave Renan on the streets even knowing that, wrong as he might be, he is still one of your children?"

Well, I made her cry. No sound, only tears. I felt sorry for Donana. For her, for the kid and for myself. Far from self-pity, but the affair really got the better of me. The process left deep scars on her too, I could see now. She herself a victim of the chauvinist mentality dominating the town, without the attitude of asserting herself, opposing the process, avoiding the situation we have now. The kid ended up divided between two mother figures, what turned out to be one more of the sequels in the whole episode. I woke up the mother that I didn't even know existed in me only to kill her at close range on the day he said goodbye. I saw myself resurrecting that mother eternally to be able to kill her at close range again and again.

Guilherme showed up in the afternoon. When I most expected him to sermonize me over the gifts I turned down, he sat at the porch with me and was in silence for some time. Then he stared at me and asked the only thing he managed to.

"Why?"

"Just what are you talking about, Guilherme?"

"Why all this business of my family and you around Renan? Why does everybody only care about Renan? What about me? Does no one care about me?"

"Course we do. A lot. But your brother has lived through very hard times, Guilherme. Your parents' attitude of casting him out forced him to come here. I'd never leave your brother on the streets. I grew attached to him and this caused a lot of trouble as everything else in this town."

"You sure find correct what he did on that day", the elder brother stared at me with eyes full of reproach.

"I wasn't going to be your brother's judge. I only saw someone who needed a roof over his head. He was so desperate those days; all he had planned fell through when Anderson refused to continue as his friend. At the time we didn't know what caused Anderson to act like that, but we knew he hadn't been in his normal since the Obscure Police ritual. Your brother couldn't understand why he was doing it and was desperate. Don't think I approve of what he did, but the moment didn't let him think clearly. If you ask me, that's what I think."

And after a pause, I said to him, "I can't believe you're jealous of your younger brother, Guilherme."

He was sullen and turned challenging eyes to me as a young rooster preparing for fight, "what if I am? What's the matter? You didn't even want my gift!"

"Guilherme, both your box and Bruno's were empty."

"They were empty because you turned the garden down. You turned down everything! If Renan had given you the gift it'd be heaven to you, right? See the gift he gave you, much worse than an empty box!", he screamed, punching the wall on top of his anger, totally infuriated.

"What was there inside the box?"

"Now it doesn't matter anymore!", he gazed at me furious and started to cry, "spent hours and hours in Varginha to choose the fucking present and what for?"

A jealous Guilherme now, how cute. But I was sad for him and for all that happened. He was so right. What difference would it make now? Anyhow, the circumstances around the events these last days ended up talking louder than anything else. I tried to touch his shoulder but he pulled it out of my reach with anger.

"Don't touch me. Don't even come close."

"I was out of my mind. I was angry and nervous, Guilherme. When Arthur said the seeds would…"

"The seeds the birds sowed around your house were the seeds of that garden that you saw and that I could never see! We'd never tear down your house! Not that we could not, but we'd never do it to you! Do you think we'd tear down my house just because my brother took you to the Sanctuary!? Would we tear down Adriano's house when he was fully supporting us???", and he buried his head in his arms crossed, like Arthur did when I turned down the garden he built.

"But I supported you. I did support the Celestial Gardener. If I only knew where I was being taken to and what it meant for the town, I'd never have set foot there. I was the first to scold the two for the joke. If you don't believe me, ask them two. I only grasped the meaning of it and that I had invaded a biological reservation when talking to Anderson and master Danilo at the Conselheiros' barbecue party almost one month ago. So I talked to them here in my house, scolded them real hard. Do you think I'd know if what you were telling me was true or not?"

It took me ages but I raised him from the chair and took him in. Offered him coffee. He accepted and we sat at the table. I changed subjects a little bit and asked him too what Arthur meant by coming here with a white handkerchief in his hand. Only to have a second version of that tradition and its strange meaning, since master Danilo and I had already talked about it. Guilherme stared at me and this was one of the only moments when curiosity was stronger than anger in him.

"He was trying to tell you he didn't come to fight. Did he?"

"He did."

"Eh, Arthur…", and he smiled a tiny little smile.

He relaxed a bit, I could see. But this didn't solve any matter. Only drove the issues away for some time before they came back pestering us in full force. Of course it would never erase the insult it was to turn down their gifts. What good would it be to ask them if having the garden here in my house would make them happy. Probably setting the garden here was important at that moment in time but now it wouldn't make any difference any longer. Adding to the issue with Renan it was no surprise Guilherme felt so neglected.

"What Arthur said was that I create these situations, like this eternal fight of the Celestial Gardener with Andrés…"

"If not you, who else would?", Guilherme tried to corner me.

"I told them maybe I had "just" set the wheel in motion, it was exactly what I said, verbatim"

There was a huge pause. What could he say to me? What else could anyone come up with but beliefs? "I believe it's you, Miss Grisam.", "Well, I can't believe it's really me." Even though master Danilo told me there were no beliefs in Taurinos, these were some of them. The belief we knew what was causing this random behavior. The belief it was this or that.

"Even if it's me who's doing it, it's not for my pleasure, I must say, Guilherme. Since I first set foot here there's no resting, only been running here and there trying to put out the fires."

"There has been no fire here since you first came to town", he retorted naively.

"It was just an expression, no? It seems this town is one second from being annihilated every day."

"You've created the Celestial Gardener to protect the nature of Taurinos from your very self and from outsiders. As you've created the Obscure Police to protect Taurinos from outsiders. This is what I know. And I know no further than this."

Tried to learn more details about the Celestial Gardener from that trustworthy source but the trustworthy source was still a bit sullen and said nothing else until he went away.

In the evening, the whole of the clan Teixeira dropped by. They of course came to talk about their youngest. Without further ado, because I can't stand writing about this all anymore but even the patriarch of the clan Teixeira wept and there was a collective mea culpa, of the kind that never solves any issue but also never deceives anyone.

One of the problems was that Renan had had two mothers and loved the experience. The other issue was that Guilherme was jealous of his brother and would go wherever he went to. If Renan wanted to have two mothers, Guilherme wanted to have two mothers too. "Sêo" Octávio and Donana just could not believe what they heard. To calm down the duo, we had to arrange that they would go back to their house on the first of July and come to mine on the first of January. As if they were Persephone, living six months in Olympus and six in Hades. But just where is Olympus and where is Hades?

It should still be earlier than nine p.m. when "sêo" Danilo dropped by. It had been fifteen minutes since the clan Teixeira had left my house. I told him about the day and he was astonished at what happened, though he was not so astonished at the solution we had all agreed on.

"Yes, the musician and the policeman, you got everything in only one package, "sá" Stella", then he looked like he regretted joking about the issue, though I didn't care and even came to find it funny in the current status of the town.

We closed the issue with the Celestial Gardener like this, at least for this issue. Nothing went right for any of the sides, but there's always remedy where there's no remedy at all. Now we are sure of the young guardians of nature here and their aggressive raids against nature molesters who might pose any threat to natural resources in town. An amazing conflict between nature and progress I myself might have created in less than twenty days. How time takes me here I don't know. Maybe it's just, as master Danilo says, that I value time too much.

Year zero

2009-08-03T19:25:00.016-03:00

Sitting at the porch in the afternoon. In a rocking chair and with my laptop beside me, gazing at the grit around my house. Thinking of Renan again. Thought I'd get used to loneliness little by little. Thought I'd already gotten used to loneliness. But loneliness is a stubborn companion and insists on staying with you sometimes even at a party, a celebration.

How many times among friends I'd fall prey to the same loneliness I feel today. I wondered if my friends themselves had ever felt that way. Not the loneliness of lack of companions but that of lack of identity to the same friends at least at that particular moment. When I hung out with friends of mine who had children and how they would talk about how smart, handsome, beautiful, intelligent (and even how nasty) they were. There was always a perceptible hint of pleasure of them for being mothers no matter how hard it had been for them to raise the little rascals.

While i found these things wonderful and felt happy for them, I couldn't help but nurturing a reverse feeling. Not jealousy, though it would be no surprise if it should occur. It was the loneliness of seeing myself in a situation where my work and my physical conditions would never allow me to have children whether natural or adoptive. I'd never have children to expose them to what I lived through in Santos and São Vicente and still live through in Taurinos. I opened Winamp in my laptop and let it play random.

"Loneliness is a beast, loneliness devours you. She is a friend of the hours, the first cousin of time. It makes our clocks go slow, causing our heart to beat out of rhythm. The loneliness of the stars. The loneliness of the moon. The loneliness of the night. The loneliness of the streets."

Loneliness, written by Alceu Valença in Mágico, 1984, Barclay/Polygram.

Far from random in the situation I'm in now. I made it play the next song, as Renan one day asked me to turn off a Macy Gray song, as my mother one day asked me to turn off a Baden-Powell song,

"I can't stand another lonely night like this. I can't stand it."

Lonely Night, performed by Hopeton Lindo in The Word, 1991, Greensleeves.

The selection was still light-years far from random. Some days not even music brings you comfort in this hell. I shut Winamp down and was lazy. Gazing at everything. Remembering the insanity of the past days. And how much I missed Renan. When I thought I had already gotten used to loneliness, he appeared to show me there was another life I could live, not only on my own as before. As the son I never had, he showed it to me so clearly. And went away when I thought I had found the way.

The sound of a horse in the distance. When horses pass by in the distance and their sound is heard clearly here, it means they will pass in front of my house and in front of the gate of the farm Taurinos. Both the farm and my house are on a secondary road that goes into the fields. This secondary road ends and begins on the main road in and out of Taurinos. If someone takes the secondary road either they want to stop on the farm Taurinos or at my house, because they are the two only things on this road. My house is well at the back of its lot, but it's no issue for any entity coming here. If their sound comes past the farm Taurinos they will fatally end up here, person or haunt.

And he fatally ended up here, person or haunt. The horseman was Arthur and thanks to Mithra wasn't in dungarees. Sun was already going low. He stopped in front of my house and showed me a white handkerchief. God only knows what it might be to show someone a white handkerchief. A goodbye? Peace? I wondered what it could be in the symbology of the lads here.

"Come in!", I shouted from the porch.

I found out it was good and old symbol of peace for them too. He tied his horse to the gate and came down my lot to my porch and couldn't help but gazing at the grit around him. He got on the porch, embarrassed, and we walked in the house. Arthur sat down with his back on the kitchen window and I was appalled to look at his face. The back-light from the window showed him to me as having a heinous face of a scarecrow with an even more heinous luminescent smile haunting me. I immediately suggested that we swapped places. He seemed to understand what went on and was astonished (and a bit more embarrassed too) to find out I could see this side of him in the back-light.

Offered him coffee. He politely refused. I told him the demand had come to an end and with it, the restrictions in my house. He turned it down just the same. I asked him if he had come only to scare me as the Heinous Scarecrow of Death and Horror and he laughed, embarrassed once again. He made a pause. I didn't know what to expect. He didn't know what to say.

"I've come to apologize for the fit of rage at Zé's yesterday. I wasn't very nice to you. But I won't lie and tell you I'm happy with you for what you did. But both on your side of the question and mine what has been done has been done."

"All right you've been forgiven I'm really used to this public humiliations at Zé's. Before you it was the Obscure Police", I knew it was the closest to an apology I'd get from him after what happened.

Arthur was in silence for a long while. Then he asked me if I knew what was going on. I answered that master Danilo and Andrés had told me about it.

"And Andrés told you the story of old", Arthur smiled.

I told him what I had learned from Andrés and asked him if that was the story of old.

"Yes. That one. And it is true, Miss Grisam. It happened at least fifteen thousand years ago and still it was created by you less than twenty days ago."

"And the Book of Origins was that mess because…"

"Because the Book of Origins is you."

"Well, it could only be, so messy and distorted when nothing matches anything… So let me guess. You die every fifty-two years crushed by a bull as Taurinos' Ancient Society plans the ceremony that will chase the Big One out of town. And it's been happening for fifteen or sixteen thousand years."

The lad had a serious expression. Asked me not to stare at him. Said I could even take it not seriously enough, but that what I said was true. I told him I was taking it seriously. But I didn't know whether or not I was numb at so many discoveries anymore. He argued it was no discovery.

"There's nothing in most of the sixteen-thousand-year traditions in town that you yourself haven't created since February. There is no time in Taurinos, at least no time as you knew it. Don't stare at me; try to give your eyes a bit of rest", and he went on, "it doesn't happen anymore because you decided to die on that day. You put an end to the Big One, the Law of the Bulls every fifty-two years. Life here is divided into two periods: before and after you. The year you know as 2009 is year zero to us Taurinians."

Renan dropped by nearly at the end of the afternoon. Said he had been missing his days here. I told him of my reflections before Arthur came. He heard me all serious. I saw a tear roll down his face and wiped it away with my thumb. After he heard me, Renan didn't know what to say except that he had been missing his days here. He hugged me. He was for some moments in my arms and then he sat down on the sofa, gazing at his boots.

"I remember you were crying when my parents took me home. I thought you were happy to see me go back home for real. Then you didn't go to your own party and Arthur said…"

"Master Danilo told me all about it, said you cried a lot during the party."

"Because only then I saw that you were not happy with me going home. I am young but understood that you got familiar with me as if you were my mother. And this is because I too got familiar with you as if I were your son. My mother and father are afraid of me. But I know deep in their hearts they love me."

"Course they love you, Renan. Don't be absurd!"

"But they are very afraid of me", he looked downcast, "and you don't."

"Who said I do not?"

He stared at me, surprised. I saw he didn't expect me to say that. But I thought he ought to. Was surprised to see him surprised.

"Lord, even you are afraid of me…"

"I'm not afraid only of you, Renan. I'm afraid of you, Andrés, Arthur, Adriano, Anderson, Bruno and your brother."

He was thoughtful for a while. Then asked me what I feared in them. I replied I never knew what to expect from any of them. He then asked me if I knew I created most of these behaviors in them without any control. I said I had been collecting opinions that said it was true. That Arthur had just told me the same with other words. I said it led to more questions than answers.

"If this is so how much freedom and free will can you afford? How much of you is really you?"

"What is a free will?", he frowned at me.

"There isn't "a" free will. There is only free will. It means to do something because you yourself wanted to, not because something or someone made you do it."

Frequently the mastery those children had of the elements or whatever they called these things here made me forget that, in the case of Renan, I was talking to a ten-year-old. In the same case, dressed in a different aspect, any of them could conduct a solemn session at the Mithraeum, for instance.

"How can you tell it's this free will and not another thing that made us do it?"

Who resists children's logic? Or their lack of logic? I thought I didn't have an answer, but answered anyhow.

"How can you tell it's another thing and not free will that made you do it?"

Renan was thoughtful for another while. Then, he looked around, stretched his neck as he did whenever he was angry or alarmed.

"Outsiders have got to town. I need to go, Miss Grisam , he asked me to shut my eyes and to not open the door until he was gone for real. I figured out what it was. Renan was a nightmare. My favorite nightmare, but a nightmare just the same.

An hour later, master Danilo showed up on his horse. The moths and other nocturnal little creatures had already started to land on the porch wall attracted by the light, casting weird and twisted shadows across the brick surface.

Tonight, looking at master Danilo, I can't help but thinking of Dr. Romeu, the therapist who initiated me in the world of the paranormal for better and for worse. I think this man has a lot to do with the other. As if master Danilo were made of my recollections of Dr. Romeu. A wise, experienced man someone I have always taken advice from.

"Good Mithra, the Police passed me by on the way, it was hell as usual."

"Yup, it's been an hour since he left my house."

"Holy mother of God! I still see everything spinning. Like a TV set with the image flickering like hell."

I had to laugh. He made me laugh a good lot. I told him the passage of Arthur's and Renan's visits earlier in the afternoon and what we talked about.

"I'm glad to learn the boy had at least a bit of sense and came to apologize, "sá" Stella."

"Yup, and he came and showed me a white handkerchief, proposing peace and stuff…"

Master Danilo found it weird; he frowned and stared at me for some time. Said Arthur showing me a white handkerchief had nothing to do with a proposal of peace.

"No, "sá" Stella, actually he meant he didn't come to attack you either physically or verbally, though that was what you deserved."

"Oh, how nice of him."

He was appalled at my account of seeing Arthur as a scarecrow in the back-light. Said he never saw that side of him but that he shouldn't appear like that when he came to apologize. I told him how he asked me not to stare at him. He said the boy should still be infuriated with me but admitted he had no right to treat me as he did at Zé's.

"So you saw this aggressive side in Arthur when the shadow hit his face. If you can see in the shadow, you can see what is concealed there. What people don't want you to see. Arthur most probably asked you to not stare at him because he didn't want you to notice all the time that he is still angry with you. Or because he didn't want to scare you, because it all amounts to just the same."

"And you say you never saw this aggressive side in him."

"No, thanks to the King Star. Because seeing it is a clear sign things are cursed in your house at least at that moment, what is already bad enough."

"So you think things were cursed in my house?"

"They were if you saw the scarecrow in Arthur's face… As they were when Renan tied his black horse to the column of your porch."

"If you've never seen the scarecrow thing, how could you describe it so well to me? Did Arthur tell you what it was like?"

"No. Arthur, Bruno or Guilherme need not tell me anything. I know how the Celestial Gardener operates. I'm what you usually call the guardian of traditions of the local mithraism."

And he went on to describe more or less what the two before him described. I questioned him as I questioned Renan.

"Is destiny to do things that are completely insane and random because I want it to happen involuntarily? Because I intentionally wanted it to happen involuntarily? So isn't there anything left of free will in people here, what they do is done just because I want them to?"

He was in brooding silence. He thought that things were coming down on us in chaotic fashion and I had to agree with him on this matter. Everything was beyond understanding, everyone came up with solutions that seemed not to lead us anywhere. But the fact it was chaotic was not evidence I involuntarily manipulated things in Taurinos. Maybe I had "just" set the wheel in motion (what was not a small thing by the way).

"I told you, you could have avoided all of this, "sá" Stella", he had a shady air on his face. I don't like to see master Danilo in this kind of mood. For moments he is only the only guiding light I can count on in this maze of madness Taurinos is. Seeing him in this mood is to see myself in the dark, with no hope of remission.

"Go where, my good friend? What if I returned to that broken down carcass of mine to die only to find myself here again anyhow? This is the Great Mystery even for you that is the the guardian of traditions of the local mithraism. Isn't the local mithraism a mystery religion, as Duílio said to me one day? Well I think that's the Great Mystery of Creation for Taurinos' Ancient Society to decipher. If they ever find any evidence of something where evidence is so hard to find. Because otherwise it is only a belief. And it solves no issues."

"I've already told you there are no beliefs in Taurinos. Only creations. But you're right, there's no way of knowing if it would have been any different than what it was. Among us there's the idea that you create all of these situations but can't control how you do it. But as you yourself say there's no proving or controlling it."

"It's like the world where I come from, master Danilo. No one knows if what they do is on account of free will or if a circumstance or entity makes them do it or even if it's destiny. I guess I have walked and fallen into much the same shit. The only difference is that here we know it was creation, not evolution."

He was in a moment's pause. The moths and other nocturnal little creatures were still on the porch wall attracted by the light, casting their usually weird and twisted shadows across the wall. The night followed on and with the night, the conversation.

Babylon

2009-08-02T21:04:00.001-03:00

In town with Duílio, Adriano, Aparecida, Andrés and master Danilo. We stopped at Zé of the Depths to have lunch (secretly praying that there would be food there). Duílio commented that he didn't understand how Zé managed to keep the bar open if he never had anything to serve his costumers except for the usual booze for the usual consumers of Taurinos.

And it seemed everyone had to meet at Zé's. So the clan Feletti had the same idea for their Sunday lunchtime. There are not so many places to go in a tiny town like this, you just can't avoid running into people, friends or foes, here and there. When the Felettis realized all the Conselheiro clan was sitting there, plus the impolite Santista who turned down birthday gifts it was all too late to disguise and walk away from the bar. And it was late even for them to choose a table outside. Simone, the youngest of the Feletti clan, loved Adriano and master Danilo and ran up to them the moment she saw them there. Adriano was too fond of the tiny and graceful girl and played with her a lot. Arthur greeted Adriano, Andrés, Aparecida, Duílio and master Danilo. Duílio was going to say something about my presence there and I kicked in on the shin under the table. An embarrassing silence followed, with the big man scowling at me and rubbing his offended shin.

"Come here with us, Simone", called her elder brother, "don't go round bothering people."

"She's not bothering at all, "sêo" Arthur", asserted the old countryman, "she's all so calm and easygoing."

"Arthur, sit down with us, dude. Call your parents, let's join the tables for everyone to sit", Adriano invited.

Arthur didn't even try to disguise a look towards me before turning down the offer. D. Carolina and "sêo" Horácio greeted us as uptight as their son. They chose a more distant table. Arthur cast sullen looks at our table where Simone insisted on staying in spite of her brother's calls.

Well, we had lunch. It was a dead silence in the bar as we ate. I was already telling myself I might as well be having lunch alone at home when the boredom of the Sunday meal turned into action, only of the undesirable kind. After calling his sister for the hundredth time, Arthur lost his patience and came to tow the little girl to their table by force. Andrés and master Danilo glanced at me showing no fondness for what was going on. The two couples exchanged looks, bound by the same feeling.

"Arthur, leave her here, dude, she's only having fun, she's not bothering us, believe me", tried Adriano.

"Let's go to our table, Simone. There's someone at this table that is ungrateful and impolite", and he pulled the girl, that started to cry.

It was clear that the problem at the table was me. I needed to stop coming to Zé of the Depths" since whenever I came there was someone on duty to ignore me or even mistreat me. Last time it was Anderson (and we even left the bar without eating) now it was Arthur. The scenery itself never changed. Arthur's father intervened, angry.

"Arthur, take it easy. This is hardly the way you address your elders!"

"That's it, she is ungrateful and impolite!", and stared at me infuriated in an almost scary way. One more bear cub to scare the hell out of me at night?

By what he said next I realized other people in town knew there was going to be a garden in my house. It was sheer hell, the parents trying to calm down the angry young thing (and the tiny little girl now crying like there was no tomorrow). I understood it all. They were poking fun at the kid in town because of the unfulfilled promise. Fortunately (for me) the news about the refusal were as quick as the news about the garden to get to people. That or I'd have a procession of people and cars in front of my gate all willing to see the gardens in my house, not hanging, not Babylon gardens. It was when I was sure turning the garden down was the best thing I could've ever done.

East of Eden

2009-08-01T01:47:00.013-03:00

Mithraeum. Last meeting on the demand called by the Celestial Gardener. I tried to approach Arthur and Guilherme and talk to them before the meeting, but Andrés pulled me back to his side, "give'em some time now, Miss Grisam; you can get hurt if you try to approach them like this."

I sat beside master Danilo, Andrés and Renan. The two kids looked much better though their faces were still weary and lifeless what was absolutely no surprise after what they lived through. On the other side, Arthur and Guilherme cast real unfriendly, even carnivorous looks at me. They were simply mad at me. Adriano and Anderson sat halfway between us and "the boys from the other side".

It was not a long meeting for the standards of Taurinos' Ancient Society. Bruno was the Officiant for today's meeting. He opened the session and declared that the demand had been officially terminated by me. That the demand didn't require me to keep a garden in my house and that they understood my reasons not to accept the garden. But that it was a serious mistake of me to have turned down the gift. Said there were no second intentions in the gifts I was given. I was given the presents simply because it was my birthday.

"You have spoiled a serious attempt of communication between the Celestial Gardener and the community of Taurinos by turning down the garden", the Officiant declared, "normally in Taurinos it is a serious insult to turn down anyone's gift, let alone a gift like that. The Celestial Gardener doesn't understand urban people like you preferring to live in the middle of a dull grit landscape than to live surrounded by a wonder like that. But he does understand the house is yours and that you have the right to use your space as you please. The Celestial Gardener doesn't have the right to keep a garden in your house if you don't want him to. Only it makes our conversations harder, exactly when we were already making some progress with the community of Taurinos."

Arthur stared at me. It was a cold stare but one of a person who can't seem to conform to what happened however hard he tried. Guilherme's look was equally biting. If I looked attentively I'd see him pout sometimes.

"The Celestial Gardener now wants to make it clear to everyone here, especially Renan and Andrés that a new violation of the rules will be understood by him as a declaration of war", the Officiant went on, "and as such, it's not going to stop inside the Council. If there should be war, all the community will lose with it. And they will lose a lot. We hope that this story has been a lesson learned by the two and anyone who thinks of daring to do the same", and after a pause he concluded, "if there's no one willing to make a declaration that wasn't addressed before by the current Officiant, I declare this session closed."

At home, with Renan, Andrés and master Danilo. The two kids' skins are still marked by the mosquito stings they got during their sojourn in the Sanctuary. We were having coffee only to keep us busy doing something. Everyone's silence at the table came to bother me.

"You'll say I was wrong for turning down the garden, won't you?", I said it more in order to break the ice.

"I don't think you were wrong. If you didn't want the garden who'd force you to keep it?", stated Andrés, dead as a candle about to go out.

"Did you turn it down because of us?", Renan was curious.

"Because of you too", I replied, "one of the reasons was that I remembered you in the forest."

I relaxed the conversation a bit, remembering the moments with master Danilo and the apparitions of the Caipora, only to find out Renan was afraid of the haunt too. I, Andrés and master Danilo ended up laughing a handsome lot. There was not much else to do after this twenty-day hangover.

"Did you start smoking again, master Danilo?", inquired Andrés, wanting to know more about the cigarette ritual.

"Even if I wanted to, he took away my pack of Souza Paiol", and the countryman, his childhood friend, the police officer and I laughed another lot.

"And didn't he go to your house anymore?", I asked him making Renan astonished, "but did he go to your house too?"

"No longer, but he'll come back one day. Now that we have talked and smoked together in the forest he is calmer. The pack he took away is going to last for ages."

I remembered that both master Danilo and I had the experience of being cast out of paradisaical places like those by entities which lived there and governed the place. We were the two living to the east of Eden like in the Bible and on John Steinbeck's book. He didn't understand the reference to Steinbeck but understood the biblical thing perfectly.

With a weary voice, Andrés said there was a deep division between the urban and rural portions of the town. My attitude only made the chasm grow wider. I inquired him why start all that trouble, something I had longed to ask him since the beginning of this chaos. What made him take me to a place he knew I could never enter?

"I've told you, I only thought…"

"Don't lie to me, Andrés Silva Conselheiro. You know this is no excuse. Living proof is what has happened in town. Renan went in as a silly little kid. What about you? Why did you have to do it?"

Renan didn't like what he heard and was going to say something in his defense when master Danilo motioned to him to stop him from doing so. Andrés was embarrassed and uncomfortable with the question.

"What caused the so-called deep division?"

"It happened a long time ago, Miss Grisam. It was in the origins of the town when I was no longer a…", and he didn't go on, apparently afraid to remember his history.

"You were no longer a bull?", Renan cut him short.

"Renan, please!", Andrés glanced embarrassed at me and master Danilo as though Renan had pulled off his pants.

"Renan please what? Stop it, Andrés; everyone here knows you used to walk all on fours and browse the lawns away. See it didn't only happen to you, it happened to me, to your brother, Anderson, Bruno…", and the tiny police officer laughed.

"All right, Renan, all right, all right. So it was in the origins of the town. The Celestial Gardener knew what it was going to be right from the start and didn't want the bulls to return to town as people. I said no to his idea and the feud began. Renan came soon after. Then there came Adriano, Anderson, Arthur, Bruno and Guilherme, but the Celestial Gardener "got" the three latter. His principle had to incorporate them to be able to talk to us in human language."

"Was what you did motivated by an ancestral feud with the Celestial Gardener?"

"It was moronic of me."

"Course it was moronic of you, young man. Was what you did motivated by this feud?"

"It was, why."

Renan heard us in silence, probably remembering the times when he walked on all his fours and browsed the lawns away. Master Danilo was quiet too trying to join the puzzle pieces Andrés insisted on spreading all over. Andrés declared this had been his last provocation to the Celestial Gardener. He seemed to refer to the Celestial Gardener as a necessary evil, as desirable as the Big One.

Master Danilo affirmed that the boys' feud was like the eternal fight between nature and progress and that Andrés was more or less the symbol of this progress and urbanization of Taurinos; he was someone who wanted a life that could be different from the caves and other natural geographic features. Someone who didn't agree to live only from nature anymore but instead needed to modify nature and its aspects to create another society. What happened to be what Taurinos is nowadays. The feud between the Celestial Gardener and him happened because the Gardener came to see him as a traitor, but also because he forced the Gardener to take the same human shape Andrés had taken to "betray" him to make it understandable to him. Renan heard him with attention but uttered no word. Andrés didn't deny or correct a single word the countryman said.

"This is why Bruno didn't invite you and Renan to his birthday party. You had a feud together."

"We still do, Miss Grisam", corrected Andrés.

"This is why Andrés took you to the Sanctuary", added Renan.

"No longer! First and last time it happened, I swear!", the little plump kid seemed frightened behind his glasses when he recalled his days in the bush.

This gave me the dimension of the sufferance the two little urbanoids during their sojourn in the Sanctuary. The recollections of their natural past. The ancient fears of the dark, of the night, of the forest, its entities were revived there.

"You simply managed to avoid the town going back to the times the bulls used to attack people on the streets or worse in the beginning of everything. A war between the Celestial Gardener and Taurinos would sure lead the town back to those times."

This time it was master Danilo who heard Andrés without correcting a single word he said. I understood the depth of the trouble. I was happy we were all still standing in the long run.

Compassion

2009-07-24T00:53:00.009-03:00

I learned from Duílio that Andrés and Renan were staying at least a week in hospital in Varginha. Aparecida had stayed in hospital with Andrés and Donana with Renan. When they came back, a diet rich in beans and beetroot all cooked in iron pans would be prescribed to fight anemia. Duílio was going to the farm Teixeira and I asked him for a ride.

When we walked in the main house on the farm Teixeira, I heard a door being slammed on the upper floor. Someone must be very angry around here. "Sêo" Octávio appeared from the kitchen and I realized it had been Guilherme slamming the door up there, probably his own room's.

"Yes, the kid is a bit angry with this issue of that garden…"

"I came to ask you about Renan, "sêo" Octávio", I explained.

"Ah, Renan and the Conselheiro are going to stay in for a week or so."

"Could I see Guilherme?"

"Guilherme is very angry and disappointed with you. We came by when we came back from Varginha; he looked for the garden around your house and there was nothing. You should have been sleeping as all lights were out. Today, he learned from Bruno that you told Arthur to remove the garden from your home. He called Arthur and Arthur didn't even answer the call, D. Carolina, his mother said he has been sad, nervous and crying since yesterday. Guilherme has been sulky ever since and with Renan in hospital things here are a bit hard for now."

"I have an idea", I said.

"Sêo" Octávio didn't express this in words himself, but he didn't like my idea of turning down the garden. Said he was sorry to be unable to stay with us for longer and we took the long way home.

Duílio never said it behind the wheel, but he too found insane that I turned down such precious thing. I asked him to take me to the farm Feletti.

"No way, I'm going home", he said, "leave the boy quiet as he is now, Miss Grisam; if you mess with him now it might get worse. Not even Guilherme wanted to see you. Why would Arthur? I don't even know if the family will let you in after all this madness."

I conformed and shut up. Duílio was right.

I told master Danilo that I understood the trance Arthur had been in. I spoiled his surprise, what he had prepared for me, a gran finale, a moral of the story, a tour de force. All were sad in the end, each one on their own way. No one won and everyone lost. But regardless of having me keep the garden in my home or not, the Celestial Gardener had clearly shown what he wanted to: that the Sanctuary had to be something worth this name. It was the Celestial Gardener who ended up as the least scratched in this story.

He so desperately wanted me to keep the garden so it could stay there forever as a symbol of this acknowledgment that there are places in town that cannot be visited by foreigners. And what better place to set up a landmark like this than the house of a foreigner, even the foreigner being the one who created the town?

Maybe this was one of the reasons why I turned down the gift. Maybe because I didn't see it as a gift. Maybe because I saw it as a reminder of the power that could visit violence on me or on anyone daring to violate the rules of the Celestial Gardener. If so much magic and beauty were created like this, what would it mean to witness its dark side?

But the memory of these two strange weeks I had lived through was enough for me. No one would set up landmarks in my land. I preferred the barrenness of the grit around my house to the beauty of a garden that would forever taste of show of force and punishment. The garden would be the living testimony of the power I was dealing with. I should feel happy for passing his tests.

Master Danilo stated he agreed with everything I had said, but that I took the issue so personally and emotionally, almost in a motherly way for worrying about all of the boys, not only this one or that one. This was good in his opinion, but it also favored my acting with rage.

"But on the other hand he saw that you acted moved by feelings of compassion and fondness to him. He saw you cared about him enough to put him on your back and take him for kilometers to a safe place with the sacrifice of your physical condition. Maybe it was because of this that he respected your decision of not keeping his garden. Or maybe because he couldn't keep a garden there if you didn't let him anyhow."

I started to weep remembering the day when he was looking at my breakfast table with all that food that he could see but could not eat and regretted that thing so much. He was probably really hungry that day as he was on the day he fainted. It was his fault that he hadn't eaten at all, but I regretted denying him breakfast so much. His look of a little hungry puppy would still pursue me for long time. Master Danilo just stared at me in disbelief, not knowing what to say to comfort me.

Eden

2009-07-23T17:43:00.013-03:00

Woke up to knocks on the brass knocker down there. It was no earlier, no later than seven in the morning. It was Guilherme asking me to get dressed and follow him. I did it and the Teixeiras took me to the road next to the track that led to the Sanctuary. Guilherme asked me to wait on the road with his parents and disappeared into the track. There was a dead silence among the three adults. An engine was heard and it was the Conselheiros coming our way down the road.

They stopped by us and asked how things were going, seemingly anxious to see it end. Then, more people joined, Anderson, Bruno, master Danilo. After some thirty minutes, Guilherme emerged from the bush helping his younger brother to walk. Andrés seemed in better conditions than Renan, but not much better. We helped get the two in the cars. They'd go directly to Varginha "I can see our lives will be spent taking these children to hospitals forever and ever" said a murky Duílio as he changed gears and hit the road for the neighbor city. I simply could not believe the state the kids were in. So I felt how attached I had grown to all of those little creatures in eternal conflict. A tear rolled down my face and others followed it too.

When I looked around there were only me and master Danilo left on the road. We were walking to my house, he was leading his horse by the bridle. Still a bit far from my house we could see Anderson and Bruno on their horses and one more horse tied to the fence. When we arrived I had no way of recognizing my house. We two stopped in front of the gate, full of astonishment. The most approximated view was one of a Garden of Eden.

Small cascades, lakes, dream landscaping, small bridges almost like a Japanese zen garden. Wonderful flowers blossomed offering luxury colors and petals where humming birds came to feast. Life, life and more life. Anderson and Bruno had gotten off their horses and stopped with us in front of the gate. We two watched it all in awe when Arthur came from behind a bush in his blue dungarees and saluted us with his luminescent smile.

"Those seeds were not that bad, Miss Grisam", he said still smiling, "they were my gift to you. I hope you like this little piece of paradise. I created it with a lot of love because I knew you were never going to let us down and would solve the issue in the Sanctuary. Now I hope you can open Bruno's and Guilherme's too, they took long to choose and find them gifts."

Arthur stopped talking at last. I said nothing. There was a huge pause. He was in suspense, looking at the others, not grasping what was going on, not knowing what to expect.

"Was there anything left to do, anything you still need me to do?", he cut it short.

"I need you to remove this garden from here."

"What???", I glanced around and only expressions of astonishment and perplexity surrounded me. Anderson came to try and talk me out of it, but I told him not to try and make things even harder for me because they were already being hard enough.

The boy heard me appalled. Colorless in the face, he said, "but I give you such a marvelous gift and you want me to… want me to… want me to remove it???", he glared at me.

"The garden is wonderful, Arthur. Under any other circumstances it would be a dream come true getting a gift like this. I'd feel like I was chosen by the gods and this would be heaven to me. But I know what came to pass so that this garden could blossom here and far from reminding me how valid the experience really was, it'll only remind me how hard their sufferance was in the forest."

Anderson, master Danilo and Bruno stared at me at the top of their perplexity. Arthur glanced at them and they glanced back at him seeming frightened, as though they could not believe it. I'll have to feel how hard it is to turn down a gift around here.

"I can't accept the garden the way it was given to me. Were it the same situation with you and you left the Sanctuary like that…"

"They incurred all that happened to them, Miss Grisam! They did it wrong, they deserved it all! And still dragged you to the demand with them!!!", Arthur goggled at me as if he were about to turn to an animal.

"I know. I was in favor of the Celestial Gardener, found his demand to be fair, but I don't agree with the way I was separated from the kids. Don't agree with the psychological pressure on me, making me believe my house was threatened with collapsing together with the houses of two families I have known well in this town. I don't want to have a garden that will remind me of all of this. I want my house back to what it was before all of this confusion, Arthur. It hurts me to get rid of all this wonder, of all your beautiful creation, but this garden has to go."

Arthur sat down on the lawn and buried his head in his crossed arms. His body started to shake. I motioned to bend and try to comfort him in some way, but I felt a violent jerk in my two arms and it was Anderson and master Danilo frightened, holding me to prevent me from doing it. I glanced at them, confused and when I looked at my house again there was no more garden, no more spikes, no more Arthur, no more Bruno. Only Anderson and master Danilo still holding me by the arms.

"If you can let go of my arms it's already time to."

At home, late at night, I opened the gifts from Bruno and Guilherme. The boxes were strangely light today. When I unwrapped the boxes and opened them it was easy to find out why they were so light. There was nothing at all inside the boxes. I trashed the wrapping paper and the boxes.

Meire appeared on MSN and wished me a happy new year, not minding time was not the same here and there. Through her webcam, she showed me the fireworks that saluted the new year of 2011 through her house's window. I looked up the date in my computer. It was July the 23rd 2009. I started to weep without a reason. It was a shitty night for a shitty day after all. I said goodbye and disconnected.

It should be nearly midnight when I heard the sound of an engine outside, coming to a stop in front of my house. Thought it was Duílio coming to bring news. I went to my window with the lights off and looked outside, screened by the window curtains. It was no Conselheiros. It was Teixeira family's car. Guilherme came out and motioned to open the gate but stood still when he saw all the lights out. He was staring astonished, lost, at my house, the fence all around from the outside, and seemed to not understand anything at all.

"But didn't you say Arthur was going to set a garden at that place?", it was "sêo" Octávio speaking from inside the car.

"But he was supposed to! I swear he was, Dad… We decided on that together!", the little kid was puzzled, looking all around. He entered the land, took a tour around the house and returned as puzzled as he was before, "but just what happened here???"

"Guilherme, come on in and let's go home, it's late now", the father seemed to be growing real impatient, besides the frustration of not seeing the promised garden.

I felt sorry for the confused and desolated little kid down there. But he'd learn what happened with the others anyhow. I didn't show them I was awake. The boy went back to the car as confused as he had been when he stepped out of it. I went to bed to try and sleep a wink less than sure whether the Police was on duty tonight, would patrol it here and wake me up once again.

Ferdinand

2009-07-22T00:18:00.009-03:00

Opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was the table top, half obscured by my crossed arms' shadows. When I tried to raise my head, felt something slightly pull my hair. I pulled it back and raised my head to look. My hair had gotten bound by the plant when my head landed on the tabletop from gazing so much at the damn vegetable.

When I looked at the plant again it was like I had always known everything. The visits of the Caipora, his compliments about my hair and his advice that I should fasten them, the strange visits of Anderson, his inquiry about a constellation no one else would find in the sky. All of a sudden, out of the blue everything seemed to make a hell of a sense. I remembered Arthur as the Officiant of one of the meetings in the Mithraeum telling me to gaze at the plant until my head fell on the table. How he could ever know the distance between my head and the plant so I could let my head fall on the table and have my hair bound to the plant I'll never find out. And I don't even know if I give it a damn.

I called the Feletti. Arthur's mother, D. Carolina answered the call and said he was off to Varginha with his father. I called Bruno and Guilherme but if they weren't in Varginha themselves too they were not at home either. I was anxious to see Renan and Andrés released from the Sanctuary and just couldn't wait. But I thought I was going to have to. If "the boys from the other side" took long to go home, the two would only be released on the following day.

I thought about going to master Danilo's. It was far, but far better than staying here alone walking like a lion in a cage. But a distant sound of a horse took my attention. It was a crescendo, what indicated it was going to pass in front of my house. At that time, if it weren't the Police it would be master Danilo. I opened the door and went to my gate to look at the road. From a distance, I saw the horseman reflecting the shine of the stars. The sounds of the night ceased to manifest: it was the time. A chill covering the whole body warned me it was no master Danilo at all. Warned me that if I stayed where I was I was going to seriously regret doing it. I got in my house quickly, turned off the porch light; I shut the door and my eyes while Anderson passed in full gallop flooding everything around with a stuffy and terrifying atmosphere. The gallop was still heard from a distance when I opened my eyes again. Went back to the porch. Another horse was heard. This time it was master Danilo.

"Lord, didn't even know Anderson would be on duty tonight. Had to go off road to avoid passing by the Police, "sá" Stella", he told me as he got off his horse.

He smiled and changed subjects, saying that he needed no effort to read by my expression that I had finally come to a solution. I hugged him, happy for accomplishing this task and putting and end to all of this torture. He seemed embarrassed and I found it to be so cute.

"How do we get the kids out of the forest?"

"We'll call Arthur tomorrow", the countryman replied.

"Tomorrow? Why not right now?"

"I don't know if we can take them away from there. I mean, if I can. We shouldn't risk more trouble over this demand now that everything has been solved."

My anxiety for a while stopped me from seeing how reasonable he was really being. Yes, but wasn't he the guardian of the traditions?

"I know the traditions", he argued, "but the Celestial Gardener has his criteria. I adapt to them to describe these traditions. It's not the traditions which adapt to the description I make of them. Much of what I said about the Obscure Police has changed a lot in a few weeks."

"Do the forces get the children always in groups? Is this also a tradition?"

He failed to grasp my question's meaning. I explained that both the Obscure Police and the Celestial Gardener were groups in the general group of the seven kids. Were those traditions that were incorporated by them?

"Yes, it simply happened like this. It happened because it happened. And because each one had a mood for this or that which was related to this or that force. Taurinos' forces of nature use these children as a channel through which they can manifest and dialogue with the community. Now if it's always in a group, I don't know. At least for now I really don't know."

I spoke to him of how Anderson had seen himself and he said I had already told him about this. I asked if I also had told him Anderson appeared here to tell he had seen himself armed in the forest and had been having nightmares about it. The countryman goggled at me, eyes full of astonishment.

"My goodness", and he crossed himself, "armed on top of it all?"

"Well I didn't see him armed at Horns Falls, master Danilo."

"Lucky you are, lady!"

"No, I mean it seemed weird he saw himself armed when I didn't."

He was thoughtful for a moment. I told him about Anderson coming at night and how we were gazing at the sky and I had him asking me about a constellation whose name had to do with hair and how everything was related and directed to that subject.

"Anderson didn't seem to see a reason why he should be gazing at the sky, master Danilo. Don't you find it weird in people here?"

"No. People in Taurinos are worried about surviving until tomorrow and maybe until next week. Mineiros here are not like the others in other towns. They don't let themselves be taken by the nature of the place. As bulls, gazing at the ground, seeking the grass they're browsing. They're not like Ferdinand the Bull, contemplating the beauty in things."

I felt sorry for the boy for some moments. I remembered Renan, he himself clueless as to why that sky was over his head. Poor strange children from a town that is as strange.

"Does it happen to the "boys from the other side"?"

"I have no clue what you call the "boys from the other side"."

"It is what Aparecida calls Arthur, Guilherme and Bruno."

"This happens to everyone of them. They are one thing, the energies they direct are another. Although he is in an aspect of him that is the Obscure Police, this aspect carries all of Anderson's energy, for instance, the energy of his emotions and personality of the guy Anderson Nascimento Caldeira that is Brazilian, Mineiro and a native of Taurinos. Therefore, there's not much to be told apart."

"Renan said something alike these days."

"Yup, "sêo" Renan is a bit of a hothead and all, but much in his own way he knows a lot."

The sound of a horse in the distance coming our way. Master Danilo said it was probably the Police. I already prepared to come in and turn off the lights when master Danilo lay on the ground and positioned his ear close to the soil but never touched it; told me Anderson was not armed. The sound of the gallop grew in time and the horse got in our field of vision. It was Anderson, still in black, but fortunately not armed. He came up to us, got off his horse and greeted us two with a smile.

"Good evening, Miss Grisam! Good evening, master Danilo!"

He said that the night before gazing at the stars did him good. Had no nightmares after looking at the night sky. Said he had never stopped to enjoy all that beauty and that he felt good as he had never felt before. I was happy for him and said I too had solved a problem. He hugged me spontaneously, seeming happy to see me come to a conclusion.

"Did you know what it was, Anderson?"

"I guess even the Mayor knew about it, Miss Grisam."

"That's what I said, "sá" Stella, it was you who had to find out about it. Maybe even the people of Varginha and region might know what it was, but you were the only one expected to unlock the vault."

Coma Berenices

2009-07-21T15:33:00.002-03:00

Anderson showed up at night. At least he was not in black. Anyone who knows Anderson and Renan usually doesn't like to meet them at night. And I can't blame them for that.

"Been having nightmares with that time in Horns Falls, Miss Grisam."

"What you saw there was really you?"

"I was armed", and he was pale just like he was at Horns Falls.

This was what I feared the most. When an Agent is said to be armed, he is in a black armor with something like a duck bill where his head should be. The vision is horrifying enough to chuck you away like a stone from a slingshot.

"I didn't see you in armor, just saw you in your normal aspect", I told him, "by the way if I had seen you in armor, I'd have been projected far from here on the spot, no?"

He agreed with a tiny smile that soon disappeared from his face. I asked him if he wanted to sit under the stars for a while. I brought two chairs from inside and we sat in front of the house, like with master Danilo last night.

"Is this what you do in the fields, you, Andrés and Renan?"

"Yes, that simple. We gaze at the stars."

"What's so cool in that?"

"Funny thing is, Renan asked the same some time ago. But to answer your question, it is up to you whether or not it is cool."

"So it is up to me?"

"Yes, how can you know it is cool if you've never done it. Never stopped to gaze at the night sky?"

"I usually have got other things on my mind."

"Things like…?"

"Things like going to bed early to get up early to work."

"Working is good but doesn't fill a life by itself. You've got to give yourself time to just do nothing at all. And gazing at the sky is not just doing nothing. The beauty of the universe is good for the spirit. It might seem an old hippie's talk, but it is essential for good mental health."

He was gazing at the sky with me. Asked about the constellations. I pointed at the ones I knew. He said that Black Sabbath had a song called "The Sign Of The Southern Cross" and was happy to connect the dots for the first time.

Out of the blue, he asked me what those three stars well to the west were. They formed a kind of incomplete triangle turned sideways. I checked a celestial chart I had with me. It was Coma Berenices. Again the theme of hair, everywhere I went. I wondered why those stars had to take his attention.