Disturbed

I told Figueira I had to agree in part with Morales. Had to be true to the kid when telling him about my feelings. I had nothing to add to what the others had said. Not that Figueira was the problem of the team, rather than that he was the solution. If he only wanted to be the solution.
“You are against me too?”, was the only thing he remembered to ask me. I said no one was against him but simply perplexed. “People are confused with these things you do”, I added.
“Figueira, it’s not a matter of being against you”, I said at last, with perfect patience. “It’s, on the contrary, being in your favor. It’s simply telling you what you already should know by design. Are you a fighter or not? Are you just going to sit down there, while your teammates jump to the mat like the warriors they want to be? No, not for one so experienced and passionate about wrestling as you are.”
“You talk as if you have known me for long. As if you’ve seen everything I’ve been doing all this time.”, he said, stunned.
“I don’t need to live together with you to see the way you talk about the subject. Even though you didn’t use to dedicate so much time to wrestling some time ago, one could see your passion for the simple mention of it. I learned how to get to know people by a number of signs they leave in the air. Things they don’t need to tell me, because it’s very easy to see, by their behavior.”
Figueira was silent for some time. Shoe-gazing. He ate his shoes with the eyes, for want of better things to eat. He has really nothing to say. Playing the good man instead of fighting the good fight was against any sense in a competition.
“What’s the matter about winning?”
He looked at me with a shadow running his face up and down as if it danced. Said he didn’t know. I thought if he did, maybe he wouldn’t be in this whirlpool right now. Maybe I wouldn’t even have met him.
“I do feel a lot like you do. About how much competition made people so much more hard-hearted sometimes. It wrecks me to see a world in which some sleep alone in a house with ten bedrooms and some four sleep in the same cardboard box. But you chose to move in a world where you can’t afford losing for long. You just can’t. And you know it better than me.”
He was silent. Ended up nodding, but said nothing more. I asked him if he wanted me to try to find out what the matter was.
“How?”, he asked, surprised.
“You will have to sleep for some time. Then you’ll tell me, if I can understand what you say.”
Figueira frowned.
“How so?”
I explained it was like the thing of the clock teetering before someone’s eyes. He understood it more or less and asked me if it really worked.
“Isn’t it charlatanism?”, he looked funny so worried he was.
“No. It’s trance.”
“Like the music my sister listens to when she goes to Breezy?”
He said he liked hardcore better. I said we could try some trance music too, but it had nothing to do with the music in particular. We could do it in silence if we wanted to.

We set up to try at 7:00 pm. He appeared on the dot. We didn’t have any idea what we could find out using this old battered method, but I don’t think it will do any harm to try, see what we can get. I got some slight Global Communication to load in the CD player. Trance music for trance. I hoped Figueira wouldn't mind. He wouldn't. I had him lie down on the sofa. I even had to tell him to take off his shoes. He did and only the music could be heard now. Shut eyes. Silence, except for the music, heavy silence upon the room. When something out of the blue broke my window. We opened our eyes, stunned with the light and it was the light of the day. I warn the kid not to move from the couch. He does, when another stone drills a hole in some more of my window panes and hits him on the knee. I tried to stop him, but it was too late for the the two of us. We were suddenly on the middle of the street in front of my house, with people trying to stone us. And they shouted a word. Assassin. Only surrounded by those people could I look into Figueira's eyes. Everything went darker and darker until it was seven p.m. lighting in my living room again. He looked at me, still terrified. I didn't and wouldn't say anything, but there was more to that story than he told me. I start to believe he's here working overtime. Now, the sessions with the others in the morning are over. We are going to meet here in my house.

Shadow |

Radio Universal: The Making Of A Thousand Gods.