Dead file

Six-thirty. I'm sitting at my room's window, watching the half-overcast morning sky and trying to join the pieces of what I experienced yesterday. More questions than answers are getting together. One of them arises now: was Aparecida sleeping at the time of the events I described? She naturally knew about the meeting, that was no mystery for anyone of us.

What was really a mystery — at least for me — was the contents of such meeting and the decisions that were made within it. Was Aparecida in the picture of at least what was decided there? It was nothing abnormal that they wanted me out of it, but what about Aparecida? Does she know, does she not know and prefer not to or is she simply fooled into believing these subjects are not for her?

But I see, by the talk of the three last night, that they chose to have Aparecida and me out of the night movement. What seemingly excludes Aparecida from the movement itself. But not from whatever decisions were made there. Also, it was by no means impossible that she could be given false news about it anyhow (the top-secret kind of behavior the three were having allows to suppose something like that and even more). But at that moment at night — even if they lied to me all the time — they had no clue I was around watching their each and every move and felt they could talk freely. That's when sincerity emerges.

The tools under the rooftop still entrance me. I go down from a house that is still silent and come under the rooftop to look. Nothing, not even the thought-shapes remained. I go back closer to the house, walk the yard thinking about my things. I make use of that walk to go to the laundry at the back of the house, get a coat I left there in the open air.

The clothes' basket. Close to the spot where I left my coat. I forget about the coat, look around to make sure I'm all alone in the laundry. I look at the chaos of bermudas and tees all tucked into one another inside the basket. I pull the clothes out of it to find the clothes the kids were wearing last night. They're all there, just tucked to the bottom of the basket under garments that were there for longer.

"Dead file, archived by the adversity of times."

Ants On The Seaside, written and performed by Esquadrão Do Preto Velho.

I look at the clothes carefully. Adriano's don't reveal anything but normal dirt gathered in a day span. Duílio's too, with the exception of a dark spot on one of his tee's sides. A tiny spot. Inside the laundry, it gets harder to precise colors of a spot. I tuck it back to the basket and get Andres' clothes.

There is a larger spot than Duílio's on the light-colored bermuda he was wearing last night. A bit larger, it allows to see its color that is now darker, but was once red. Was it a red spot I was looking for or something else?

I tuck all the garments back to the basket, trying to reconstitute the original chaos as finely as I could. I decide to get out of here quickly and wet my coat a bit just for the sake of an excuse. Just in case someone ran into me halfway to the house or worse, just in case someone is looking for me.

No movement around. As usual, I stayed at the porch. Suddenly I heard the noisy coils of the screen door and saw it open. I expected to see Andrés just like the other day but it was Adriano this time. He looked like a living wreck after a night's sleep. He saw me there and we started to talk.

"Did you sleep early yesterday?"

"Oh yeah", I quickly said, "yesterday I had a small headache. Didn't see anything else but a bit of internet and went to bed. Did you go to that meeting at all?"

"I didn't, had to study for a test today."

"Yup, you look like one who spent the whole night up studying." I commented on his weariness.

He said he studied until one in the morning. I imagined that his weary aspect owed more to the night digging than to anything else. The image of the tools on something thrown before into the trunk refused to fade away in my mind. The assumption they had gone on a night mission to bury something that was exactly what prevented the tools from hitting the bottom of the car trunk. Because I may be not sure of anything but one thing I can tell for sure: that trunk wasn't empty. Now telling what was inside is a whole new story. It might be cement sacks. Earth for vegetable gardens. But what would you do with cement or earth at that time of the night anyway?

"Did you hear the results of the meeting?", I asked as casually as I could. And I was not casual enough, it seems.

"Why are you so interested in the farmers' meeting?"

He looked at me less feeling invaded or stalked than being actually curious enough to ask me that. I told him it was sheer curiosity. I was curious, because the meeting had been yesterday's subject and I was not awake to hear the comments around it. He seemed calmer at the explanation.

Again I asked him if he knew of the outcome. He was going to tell me something but we heard the noisy coils of the screen door at the porch and the talk simply expired. Andrés came out to the porch to call us for breakfast. He was looking at us as though the police were chasing Adriano and me. As though we were neck-deep in conspiracy. As if he had an intuition that his older brother was on the verge of saying something that should not be said.

At the breakfast's table, all was spoken about, mainly about the upcoming season of Carnival. Last night's meeting was put away in the shadows, forgetting itself in total obscurity. Dead file, archived by the adversity of times. I had to control several impulses of asking the Conselheiros about the goddamned meeting's outcome and somehow managed to in the end.

Adriano kept to that weary look I saw at the porch. Duílio looked tense, but in better condition than his kid. Andrés was quiet and silent as he always is at breakfast. However there's a certain radiance in him I can't fully explain where it comes from. Aparecida too is silent. She seems to feel something in the air, the absence of her husband and kids until so late last night. How much she really knows about what is going on here is the matter as much as it is what is going on here.


Tales of the near future: clairvoyance | Without a trance

Radio Universal: A Love Like Blood