Advent

They were at the Mithraeum. I said this to Adriano and he seemed to agree with me. I was particularly impressed by the echo involving Andrés' and Bruno's voice at least the little I could "hear".

I had little time before the whole farm woke up for breakfast. I got out with Adriano for a quick stroll around the farm so we could have some conversation. I understood that what he had told me yesterday did not hold true today any longer. He seemed to not remember any single word he had said to me, as a shaman waking up from a deep trance.

That aroused a question: if Adriano didn't remember telling me that, would the others remember going to the Mithraeum? More than just a question, it was a point that bothered me as vital in the situation: if he didn't remember what he had said to me, but the others remembered going to the meeting at the Mithraeum, then he could end up being accused of something he didn't remember. Just like the night when he saw Meire with the police in his bedroom.

Meire is just one more of the missing pieces in the massive puzzle this story has turned out to be. Other pieces being: how had I come to the conclusion that Taurinos' Ancient Society wanted to judge Adriano and put him to death? By simply "hearing" Andrés say Adriano spoke too much, Andrés' yesterday's fierce attack on his brother, his sudden going out on his horse in the afternoon?

On the other hand, Adriano might not remember it at the moment, but asked me clearly if they were going to put him to death. I said maybe it could be so, because I shared the same feeling of fear with him, the fear of those who lived and throve in obscure secret societies where you risked being judged, convicted and executed for breaking rules and laws that seemed to spring out of the members' pockets.

I left Adriano on the porch, went for a little walk before they called for breakfast. I didn't take any longer than ten minutes to be back on the porch. There, I stood still, next to the porch's screen door; I could hear their crystal-clear voices at the table.

"We met yesterday at the Mithraeum", said Andrés at the table. Probably the same fierce look at his brother, but only what I could hear was already a confirmation of what I suspected: Adriano could be getting in deep trouble without even knowing the reason why. It was evident to my eyes that Adriano remembered nothing he had said to me.

"What was the case this time?", asked Aparecida already concerned about the extraordinary meeting.

"Adriano was trying to tell Miss Grisam about the Day of Creation.", he answered while dealing with a mouthful of bread.

"Could you possibly refrain from speaking exactly as you eat?", Duílio scolded him.

There was a long pause. What the heck did he mean by Day of Creation? Adriano was just asking me (or saying that?) if I was ill when Duílio first came to my house to discuss his son's "problems". What the hell does this have to do with the Day of Creation? The only reference I had in the air was Vinícius de Moraes' poem. Could he have it by intuition that it was Moraes' poem I was thinking of yesterday and took it for an issue that is sacred for them?

"I don't remember anything like that", insisted Adriano, with a voice that was at once astonished and clear-cut.

I had to walk in. I couldn't be outside anymore when my name was being mentioned at the table.

"Why don't you tell me yourself the story of that Day of Creation?" I asked all of a sudden, the moment I showed up in the dining room.

He was pale as death as he heard me. As if it were possible for him to be whiter than he was. Positively didn't expect me to waltz in in search of news about the new sensation.

"Yes, what is this thing of Day of Creation?", inquired Aparecida.

"This can't be explained in the presence of outsiders!" Andrés shouted, apparently losing it.

Duílio and Aparecida cast a distrustful look at their son. Adriano understood nothing of what was going on. I did, a bit more than Adriano and surely much less than Andrés. What's been left of outsider in me after all I have experienced in this town I could never find in Google Earth. Could it be because of its tiny population? Could it be that I was just tricking myself?

A horn was heard out there. Duílio went out to the porch to see who it was and was astonished to see the scene outside: the same open car that took us for the night ceremony at the Mithraeum was out there with all of the present members of Taurinos' Ancient Society and master Danilo on its back sitting like a tiny army. Had they come to judge Adriano? If so, I'll be the best lawyer I can. This insanity has to stop.

They entered the room full of respect and decision. Their eyes stared at Andrés, eyes that showed signs of rage and compassion at once, a mix of feelings I swear I had never seen before.

"It's over, Andrés. It's all over now. The whole town is on their way to this farm." master Danilo spoke for the whole group.

"Hey, we are here come hell or high water
We want to know the whole of the truest truth
We want to know, we do want to know
You there struggling to sustain yourself
You there begging for survival
You there looking at the top of your curiosity
Wanting to know the truest truth
We want to know the whole of the truest truth
We want to know, we do want to know."

Tell The Truth, written by Cidade Negra

And a thunder of bugles in the distance, as those which tore down the Jericho Wall. Horns, many horns, at first from a distance, but coming closer and closer, in a frightening crescendo. My aprehension only grew inside. What would Andrés have to reveal that he still hadn't spoken about before? When and how would I get to the bottom of all of this mystery?

And the yard in front of the farm Taurinos was full of cars. All of them blowing their horns, in a deafening noise, scaring Andrés to hell with the prospective of a Final Judgement? I looked at Adriano, astonished myself, gradually and inevitably losing my self-control, while the teenager seemed, by his expression, to be recollecting moments from the day before and God knows what else.

Taurinos and its people were in front of the Conselheiros farm. All of them, it seemed. Quickly I recognized the Mayor walking in, looking at me, eyes full of silent astonishment at my sight.

"What do I fucking care? Let all the state of Minas Gerais come…", Andrés was crying, "and you are a traitor! You fucking started with that story of us being exactly what she had dreamed about!"

"Bullshit, you fucker! All of it was appearing for Adriano, he would take long to spill the fucking beans!", retorted Renan infuriated, drooling, bloodshot eyes turned to Andrés.

"Goddmned little fucker…" and Andrés took off his glasses and got at Renan as he had gotten at his brother the day before. Indignated by their madness, I tried to intervene, pull the two apart, but the other kids held me back, helped by Duílio.

"Let them settle their issue" said the family man.

The sound of the blows and kicks dealt by and on each other was so violent it became nauseating; cusswords, curses, fierce attacks. The fierceness of the two kids taken to extremes. And again, there is nothing I can do to stop that stupid and absurd violence. Involved by the horror that started taking over me, there was a moment in which Adriano let go of my arm and started wandering by the dining room. His voice rose above the din around us all when the Mayor and the other townspeople watched everything completely perplexed.

"Your friend Meire is here. In this room with the police. And they are talking. I can hear what they're saying."

The fight stood still. The town around us stood still. Not a sound was heard in that room any longer. The very nature around us, the songbirds all seemed to have frozen when Adriano's voice was heard. Still grappling on the floor, Renan and Andrés turned their eyes full of infinite astonishment to Adriano. Renan picked himself up off the floor slowly, tees torn from the fierce combat, Andrés' nose and Renan's mouth dripping blood drawn by the blows. Andrés sobbed, crawling his way to his brother.

"Adriano… I'll give you everything that is mine. My bulls… My things… Everything! I swear! Don't do it, for Mithra's sake, don't do this to me…"

"They're trying to bring you back to consciousness", continued Adriano, apparently not hearing a word of what his younger brother was saying, "but they can't do anything… Meire says it's strange that you said you were not fine and hung up without saying goodbye. She's telling the officers that she had rung the doorbell many times and got no answer. One of the officers is saying that it's best to take you to a hospital…"

I don't know why I looked at master Danilo, next to to the other kids. He returned the look, a grave look of one who's finally understood it all. The children were the first to have the intuition of it. His eyes conveyed that to me in evident fashion. I was beginning to understand it better than before and a sudden horror took over me. The inexplicable horror of knowing this life is for real. The horror of knowing. The horror of knowing more and more in time.

"At this moment my father had already called you and rung the doorbell. You answered the bell and had him enter, you talked about my brother. You arranged to be brought to Taurinos and live next to Andrés for some time. When Meire walks in with the officers, my father and my mother are pulling up to your house in our car. You put your suitcases in the car trunk and come to Minas Gerais. And Meire puts you in an ambulance with the help of the officers and take you to hospital."

Aparecida already showed obtrusive signs of a fit that had been unzipped and was ready to install. I wasn't in better situation. Coated in cold sweat, I asked for a chair, I sat down in shock. At this point Andrés crawled up his brother's trunk as ivy that slowly crawls up a garden wall.

"Please, no… It's enough… It's enough…"

Adriano looked at his climbing brother in the eyes and beamed.

"How nice you still haven't put you glasses back on!"

What followed was a punch that threw Andrés yards away. Astonished by the elder's reaction, the fulminant and sudden action caused a shock wave that shook down all of those around us. Goosebumps, sudden heat waves, sudden changes in blood pressure.

"You been in hospital since you came to Taurinos. Since February. You're still there."

"For heaven's sake, it's enough, Adriano!", shouted his younger brother, colorless on the sofa, "she's going to kill everyone of us! She's going to kill everyone of us!"

Andrés' desperation, my situation in hospital, all of this has finally opened my eyes. The Day of Creation. The day I got in a coma. The day everything that exists in Taurinos, including Taurinos itself was created. I was the Big One, I was each one of the sacrificed bulls, I was Adriano, Anderson, Andrés, Arthur, Bruno, Guilherme and Renan. I was everything, Alpha and Omega.

"When we came to Taurinos, in the car, Aparecida told me Google Earth had forgotten about Taurinos…", I said, seeking to get my last forces together to fully understand where I stood, "but I think there is nothing to be forgotten on the map. The nearest town is Varginha that is 125 miles away from here. This was what Aparecida told me in the car when I first came here. I remember when we started going uphill and there seemed to be no end for the climb. Actually, it's 125 miles upwards. The highest mountain in the world, Everest, is just 5 miles high. We are 120 miles above the highest mountain in the world. Where in the world could a town like this exist?"

"My God…", and Aparecida gave way to one of her most powerful fits of all time. She too was paying the price I was, for knowing so little and wanting to know even less than that little. Of avoiding dealing with so many macho men's issues in a society that was, is and will be exactly as I dreamed. Andrés was the Grand Master, was the master of all knowledge, knew it all since the beginning. All of his struggle was to live, since he had been created, probably in the image of some misfit piece in me, or in my patients of the past. I had created a Neolithic past, a mix of religions for the town, and an uncertain future. The only thing in this strange world is uncertainty.

I turned to Adriano. Asked him if he could see the hospital. He told me it was a place with corridors that were longer than human life, almost looking infinite. By this and other pieces of description, I concluded that I had been admitted to Santa Casa de Santos. In the meantime, Bruno came walking up to me. Had glassy eyes out of everything he had just found out. Asked me if I had created him. I told him everything led me to conclude it happened that way.

"I knew there were weird things happening and it was because of you. I never understood why you were here, since that first meeting of Taurinos' Ancient Society. What do we do when we learn we were created like this?"

"I told you she could only be a goddess. Like 'Chariots of the Gods?', no?"

"Shut the fuck up, Renan! This is hardly the time for stupid things like that, you moron!", Guilherme scolded his younger brother.

"I have always wanted to see our town on the internet maps and never managed to. Tried Google Earth, Maporama, all of these mapping sites", continued Bruno, with an expression of dismay, "now I can understand why. I guess it must've happened to many others in town."

On the sofa, Andrés cried over the ruins of his empire of secrets. He repeated over and over that he wanted to live, he didn't want to die, he didn't want the town to die. That was when I saw a scene I could never imagine I'd see one day: Duílio hugged his son and kissed him on the top of his head repeatedly, saying "if we have to exist no more, what can we do about it? The era of great mysteries might be in its end here, but what can we do about it?"

Miracles out of the hunger for life. The moment moved me. In an extreme situation like that for the whole of the community, it was through the will to clutch to life that the lad managed to even move his tough, medieval, violent and rude father. I will never forget this scene, no matter how many years pass me by.

I told them I needed to be close to my physical body and decide what to do. Andrés cried more violently still, as though his life was being pulled out by the very decision I had just made. Fear. Three months in Feartown. Three months in hospital.

"You can go back to your normal life, "sá" Stella. All you have to do is to lie on the bed and wish you did", said master Danilo all of a sudden, "we will never have existed, our past, present and future won't either. I told you Renan was the only one to have said something meaningful that day. I didn't understand the whole of it, but knew there had to be one great thing in the air."

And master Danilo went on, with resolution, "For many, many years, more than I'll live to count the notion of an Advent was diffused here in Taurinos. And that it would happen on a Sunday morning, can you believe it? If it was diffused in the early beginning of our history, then I have no clue how many centuries natives here have been waiting for you. They said you'd bring Immortality, if you wanted to, but you'd have to die yourself so it could be possible. They said you'd have to decide it by yourself. That you'd bring death or eternal life together with you. Now I understand how this could be so. I'm privilileged and have the worse luck of all times all at once for living in a time like this. Really, "sá" Stella. I'm not worthy of having you in my humble house. But what a privilege it was to be able to share my humble coffee pot with you! This I will never forget, not even within non-existence, this I can swear!"

Trying my hardest to refrain from crying, now fully understanding the importance of the moment in which all of the town watched us half astonished half shocked, I said, "I was very honored by your usual cup of coffee. I want you to be by my side in the hospital room when I finally reach my decision."

I will never forget the way the man's eyes glinted. The threshold of the experience of everything and nothing. The limit between my reality and comatose fantasy. Ele looked at me all shocked by my request, as though he'd have the time of his life there all in one second. And he thanked me, moved by my confidence on him.

I asked Duílio to get ready to go to Santos with me and master Danilo. He fetched me there, had to know how to return there too. The lads surrounded me while the rest of the town still stood there, under the effect of the shock wave. In a nutshell, they wanted to know whether they'd live or die. I was sincere and said that I was under the same shock everyone else was, so I didn't know what to answer to them. It might seem a cruel answer, but everything was being so extreme for everyone of us.

The Day of Creation |

Radio Universal: The Day of Creation