Half-life

Started the day answering questions from both father and son that called me insane every three sentences they uttered. Andrés "remembered" I had had a meeting with the Police at my house and what he hadn't asked me yesterday he did today with interest. Duílio had no clue what his son and I were talking about, until Andrés put him in the picture of the day before yesterday's late night plans.

"But what the hell, Miss Grisam, have you lost your mind?"

Nothing I had previously recorded, but that night and to this moment, I have dreamed about the Obscure Police. Dreaming was the term I thought would only describe what kind of brain activity one was having. There's no dreaming about the Obscure Police. There are only nightmares.

"You can't be being serious when you say you have arranged with Renan to meet a thing people in town don't even want to be far from, let alone in your house at that time of the night, Miss Grisam!!!", and he just kept staring at me with wide-open eyes, in disbelief, horror and astonishment.

I told the chieftain of the Conselheiros that what we discussed was past now. I kept myself from discussing my own morbid curiosity, but knew that it was the instrument for me to see pieces of my life all over Taurinos, being that it was created by me. From these pieces I got the shape of the agent Renan, all that was in Taurinos. Obvious in the light of logic, it was still very hard to feel inside, that is the place where knowledge should hit home. We never know things really unless we feel them as a part of us. I'd recognize specks of myself everywhere in town, if only I paid careful attention around me. I told father and son that I had seen that creature before.

"Where?", Andrés questioned me quick, before his father did.

I briefly told them about a case in 1994 in which that entity had appeared to me. It was nothing of note, only another way to re-affirm Taurinos as the crazy quilt of my life. Andrés and Duílio seemed astonished as I spoke. As if it could still have them dumbfounded in light of everything they already knew.

Andrés went on to tell me that the figure of the drake or whatever was seen by people was going to acquire more and more resolution. I asked him what this meant and he said the Police was accumulating more energy and power. And its image would get sharper and sharper until it would be not possible to stand so much sharpness any longer. The sharpness of the figure's image would end up destroying the very sight of those daring to stare. What I found really interesting in his words was that what he was trying to explain to me, in other words, was like someone trying to explain the evolution of television and video to someone else.

Renan was sitting in the sun as usual when I walked into the limits of the farm Teixeira in the beginning of the afternoon. He stared at me with wide-open eyes and beamed when I walked closer to him.

"That a brave woman", he deployed his catchphrase, "saw what people don't even want to imagine, let alone see close to themselves."

"I don't know who you are anymore. Or even what you are."

"I'm the one you're talking to right now", he had a gentle yet cold and steady voice as he spoke.

Renan seemed anxious when he asked me what I saw at my porch that night. How I had seen him, more especifically. I told him what I saw and he went on to talk about a subject that confirmed Andrés' early impressions.

"Well, the more energy I have, the less time you can spend looking at me. Because if you stay long you start wearing out."

I insisted on getting him to tell me exactly what he meant by that. He couldn't seem to find the words to say what it was he meant. I mentally explained to myself that what he mentioned could be psychologic sequels of the sighting in the night, what I added to Andrés' explanation of the image's sharpness destroying someone's sight. I told Renan I had been having nightmares with him every night and the little devil showed his ivory in a sadistic little smile that felt funny and weird in that cute little baby face. The extreme handsomeness and resolution of his image were hypnotic and made the contrast with what I saw at my porch even weirder and more appalling. In his normal aspect all of him was like a little bear cub which you want to hold when you sleep. A cute and coldly lethal little bear cub.

"Why do you sometimes stare at me like this? Is it that business of the first day again?"

He made reference to the day after I died, when things appeared at their utmost resolution before my eyes, something I am still trying to adapt to. I said so and that he was too handsome. Added that as with the other lads, it was an exaggeration in handsomeness. I declared they were not children, but walking visual effects. He almost peed in his shorts as he heard me say that. But behaved like it was unusual that one told him he was handsome at all. If someone, among friends and relatives ever said that to him. A simple verbal caress would help him out a great deal, especially being someone in such identity crisis and low self-esteem like Renan was.

The boy ended up blushing to a fiery red with the compliment and changed subjects. Asked me if I was aware that seeing him infinitely handsome meant seeing him infinitely ugly when his image had finally consolidated and reached the sharpness Andrés had mentioned earlier.

"Do you understand what I mean? If it's being hard to get used to me handsome as you see me now, what of you if you see me ugly like that?"

"Anderson's having nightmares too", I said, changing subjects, "yesterday he was in my house…"

I stopped talking, observing Renan's expression. His smile was even more fiendish than before. He gloated at me with delight. I started being sure my question never replied by Anderson had its very own answer right there.

"Why the smile now? Is Anderson in your plans too?"

"I can tell you have been talking to Andrés and that he's been telling you all. Yes, that's it. He is in my plans. These nightmares he's been having are troubles for those who'll leave things undone. I told him, like I knew it all beforehand, told him he should come with me and help me out with killing those bastards. He would only lend me the weapons. His nightmares are only getting worse, you know. It's a question of time for me to bring him to the Police with me. Trying as he might, he cannot escape it."

Automatic | Impact of time

Radio Universal: Obscure Police