Russian roulette

I had a strange dream, more of an afflictive dream, in which I tried to make it to the farm Teixeira in the early evening and was assaulted by a man. Then, there was a huge dog barking and that's all I can remember. My hearing is almost back in place, still a bit muffled but almost normal again. My memories of the night in the arena haven't cleared and I doubt if they ever will.

I told the Conselheiro brothers my dream after breakfast and they exchanged a long look among themselves. Strange, as if they had had the same dream of as if they found the dream to be a premonition. Taurinos has an impressive rate of people with extrasensorial perception and what is the case for Andrés might be the case for his brother too. How can I be sure that, telling me about his brother's perception, Adriano was not hiding his own?

"Where were you when the man assaulted you?" asked Adriano.

"Not sure, but I think I was close to the farm Teixeira."

"Did you see the dog? Ou could you only hear it?", it was Andrés asking this time.

"Only heard it, can't remember anything else from that point…"

There was silence. Once in a while the two exchanged looks and I didn't understand why. It could be nothing, it could be a world of different things. Andrés went on to tell me that the Teixeiras had called before breakfast. Asked if I could go there and resume the conversations with Renan. They said the kid had stopped feeding his dogs. And the brothers somehow linked the call to my dream last night.

"But why the heck would he leave his dogs without any food?"

"Renan's nuts, he does nonsense sometimes." explained Adriano.

It's easy to justify everything that is done as madness, I think. What motivates madness? What's the origin of a given behavior? Environment, things that were already inside and the person didn't even know about?

It was six-thirty when I left the farm Taurinos walking. I intended to go back to the Teixeira farm to resume the observation of the youngest in that family. The sun was now lower, a typical sun of an end of summer, where fall begins to attempt to show up. The last birds late for sleep making their way back to their nests passing overhead, shrieking in a hurry to return. I stop on the road and remember the dream I had last night. I'm halfway now, am not stopping on account of weird premonitions. Taurinos is such a calm place, sometimes much too calm. The beauty of the mountains around, the many flowers of thousands of species of cerrado plants that say goodbye to daylight. One more day done, as the Mineiros in the region would say.

The farm is not far right now. Landscape changes as I go round the base of the mountain on whose top the urban portion of the town is. A new view of the mountain while there is still sunlight. An ever-renewed view, the microflora of the cerrado in its stunning beauty and exotism. At about one kilometer of the farm's gate, I hear an animal crawling in the bushes on the side of the dirt road. A lizard, perhaps? More sounds join the first. I'm definitely not alone on the road cut in the middle of the bush that leads to the Teixeira farm. I listen in, trying to identify where the sounds are coming from. The sounds come to me somewhat muffled by the last remains of my temporary deafness. What can it be? Am I ready to learn the answer?

The answer is an arm pulling me by the neck as I go past one of the thick bushes on the way. The cold steel of a gun pressed hard against my head. The dream. But it is now too late for turning back. I am lost. I hear the click of the trigger next to my ear and death is now a closer perspective than ever and this seems to be the end. Nothing happens.

"Ever played Russian roulette?", said the deep voice, as a cat that plays with its prey.

I tried to reply, but there was no time. A second click was heard, muffled by my partial deafness, feeling me with anguish and fear, seconds that felt like hours.

"Where is the goddamned bullet anyway?", he laughed sarcastically, feeling me with horror, as the sun touched the top of the mountain up there rendering the landscape darker and darker, "let's try once again…"

All of a sudden, the barking of a dog. The man let go of me and turned around, but had no time to react. A huge dog as big as a lion was already sinking its teeth in the man's neck throwing him around. A second dog came to its aid and the man's screams were horrific as hell, filling me with as much horror as when I had his gun against my head. It was the end of the Russian roulette. And the end of the man. The dogs never stopped dealing with the man when I realized, to my greater horror, that they were devouring his ripped body. Cringing from the scene, reeled back to the side of the road, my eyes were closing despite myself until a sudden burst of light opened them again.

I was fallen down on the road and the fearsome noises of chewing and breaking bones by the animals' fierce jaws got me back to that Dantesque reality in front of me. Renan was lighting me with a flashlight, on the top of his indifference towards the scene nearby and asking me if everything was fine.

"Renan, we've got to go away, these dogs…"

"…are mine."

I looked at him, mute with astonishment.

"The phone call…"

"I copy my father's voice nicely, don't I?" he laughed, amused as the dogs ripped what was left of the man's flesh, sucking his bones clean.

"I could have died, dammit!"

"True, but it was him who did. It'll teach you to walk alone on the road at night. That's what they like, a woman walking alone on the road at night. Taurinos is peaceful because we keep it peaceful, don't you forget."

Another geometry | Bones and stilettos

Radio Universal: Shadowplay