Unhappy birthday

It was nine-fifteen p.m. when Duílio and master Danilo dropped by my house. The sky threatened us with rain for the first time in months. They asked me if I had seen Renan. The boy, according to the two, had vanished. I said I hadn't seen him since his birthday party. They were going downtown. They said it was the only place at which they still hadn't looked for. I thought it was an exaggeration, but they told me the Teixeiras had called everyone and were looking for him in the city limits.

"I'm coming with you", I told them, despite their insistence I shouldn't go, "I want to help looking for the boy too."

I told them he had felt sad for his riding partner. Asked them if they had noticed. Duílio and master Danilo only exchanged looks.

Clouds accumulated, dense, thick, coloring the sky with a whitish tone, hiding the stars. The car went fast through the dirt roads, going uphill towards downtown. We hadn't arrived downtown yet when the first drops of rain came down, thick for the season, for the month of May when drought begins to show up in its first signs.

The rain collapsed before the entrance of Taurinos' urban portion. Heavy, definitive. Wanting to soak everything under. The windshield wipers worked to the limit of their capacity. No one on the streets. It should be almost ten. Who in Taurinos would stay on the streets after nine? And under a rain like that?

Renan. Who else in Taurinos would stay on the streets on that night?

At the main square, in front of Anderson's hardware store, the small figure of the policeman stood under the universal flood, wet to the marrow of his bones, shivering from the sudden cold.

"He's tearing us apart! You're letting him do it, Anderson! I remember well what he said…", and he saw the car approaching him and was silent. Master Danilo opened his window and called the boy to the car. He had apparently come to town on foot.

"Go away! Tell my parents I'm staying here!"

I don't know why, the scene, added to what I saw yesterday in his birthday party, touched me. There was a touch of melancholy in that victory of Renan that was inexplicable. A bitter taste of all that remained undone. Funny thing was, now I realize that all of the time I wrote about this community, I used the word "love" so few times. Even so, only in a violent context.

To make this account shorter, Anderson ended up showing up at his window. He had heard it all for sure. He denied the two were under any kind of curse. From where we were listening in, he didn't sound very sure of what he was saying. Said to Renan they would be eternally brothers in arms. They would eternally be brothers in Taurinos' Ancient Society. And that was all. To once more make this account shorter, it was a real hard time to bring a soaking wet Renan inside the car to take him back home. Duílio had the face he'd rather be in his bed, sleeping soundly when he borrowed my cell phone to let the Teixeiras know of our sighting. I wish I was home sleeping too. Master Danilo already was.

Unhappy birthday |

Radio Universal: Obscure Police