People and vultures

I saw the vultures. They flew lower and lower all the time, descending in circles to the heart of the town, the main square. A shadow passed me by, smart, slight and sleek, blurring my vision for a moment. Then there was only the blue sky, riddled with vultures flying in elegant yet ominous descending circles. Then there was only silence. Then the songbirds and I was on my bed on the farm Teixeira.

After breakfast, Renan asked me whether I was going to stay and talk to him. He intended to go for a swim in Horns Falls. I told him I had to go out with Andrés, go downtown. A shadow passed his face for a while, when he was considering my idea of going downtown. Tried to persuade me to go to Horns Falls with him, but I was not going there for the world. Because I feel I have to clear some points before I definitely can sit down with him and talk.

Downtown, a hubbub at the main square. People gathering by the gazebo Renan and I passed by the day before yesterday, people driving vultures away, vultures stubbornly trying to get back to the spot. A rotten smell that got our nostrils sore all around. I started to get unsettled as Andrés and I got off the car and walked to the square attracted by the uproar.

I would know that tee from afar. I never saw the face, but that tee I do know. Lying back still in the same position we found him two days ago, the same man Renan said he tried to talk to. In his belly, the stiletto was still in the same position, earth down the gazebo bench drinking all the blood the weapon could draw from him. The face half-eaten by the vultures beaks, people starting to draw the dead body out of the square using pieces of paper as gloves. I signaled Andrés to follow me. I had already seen enough. I thought I'd call Donana and ask her how many stilettos were effectively on her purchase list on Monday, but had the news already gotten there, it would be the same as to blame Renan frontally.

"Ms. Grisam what was that face you made at the square? Did you know the dead guy from somewhere?"

"Renan killed him with the stiletto he bought for his mother."

"Oh, it was Renan? So he managed to catch the guy. But there was another guy with him in town…"

"The other was given by Renan to his dogs as dinner."

Andrés whistled in sheer horror and admiration.

"That lil' brat is going bloodthirstier and bloodthirstier every day… How do you know it was him?"

I told him what happened Monday on the way to the farm Teixeira and what I saw on Tuesday at the gazebo. Told him I thought Renan was tapping him on the belly as he talked. Andrés laughed and said Renan was not the guy for tapping people anywhere that was not designed to draw blood.

"I remember that he was in such a hurry to get me into the car. He almost shouted at me when I suggested we could go looking for the guy a bit more in town."

"He didn't want to shock you or something, because it was not fear of being found. If you bought things at Souza's and if he saw and recognized the stilleto, the whole town is soon to find out about Renan killing the guy. At most he's going to get a lashing home for doing it in broad daylight at the heart of the town, at the main square."

Andrés went on to talk to me about seeing the vultures in his dream, descending in circles over the main square. As if they guided us there. We went to meet Anderson at his father's hardware store as he left the store after working his morning bit. We went upstairs to his house above the store. While drinking some coffee we compared the dreams we had and once more there was no shadow of difference among them. The only difference was that Anderson did not go to the square to see what was going on, too busy with an order list he was dealing with. He was stunned at receiving the news for the day.

"Holy shit, Renan overdid it this time… But weren't there two of them? Did the other get away?"

"Tell him, Ms. Grisam", Andrés asked.

I repeated the story of the dogs having dinner with the carcass of the other guy and Anderson only said, "what an efficient killing machine he is, eh?". Andrés laughed but I didn't find it funny. Anderson calmly said that if he didn't appear there at the right moment I wouldn't be here talking and drinking coffee.

"He attracted me there. He used me as bait."

"How do you know?" retorted Anderson.

"He said it to me himself. In a most bare-faced way."

"Eh, Renan…"

"He called the farm Taurinos and copied his father's voice."

"It was me who got it. Wasn't it his father on the phone? Holy Mother, I could swear it was." Andrés was stunned at the news.

"But then Renan is getting too cheeky. Can you imagine, risking one of us just to catch the guy?"

"Easy, folks; no one got hurt, all was well in the end, right?"

"This is not the way it should be, Andrés. Have you stopped to imagine if it were you? You wouldn't be that calm if it were, would you?"

"True, it wasn't him that had a gun against his head while a loony played Russian roulette with him."

"And now these dreams. What can it be? I'd love to know where I fit in this whole story. Why Renan…"

"Well, supposing Renan is the cause of the dreams, of course. That he appears only with his shadows in the dreams we already know for sure. But is he the cause? Are we sure of it?"

"Ms. Grisam there are people in town (and they're not few) that manage to communicate without letting a spoken word out. At Zé of the Depths the other day I saw two guys at a table who didn't say a word to each other. Once in a while one looked at the other and the two burst out laughing like men possessed. They were almost an hour doing it until they got off the table, paid their checks and went away."

"I can't see what it has to do…"

"I mean that if they can do it, they can also send dreams or stuff to others, whatever can be done with the mind."

When I got back to the farm Teixeira, at dusk, Renan was too busy getting a lashing from his father. Donana had missed money in the change brought home from Souza's and seen two stilettos in the invoice where there should be only one. Joining the knowledge with the news of the day, it wasn't hard for her to add two and two and realize where the second stiletto had ended up. Obviously he was getting punished for doing it in broad daylight, as Andrés said, not for what he effectively had done.

Shadowplay | Penumbra in broad daylight

Radio Universal: Shadowplay