Sanctuary

Donana came to visit her son once again. She cuddled her baby, had breakfast with us. The shine in his eyes was plain to see as he hugged his mother again. She told him that his father was still very upset and shocked with him, but was beginning to show he wanted his son back in his house. According to her, it was only a matter of time. Their talk made me happy and, strangely enough, made me sad at once. Why would I be sad? I was much sadder seeing him knock on my door, homeless, a little disowned by the family who should love and protect him. Why would I be sad to see him closer to his real home?

Meire appeared in the MSN. I've been missing her so. I hadn't seen her since late May, when she had some adventures in town. I asked her what day it was on her calendar and she told me it was Sunday, December the 12th 2010. O my, time has really passed by outside. Here it seems to be coming to a halt and separate us even more in time as if we weren't separated enough in space too. She sent me a link for a TV series she was following on Sy-Fy, formerly Sci-Fi Channel. The link was broken. She captured her screen and had it sent to me as an image. It was a recent series on that channel, Sanctuary. Found its tagline weird: "even what scares us needs protection."

Renan passed by the computer and saw the screen with the name of the series. The tagline drew his attention too, "where in creation did you get this from?" and he was looking at me with that cuter than cute face of a tiny distrustful Mineiro, maybe finding it was a joke with him, "if it's a joke, it's not funny. I have no energy even to be in armor." His voice in slow tempo was beginning to torment me. I explained the series plot to him and he was eagerly interested for the theme. He found it too bad he couldn't watch the series. I replied maybe it could be possible on the internet.

Tinnitus comes in an apparently endless crescendo. Renan complains about the sound, I complain about the sound as everyone around us. And, like everything that hasn't found a solution in Taurinos, it only gets worse and worse. The op is completely divided, with each one of the kids experiencing the problem with the bell in a completely different manner. The bell coming down is bringing the youngest police officer down too. The other seems to have found his way to lunacy bu hasn't had any physical change. What makes the difference after all?

"We'll get lost among monsters of our creation. Nights will pass and perhaps will have us afraid of the dark. We'll keep awake trying to figure out some solution so that this selfishness can't destroy our hearts. Is it only imagination? Is nothing going to happen? Is it all in vain? Will we manage to win in the end? Why fight when it's not on purpose? Who's going to protect us? Will we have to answer for the mistakes of the others too, me and you?"

Is It?, written by Legião Urbana

I went to the living room to turn the player off but changed my mind on the way and let it play that Legião Urbana song. Every time a song surprised me like this, it sounded loaded with meaning for the moment I was living through. I was analyzing the words, thinking of what it meant being voiced like this. Why it would start from certain parts that were not in the beginning of the track when it should play it from the beginning by default.

"I don't like this song", Renan told me and frightened me with his suddenness. I didn't know he was standing there at the threshold of the kitchen's door. His image at the threshold caused me to have chills all over. I didn't know why the fact that he was standing particularly there at the threshold of the kitchen's door had to cause me to have chills. But knew it was his location, not the suddenness of his intervention that made me feel like this.

"Renan, can you come here?", and he did and he was still there at the threshold of the kitchen's door. That was what made me feel uncomfortable seeing him standing there. I explained what I saw and he looked at the threshold. He asked me to shut my eyes and asked me to open them again. When I opened my eyes, he had a scythe in his hand he laid on the floor, the same he used to kill the outsider in his room.

"Thank you, even these things come here to steal energy", he smiled that childish and mischievous smile of one who loves to steal guavas from the neighbor's trees before he explained to me he had just cut off an outsider's head (the one who was there at the threshold of the kitchen's door).

"How did you do it? I saw you do nothing but telling me to shut and reopen my eyes and where did you get that scythe from?"

"I went upstairs to fetch it, why."

"It's not possible, Renan. You wouldn't have the time. You told me to shut my eyes and soon after to…"

"I brought time to a stop when you closed your eyes, went upstairs for the scythe and it was hell in here. I took two and a half hours to catch the fella, because I didn't see it, but could feel it. I waited for the mess do dry away and released time."

"Wait, wait, can you bring time to a stop?"

"Me and Anderson. And Adriano too. How in the creation do you think Anderson could tie his whip so fast to that outsider's car's wheel? How in the creation do you think Adriano could build your house just like it was in Santos in one night only?"

I remembered the scene, Anderson's debut in the Obscure Police. The outsiders drawing the gun, his whip bringing the weapon to Anderson in a vertiginous move. Adriano rebuilding my house from Santos in Taurinos. Now I understood it all. The Police and its mortal secrets. Taurinos and its secrets in architecture. But wouldn't what they could do with time be the cause of the issue affecting the bell and time in town?

I voiced my concern and he said one thing had nothing to do with the other. That stopped both ours and the outsiders' perception of time. Even if the outsider shot he had no way of catching the Agent that would have the eternity to deviate from the bullet. So much power fascinated (and frightened) me.

Later on, Andrés, Renan and I went to a forest nearby, a part of which followed the fringes of a small and narrow valley, not far from the farm Taurinos. A natural sanctuary with a small waterfall with crystal-like water, one of the most beautiful forest landscapes I've ever seen. They said it was a place for rest. That all of them went there. It was the source of the water that formed Horn Falls to the other side of the cerrado and the riparian forest. Most incredible thing was we couldn't hear the permanent sound of Tinnitus here in the sanctuary. At first I thought the buzz had come to a stop, but the lads told me that the sanctuary isolated the noise out. That many animals were migrating to the sanctuary to escape the bell's buzz. Following them, I felt my hair get caught by one of the lianas around. I pulled my hair off them and joined the kids ahead.

"Here it is a sanctuary for the Gardener", told me Andrés, smiling at (and with) Renan.

I thought he was in the kind of hippie vibe for an Architect of the Universe or something to that effect. I was silent, observing the natural beauty around me until Andrés was stung by a big-headed black ant, "Lord, the Gardener shouldn't have liked the joke", and I had to ask them why they talked so much of a gardener. The two looked at me as if they didn't know what I was talking about and got me confused. They laughed and I didn't insist.

The place made me feel fine. Beautiful dragonflies of vibrant bright colors and graceful flight passed us by as if they were intrigued at our presence there. Butterflies in all colors and sizes passed like aerial ballerinas and Renan incredibly didn't catch them to pull out their wings and eventually torture and kill them in the most barbaric way.

We remained in the sanctuary for almost an hour but it could be much less than this. As Teca Calazans says, "time lies a lot; it lies by tricking you into believing it followed on". When we left the place, we ran into Bruno on the way. I didn't even know he used to come here but the kids really told me all of them came here. I was going to greet him, but Renan signaled at me to prevent me from doing so. I was astonished but kept silent and walking. Bruno passed Andrés by and said to him, "I really didn't like it, next time things will get worse, chum". It only remained to see Andrés whistling in disguise. I, of course, understood nothing of that mime. The boys, of course, explained nothing of that mime.