Leutenant

I woke up from one of the most frightening nightmares I had ever had. I turned on my bedside lamp, appalled and there was a black thing on my bed looking like a weird protuberance amid the sheets. I rose, frightened with that and was just about to scream when the protuberance or whatever it was, looked me in the eyes and screamed on its turn.

Then, I discovered the origin of the nightmares. It was Renan. Sleeping with me on my bed. He explained he had had a nightmare so he came to sleep in my bed. I thought he'd gone home, but he had slept here instead, the 'lil devil. This is why I had the fucking harsh nightmare. I was looking at him as he spoke, sleepy, but still scared with the nightmare. And he remained there. Talking to me. A tiny nightmare that hadn't even taken off his boots to sleep.

"I don't want you to sleep in your boots", I said severely and the little black thing shrunk. Took off his boots and let himself fall on the bed again. I stroked his head slightly, thinking of the reality of those people outside trapped on any day almost a week away from us now. I got up, left the boy fallen on the bed and went to make coffee. When I came down to the kitchen, ran into the other policeman sleeping on the couch. I was well-guarded and the nightmares were only collateral damages of having the two little monsters sleeping in my house at once. I didn't wake Anderson up, but didn't try to be silent as I did the things I usually do when I make coffee. The blacksmith woke up spontaneously and apologized for not telling me beforehand they were going to sleep here.

When coffee was ready, we heard Renan coming down the stairs. We were having breakfast in silence for some time.

"What are going to do now?", inquired the blacksmith breaking the spell of silence.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm going to eat some more cheese-bread", asserted Renan, with his usual tiny luminous smile.

"I'm talking about the scouts, Renan; this problem with their time still like this", Anderson was impatient with his partner.

"Beats me! Andrés and Bruno bring this bunch of hipsters to town, fall in the same spell as the others and there's still a garden that is here and is not here that is a work of the two other hipsters, of my elder brother too that is another fucking hipster."

The little boy voiced my thoughts. Master Danilo arrived and joined the Dunno Club here at home. The old countryman himself couldn't think of anything noticeable.

At about six o'clock, I paid a long overdue visit to master Danilo at the traditional time we once set for visits in his house. The house had changed a lot; it was a house more in the sense of its masonry now. CEMIG's standard electricity post in front of his house. I even brought my laptop, counting on the electricity. The old countryman wasn't expecting me so soon and was happy with the surprise.

"Now come on inside, "sá" Stella", he said beaming, "I was just about to boil some water for coffee."

And he showed me the power-points in his house, the electric bulbs now everywhere, happy as he was with his new source of light. He told me now he could spend more time reading.

"Kriosene lightens well, but you haven't a clue they dirty everything; all around you is a mess." And he smiled again.

"And what now, master Danilo?", I asked bringing the subject back to the order of the day.

He was silent for a while. Eventually he said he had been thinking of what could have happened and that he came to no conclusion. It might be everything and it might be nothing, he said. I agreed. With a town this chaotic as Taurinos has always been, there might come a day when a knot is going to lock over town and we are finally going to run out of absurd solutions to our problems and the know won't unlock anymore. The old countryman agreed there was a possibility that this could happen, thought the idea simply frightened the hell out of him.

Coffee was ready and we drank in silence for some time. Master Danilo looked at me in a weird fashion and told me he had been examining his memory and that one of the things that happened on the day the scouts arrived in town was exactly that we had arranged for me to visit him in his newly-reformed house. I remember that we really did, something I ended up doing in such a spontaneous fashion. He said that from everything he could remember it was one of those really different things that happened on that day.

Night was beginning to fall and we suddenly heard the gallop of horses out there in the distance. I glanced at master Danilo. The two horses stopped in front of master Danilo's house and I was going to take a peek at the window when the countryman pulled me back by the arm.

"Never look through the window with a sound of horses at this time of night. The window frames whatever is outside with a lot of crispness and gives you a view just like it is one of these magnifying lenses. It was what happened when you saw Renan once through the window at your porch, remember?"

"So what do we do?"

"We wait", he whispered with his left index on his lips.

The horses had stopped. The sensation was that of the heavy stuffy air we had experienced so many times. An unbreathable air, when everything around us, coffee-pots, firewood stove, bulbs seemed to come to life, but of a different and morbid kind. The old countryman crossed himself.

"Master Danilo! Do come outside, let us talk!", the voice was that kind of deep bass vomit of a voice passed through a grinder and wrapped in the sound of hundreds of gasoline drums coming downstairs. It was Anderson speaking. I thought: what the hell would they want with master Danilo in that aspect? In that specter?

"You can open up now, master Danilo we're no longer armed", now it was Renan's tiny voice, "I even brought cheese-bread; you don't deserve it, but I did bring some", he said as he walked in, showing us a white handkerchief, "to celebrate your decision of finally coming to visit master Danilo's new home."

"Renan, there are at least twenty loaves of cheese-bread in that bag", laughed Anderson, glancing at master Danilo and me mischievously.

Master Danilo and I glanced at each other clueless. At least I did not understand a thing whereas he seemed to know a bit of what was being talked about.

"Master Danilo we highly respect you and your wisdom. You weren't dissing us with that chupacabras thing, were you?"

"Thought we had already discussed that, Renan", I made an attempt.

"You were wrong. But you did it right when you decided to visit master Danilo. The scouts have just left town", retorted Renan, "I'd only liberate them from their time if you decided to pay master Danilo a visit and now that you're here, they're gone. Your 'lil friend was crying as he stepped on the bus. I guess he didn't believe he lost seven days here n this town."

"So it was you all the time", the old countryman refused to believe what he heard.

"And they were in my house earlier today pretending to worry about the kids' fate out there on my lawn, can you believe it?"

Like the old countryman, I still refused to believe the two had held the scouts back on the day they first set foot here for a Jamboree. I was staring at the two boys in black while they rehearsed their best giggle, something typical of those tiny Mineiros. Infuriated, I said they should go away. Anderson replied I was not in my house.

"Neither is she nor are you, mister!", the old countryman cut him short, "this is hardly the way you treat your elders, sô Anderson! You've heard her, get your things and go."

They rose from the chairs "next time we're called any nickname whatever it is, things are going to boil in town, this I promise", growled Renan, snatching the cheese-bread bag from the table and going out sulky, followed by his loyal (and also sulky) lieutenant.

I was puzzled when I understood they had held time still until I came to visit master Danilo. The countryman said he had commented about the idea of the visit to them on the same day it came about, but would never figured out Renan and Anderson got it and used it as a limit for their curse of time. Because no one would ever imagine Renan and Anderson would get it and use it as a limit for their curse of time.