Scarecrow

Alberto showed up on the farm Taurinos this morning. Brought Anderson, who was sitting there all the time with us but it was like he was in living in another world. Shoe-gazing, he wouldn't say a word. The father too looked sad, depressed. I don't remember seeing that man smile much, maybe except for the day on which he asked whether I was Catholic, during the Law of the Bulls.

"I told him, he needs to be friends with Renan again", Alberto said, making lots of gestures, "you can't begrudge someone for that long. It does you harm inside. Now the two can hardly stand on their feet."

I thought we were wasting time with Anderson. Nothing would change their situation out of the blue. Only the great adversities of life moved that town, dead and buried 200 km above sea level. Of note only his acknowledgement of the noise in the air sometimes. When he heard his father speak about the noise, Anderson raised his head. It was the only thing to make him react. For me it was the only novelty here in Taurinos in that moment.

Andrés came to me after lunch. Asked me if I could hear a buzz. Told him I had been hearing thar buzz for two days. It appeared then died away as if it were buried deep in our subconscious mind.

"Tinnitus, huh?", I asked, referring to the medical condition in which the ear perceives sound that was never actually produced.

He goggled at me. Before I asked if he needed a doctor too he inquired, "how do you know the name of the bell?"

"What bell?", I thought it was reasonable of me to ask, you never know what mysteries and secrets the young Great Vizir can still hold within his troubled self. As you never know what secrets Taurinos can still hold within its random self. I guess all eternities won't be enough to empty this ocean of surprises and storms.

"The bell Anderson built near the spot where he had his initiation. You couldn't have missed that thing, it is enormous, five or six times as large as the main house on the farm Taurinos, Miss Grisam…"

Now I remember I don't remember anything like this. All of the time bound to the scene of the circles, an during the ritual not even being able to look away from the inner circle. No, I had seen no bell really. But how could I ignore, simply ignore an object as big as what he described me?

"The largest bell in the world, the Tsar-Kolokol III, is at Kremlin, Moscow, Russia. It's 160 to 200 tonnes heavy. It's six meters heavy and six-meter diameter", I told him, "the main house you mention must be at least four times as big, Andrés! How come Anderson could build a monster like that on the day of his initiation??? Only to cast the Russian bell, they needed to employ 200 qualified professionals. How did your friend and my enemy achieve a feat like that?"

"Anderson, whatever is to be made with metal he does magic, Miss Grisam. And them 200 poor fellas were in Moscow, not in Minas Gerais."

"Andrés, this is no Mineiro joke, you know. There's something serious going round in Taurinos like you yourself said and we need to know…"

"Who said I'm telling you Mineiro jokes? Here you come again calling me a fucking liar!"

"Is there any way to go back there by car see the bell? Me, you and Adriano or your father?"

"Dad won't let me go there, have you lost your mind, Miss Grisam?", he was appalled at the very thought of it.

"But why?"

"The black sun shone light on this place. It's cursed as a point for the Obscure Police initiation rites. Renan had his initiation there, Anderson had his initiation there too. It was compromising enough for us to have gone there and witnessed that all, yanno. Why do you think Renan picked that spot? It's in the middle of nowhere in town, no one ever goes there. Remember not even birds sang in the place? There was no sound of animals moving, there was no sound at all."

"Is the sound we hear from the bell?"

"The sound of it stopping. When it's tolling normally, no one in town hears it, only outsiders."

"What the heck…?"

Andrés told me Anderson built the huge bell aiming to relieve the Obscure Police from work. The idea was to drive away outsiders with the sound of the bell. The bell was then like a fearsome sound scarecrow. Hasn't worked since the beginning. Theoretically the frequency produced by the contact of the clapper with the resounding surface of the bell should scare the hell out of Satan himself, but something went wrong. None of the two police officers could say what it was. The bell could only be heard by outsiders when it was tolling. When it reduced the speed at which it tolled a resulting buzz started being heard by the population in Taurinos. When the bell came to a full stop the vibration coming out of it would be enough to madden, deafen the whole population and sweep away everything on its way, including the very town of Taurinos.

"Tinnitus was made to be like a sound Obscure Police. It was going to patrol the town with its sound; at least it was Anderson's intention when building it. Now it started completely fucked up…"

"Like the Russian bell, never worked"

"Ah, but this one does, it's only we can't hear it. Now it's decreasing speed we can hear that buzz and it's only getting worse in time you know."

The bell (however big it was) was one more fragment that was lost. It was erased from the memory on the day of Anderson's initiation. How it happened can only be likened to the loss of memory I had in early March. One more memory jumping, skipping, like the very existence of the Obscure Police. I talked to Renan about it for lost time. It was like a projector skipping frames in a movie: when you see the motion again it's well past the point you were originally watching. Adding to the evolution of the Obscure Police and the Agents' image resolution all here gives me the impression it's a world all made in video.

Argued with master Danilo today. I was mad at him but soon got back to my normal. I wanted him to stop calling me nuts every time I proposed an action plan.

"I thought you had already seen it during Albeto's offspring initiation, "sá" Stella… Going there only to see the bell, give up. If "sêo" Anderson comes along it is a light to guide us; it was him who created that. If he doesn't know what to do, who will?"

"You need to talk to him, master Danilo, maybe he'll hear you. He is my enemy now, nothing I tell him will move him in any way."

"Another thing is, you only stay in the region while its daytime, still it's dangerous, "sá" Stella. If I were you, I'd ponder a bit more before going there", he added.

"We haven't got a lot of time, master Danilo."

"But what in the world can you do to put the bell right?"