by Wudson Silva
A crowd waited outside the hospital when the ambulance arrived with one of the guilty ones for Judith’s murder. Therefore, I gave a small convincing smile to persuade them of my personality.
The Chief of Police Jonas also appeared and witnessed the entry of Tobias at the emergency room. Clóvis was waiting for me leaning against a pillar in front of the hospital.
— I was told right that you find out the impossible — said Jonas to the detective, who remained indifferently to my behavior. But I was so certain of what I did that I didn’t want to explain anything.
Everything would be perfect wasn’t for the intromission of Doctor Hamilton, the city’s doctor, who was always trying to put everyone down. He barely introduced himself and started immediately to criticize our work.
— Who is saying he found out anything? If are not aware of this, Tobias is only an alcoholic, and he is about to lose the benefit of being the priest’s driver.
— If you are so smart, — I said, firm and calm. — why, then, he ran away?
— Because he used the car against the priest’s will and is feeling guilty for this.
— How so?
— Do you remember the incident between Josias and Judith? Did you know that, when Josias fell, he almost broke the leg of an elderly lady?
— Yes, I did — I replied. — This lady had to go to the hospital in a hurry due to strong pain on her ankle. What does one thing has to do with the other?
— The fact that this lady is Tobias mother, and he was responsible for taking her to the hospital, at the priest’s car, right when he was pushing away all evangelicals from the square.
— He did the right thing, then!
— No question about it — replied Doctor Hamilton. — But go on and try to tell this to the priest.
The Chief of Police started connecting the dots and now looked at us in disapproval for the persecution of the poor bastard.
However, I, Isaías, am not guilty if the priest doesn't like evangelicals and neglects to help a lady that twisted her foot just because she was at the church square disturbing someone that has aversion to this kind of manifestation. I am not guilty if the sorcerer fell over this poor lady. I am not guilty if this lady is an evangelical. I am not guilty if Tobias took the priest’s car without permission to help his own mother, and I am not guilty if he is a coward and ran away from a questioning that has nothing to do with his fear of getting late to pick up the priest and lose his driver position. And now everyone is looking at me as if I was guilty of everything in this world? Well, bite me!
— I need to tell you something, Isaías — said Hamilton.
— What is it?! — I cried.
— Your mother case is getting worse. You better take her to the capital.
Without thinking about it, I went to Marta’s apartment.
I was so busy during the week that I forgot about my mother.
Marta was really worse and was put into the ambulance that had just performed the assistance to Tobias. It was sad to see the look of doctor Hamilton closing her eyes and asking to turn the car off, for there was no longer a reason to drive her.
— She went to heaven! — said Clóvis looking above the ambulance.
I looked to the detective and he was shaking his head, as if he confirmed what someone was saying, but there was no one on the top of the ambulance.
I left dizzy.
I never entered into an empty church. This because I am always in the church when there is a mass or a wedding, once in a lifetime. The door was open and, so, I went in.
I remembered of a wedding with a full church. My father brought me and I got excited as soon as I got in and saw the quantity of people sitting and the empty central corridor. A long red carpet enhanced that free space up to the altar. I got free of my dad’s hands and ran with my arms open to the end of the carpet. I felt like I was flying, and I really was. A feeling of freedom that only a child appreciates. I went back in the same way, ignoring the people recriminating my behavior. I ran until I got close to my father. My intention was to repeat that feeling of freedom, the feel of flying; and I prepared to a new adventure, but my father grabbed me by my ears so harshly that I nearly lost my balance. “keep quiet, bastard!”, he said, as he shook me. At that time I lost my freedom and I felt like an idiot in front of the crowd. The worst of all is that there was no one there to protect me. I wasn’t even allowed to cry.
It is a bad thing to remember our past. Even worst is to remember the present.
I sat down in one of the benches, in the middle of the church, and paid attention to the image of Jesus Christ at the top of the altar. I stayed there for a while.
Finally, I left the church and faced the detective, who was looking for me.
However, he only stopped at the church stairway and observed, with anger, the attitude of a bunch of boys in front of one of the palm trees at the square. I was also curious when I realized they were throwing rocks at the poor pigeon with its nest on a hole at the top of the old palm tree.
— What are you doing, kids?! — I yelled.
None of them wanted to explain what they were actually doing. It wasn’t the first time this pests were trying to hurt the poor bird. Someone should teach them a lesson so they would never do that again.
I went in their direction with the intention of grabbing them by their ears. My anger was such that I would probably rip off the ear of the lucky bastard. But Clóvis intervened:
— Are you trying to kill that pigeon?
— No. — one of them answered.
— What are you trying to do, after all?
— She doesn't belong there.
— How so?
They all started talking, all at the same time. All that talking was making me crazy. But we were able to understand that there was a nest behind the cross, inside the church, and that, all of a sudden, she moved to the hole at the palm tree. They wanted only to scare her off so that it would get back to the hideout behind Jesus Christ cross.
Suddenly, Clóvis was pale and sat down in one of the benches at the square. His eyes were petrified and he was gasping.
— Are you feeling ok, detective?
— I am ok, don’t worry.
— What happened?
— Nothing.
Then, he went away on the streets without direction. I couldn’t figure it out, I didn’t follow him because I had more important things to do.
A great part of the citizens of Rio Vermelho were in front of my home to my mother’s funeral.
Madalena was in a wretched mood. As well as my relatives. My father was napping on the sofa. I sat down on the porch and remembered my friends that so far wasn’t there.
Never a night in my life had been so long. It was nine at night but it felt like three in the morning. My body was in such a pain that I could barely stand.
It was then that my Uncle Pedro, who kept on holding the bible, came towards me.
— There is someone at the telephone that wish to speak to you.
— Who?
— It is João, from the bar.
— Now?
— Yeah. He says it is urgent.
I got up and went to the telephone.
João was scared because Clóvis was drinking soda, but he had a look of someone that would burst anytime. I had nothing to do with this, but João asked me for the love of God to go up there because he was hypnotic. I jumped into my car and left without saying a word about my whereabouts. I parked in front of the bar and saw Clóvis sitting on a stool, with the elbows over the cracked glass of the poor João. In fact, he looked desolated; as I did in my depression stages from time to time.
I concluded that João should be more worried about his counter than with Clóvis. It was a miracle that nothing bad happened yet.
— Isaías! What are you doing here?
— I came to drive you to the hotel. Why are you looking like this?
— I am just tired of struggling and failing to reach my goals. If I were h
ere last week, the investigation would be easier, because I would be able to see the time of transition at the killer’s mind in time.
— What do you mean?
— I solved the mystery of Judith’s murder, Isaias, but for now I can’t prove anything.
— So, you already know who are the murderers? How did you find out?
— The angels told me. There are still many things between Heaven and Earth that I am unaware of.
I silenced for a moment. The will to know who killed Judith was mixed with the curiosity of knowing about how he was able to read minds. I just couldn’t ask both things at once, even because I needed to go back home. I asked, then, what bothered me the most.
— Answer me one thing, detective: How do you know what is inside my mind?
— Do you really want to know, Isaias?
— Yes. Yes, I do, of course.
Well, I helped my father raise cattle, in a small farm to the south of the State of Minas Gerais. In a late afternoon, after another day of hard work, I went up the hill where I did my praying. It had been a hard but rewarding day.
The sunset was one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. The clouds were colored orange, almost red. Around the sun, about to vanish, a radiating yellow was shining.
I closed my eyes and suddenly felt loneliness and defeat. Loneliness because there is no one with whom I may share my doubts and certainties; and defeat because it is impossible to bring people into the Reality: we are surrounded by many defense mechanisms that turn us inaccessible, that makes us invulnerable to any changes.
I kept thinking about how to understand that we do not take anything to the next life, we only take our soul. A soul that we ignore because it goes against the earth demands moved, essentially, by greed. However, convinced of how useless my intentions were, I gave up thinking about the subject due to a sad matter: life is short as a short breeze. I would not have the time to talk to the whole world about the power of God, if I do not have a long life to reach all ears. It would be impossible to fulfill a dream like that, so great; it would be too ambitious for me.
It was right then that the clouds turned into four angels hand in hand, as if they were dancing. A voice, from I don’t know where, questioned my thoughts and I replied fearful of what that power could do to the sky.
I was sure I was talking to a very powerful angel, and when contemplating the clouds in the shape of children with wings, I felt the urge of doing something in reward to that divine presence. So I put myself available to act as a Translator of Angels, I mean, someone with the capacity of seeing and hearing what angels have to say to human beings, and so, heal the misfortunes of all souls.
The Angel told me that being a Translator of Angels was not such a simple task, and gave me the option of salving all or only one soul. I was even warned about the negative side of this proposal, because there were good and bad angels, but I ignored the warning.
I thanked for believing in me and I promised that I wouldn’t let him down. I got down the hill feeling triumphant for having turned myself into a divine being, however, my life, since then, turned into a nightmare.
When I got home, my parents were waiting for me. I freaked when I saw that each of them had a guardian angel. Angels that demonstrated with gestures their displeasure for the time I stayed up the hill, and this displeasure was mysteriously transmitted to them, without they realizing it.
My father was the first one to show the anger. His angel was vigorous, thirty years younger, but with a facial resemblance, and demonstrated a hostility similar to my brother’s angel. As soon as I got in, he induced my father to do things that he obeyed as soon as ordered.
My mother looked at me as if I were a poor bastard. The angel following her looked like a child carrying a doll wrapped up in a cloth, however, the doll was headless; and this, I don’t know how, made my mother feel sorry for me.
— Why do you allow these angels to control your minds? — I questioned.
— What are you talking about?! — my father asked me, impatiently.
— God gave me the Mission to translate the language of the angels, and now I can see them, but they are not helping me, much to the contrary, they are harming you and I!
The angels started laughing and, immediately, all obeyed.
I tried to explain how they were being handled, and I even anticipated some things the angels induced them to think, however, they got scared. It was like guessing what they were thinking, and the reaction turned them against me.
They went to bed, and the only thing I achieved was a bitter taste of defeat for not being able to talk to my own family.
I was a failure in my own house, but I tried a new strategy at school.
It was amazing, but all students and teachers had, close to them, an angel which visual deferred in some aspects the person they were side by side with. Thus, the angels had a beautiful nose, others a beautiful mouth and, in others, the skin color or even the eye color was different from the teachers and students in my school. In general they were taller and, in majority, the angels had a healthy body.
I found out that these semi-invisible beings used this recourse so that people would feel unhappy when they were feeding themselves, unconscious, of the beauty and physical aspects transmitted by the angels inducing stereotypes.
I tried, in many ways, to take people apart from the angels so that I could talk without their intromission, but it was impossible. They went through doors and walls, as if nothing existed. Little by little, my friends in school started getting away from me. And I couldn’t convince them that angels were manipulating them.
My wish to tell on these angels turned into an obsession. I no longer could talk freely to my friends. Months went by and I couldn't save a single soul.
Until one day, the principal, the teachers and my family had a reunion to decide upon my future. No one could bear any longer my weird actions and they were all scared at the things I was saying. To them, I wasn’t in my perfect state of mind; and my only medicine would be a psychiatric treatment — at a sanatorium.
I fought with all my strength to prove that the mad ones were they, but the nurses tied me up in a straitjacket and gave me some sedatives. When I woke up, I was already in the institution.
No matter how crazy this sounds, it was inside the mental institution that I found out the true value of life. I wasn’t treating my madness, however, I learnt to deal with it. I met amazing people that were considered mad, and crazy people that were considered normal. I received visits from my bad and from my good angel, and learnt, with a great difficulty, to distinguish between them. From that point on I could deal with myself. I was, finally, cured.
However, I still had to fulfill my Mission: save, at least, one soul. But I do not want to present myself before God with a single soul saved; I want to destroy this Evil! Even if all attempts up to this time have been in vain, I wish to achieve my target — I wish to fulfill the promise I did to the mysterious angel.
Clóvis talked so much that I was almost ordering a beer to João; I almost forgot that a funeral was going on at my house. I turned back to Clóvis and recovered my attention.
— With all due respect, but these beings that you see, are they really angels?
— No, Isaías, they are demons that had once been angels. When Lucifer tried to steal God’s kingdom and was expelled from the Heavens, several angels created a kind of demons with the purpose of leading mankind to sin. This is how this army under the command of the fallen angel appeared. That is why angels and demons have the same origin.
— So, you know what I am thinking because I have a bad angel near me that dictates what I am thinking, and you can hear him?
— Exactly. However, you do not think exclusively through your bad angel, since, inside of you there is a soul, which is also responsible for your thinking. Consequently, your brain receives the order of these two beings, but the voice of your thinking is the only voice to both origins, what makes it diffic
ult to distinguish when you are thinking with your soul, that is, consciously, or, then, you are being taken to think through an alternative mechanism with evil objectives, which is mastering your mind, brainwashing you, and creating personality disorders.
— But, is there any way to differentiate one from the other?
— Yes, there is. It is the presence of the good angel. This is the angel of judgment, concentration and search of wisdom. Its objective is for the soul to resume its self-esteem and weakens the strength of the bad angel, but, for this, it is necessary that you rethink your actions since childhood, what is very painful. Many times, it is required the assistance of a professional to help you at this stage.
— What about my good angel, detective, does it have wings?
— Wings are symbols, and to be honest, I have never seen your good angel, but this is often because the majority of the good angels goes back to heaven during the childhood of their protégés. However, your bad angel never left your side; and it doesn't have a big belly and is much younger. What brings me the conclusion that you have a complex about your body and your age.
This is logic: every person over forty years of age and out of shape has a complex. I do not know anyone that is okay about getting old. This detective looks more like a cheater than a Translator of Angels.
— It is your angel, Isaias, right now, behind you, about twenty centimeters from your back, and it just said that “every person over forty years of age and out of shape has a complex. I do not know anyone that is okay about getting old. This detective looks more like a cheater than a Translator of Angels”. Did it, or did it not?
Right then I got up and went out to the street. Even with a bunch of people talking inside the bar, and the music on, I still could feel my heart beating in my ears. It is hard to get used to this guy guessing what we were thinking.
After breathing a little I returned to the bar and sat on the stool.
— Your theory is very interesting, Clóvis, but I have a funeral at home. Maybe later...
— Look over there, Isaías — he proceeded —, that drunk man over there has an angel telling him “I will take this one for the road, and I promise I will leave right away.”
I found it funny when I noticed that the damm alcoholic was talking to himself on a table to the back of the bar. It really looked like he was dominated.
— It is impossible to get these angels away from people, because they are part of their minds, and if they do get away, what remains is only loneliness: the emptiness of those without faith, imagination, personality and perspectives in life; This happens because the soul leaves the bad angel destroy the brain. I am so used to them that I see people as they had two ways of thinking. Because, unfortunately, conscience and subconscious work together. That is why I see one, but observe two, do you understand?
— So, to you, I am two?
— That is right. Soul and angel controlling the same brain, but I cannot see or hear the soul, because it is inside the individual. But I do know everything that the bad angel projects to your mind. They are almost invisible, and their molecules are smaller than an atom and exist in the intermolecular spaces of the matter; it is life in antimatter! A dimension so simplified that are incapable of being seen by our technology. They are on air, but the body structure hides in the air itself. They are like children in the middle of the crowd: you can see the crowd, but you cannot see the children.
— It is… very interesting — I said, embarrassed. — But my mother’s funeral is going on at my house and I can't stay. They will think I am desecrating my mother’s soul.
— Your mother went to Heaven, Isaías, and the only soul being desecrated right now, is yours.
— Okay, okay! But do you agree that I should be in my house right now?
— I agree.
— So, let’s go?
João thanked God his glass counter survived. I took the detective to the hotel without difficulty, and went back home.
The poor bastard’s schizophrenia returned gradually.
Do you think I would allow my thoughts to be controlled by angels? Bad angels? No way! I am aware of my sanity and it is inacceptable that any angel controls me; it is impossible that something like that happens to me or to any other human being. As soon as I have the chance, I will call the Chief of Police Jonas and will tell what is going on. He will have to deal with it!
Madalena thought it was disrespectful leaving my mother’s funeral to go to a bar. If she were in my shoes, definitely, she wouldn’t feel this way, but, being so ignorant, it is best not to discuss. I turned my back on her and start talking to my relatives.
Finally, exhaustion took over me and I sat down in one of the chairs close to my mother. There I could take a little nap.
Sunday