Case closed

INT. DAY – POLICE INTERROGATION ROOM

The rain hits the only window in the room with ferocity. Nothing can be seen outside because of a heavy haze.

The camera moves away from the window and settles on a corner, watching the center of the room. There’s a large table and two chairs, a pasty white guy is seating in one of them. No one sits in the other chair.

The man lays his head on the table, apparently crying but there are no tears on his face. The door to the outside opens. It’s a policeman. He’s very tall, black and carries a gun on his belt.

DETECTIVE MARKO

You sure were difficult to pick up, Vince.

 The detective sits on the empty chair. He grabs a pack of cigarettes from his chest pocket, pulls one out and offers it to Vince.

DETECTIVE MARKO

Wake up, man.

 Vince raises his head. His eyes are red. He looks pale and desperate. He grabs the cigarette. Marko pulls out a lighter from the cigarette pack and lights Vince’s smoke. He inhales once and clearly enjoys the taste of it.

DETECTIVE MARKO

Now, where’s the girl?

Her dad’s here, Vince.

Vince looks at the door, nervous. Marko sits back on his chair, crossing his arms and looking straight at Vince, who looks like a trapped mouse.

DETECTIVE MARKO

We know everything, Vince. We know what you did to them.

To her. We just need you to help us find her.

But Vince doesn’t seem to mind the presence of the detective. He suddenly stands up and walks towards the window. He stays there, looking at the rain, not saying a word.

Marko’s fingers start playing with the cigarette pack.

DETECTIVE MARKO

Did you know her dad is congressman Walters?

The one whose face is all over town, seeking reelection?

(For a second, he waits for an answer)

He’s calm right now. If he gets mad, you’re fried.

But Vince keeps looking out the window. The drops of water hit the glass hard but the man doesn’t seem startled or annoyed. He just looks at the rain in the most peaceful way.

Then, he starts mumbling.

DETECTIVE MARKO

What’s that?

Marko stands up from his chair and walks towards Vince, who’s still talking under his breath.

The men are separated then by a few meters but Marko does not understand what Vince is saying. He mumbles as if he was repeating things to himself, not to really talk with anyone.

DETECTIVE MARKO

Hey! Stop it! You’re dyin’, dumbass!

Don’t you wanna save your ass?

 Vince remains unresponsive. He keeps repeating, mumbling. His cigarette is consuming itself on his hand.

Detective Marko closes his fists, ready to be harder on Vince than he was authorized to. But he refrains. A muted sound enters the room from outside.

DETECTIVE MARKO

I can make them see you’re not well.

You don’t have to die, Vince.

Vince then turns around and looks at Marko straight in the eye. He smiles softly. He walks one step towards the detective. He then reaches out with one hand, caressing Marko on the cheek.

VINCE

But I do have to die. You know that.

 Marko looks scared. He cannot move away from Vince. He stares at the criminal, but does not seem to know what to do next.

VINCE

And she will have to die too.

You also know that.

 His hand caresses Marko further, feeling his three-day stubble. His smile grows, making his face look weirdly deformed. If he looked pale and lanky before, he now looks insane.

VINCE

Tell the congressman to make the arrangements.

Vince pulls back his hand. Marko seems to be able to move now. He turns around suddenly towards the door but it opens before he can reach it. A woman stands there, dripping water.

OFFICER GARCIA

Sorry to interrupt, sir.

DETECTIVE MARKO

(Looking back at Vince)

It’s ok. What is it?

OFFICER GARCIA

Sir, it’s the congressman.

Marko turns his attention to her, his eyes wide open.

OFFICER GARCIA

He said he was going for a coffee.

But some officers saw him running towards the street,

without his coat.

Vince chuckles. Marko looks at him again but his face goes back to Garcia in a second.

DETECTIVE MARKO

What happened?

OFFICER GARCIA

(Nervous)

We went after him. He seemed out of his mind.

He didn’t look before crossing and…

Marko understands. Vince starts laughing, first slowly but then faster and louder. The detective seems to be losing his patience.

OFFICER GARCIA

We found this on him.

(She pulls out a cellphone from her coat)

It’s…

Marko takes the cellphone without asking. He looks at it and sees something he would have wanted not to see.

On the screen, a live feed is still ongoing. The camera is apparently under water and, for a moment, you cannot see much.

Then, a head tilts forward and it becomes noticeable. It’s the face of a young woman. She’s clearly dead, having turned purple already.

Garcia takes the cellphone back, saying something about evidence. Marko’s head turns. He walks towards the chair and drops there. He grabs his head, it hurts. Vince’s laughter is loud.

VINCE

I had to do it Marko.

You knew. You always knew.

Marko looks at him, his eyes a bit watery. He looks at Vince laughing but doesn’t seem to have the same power and stability than before. He looks lost, confused even.

Two policemen enter the room and pull Vince out of it. Marko looks how the man is dragged out, how he’s still laughing. Finally, a tear runs down Marko’s face. The men leave and he’s alone with that tear.

The rain punches hard on the glass.

What was that?

   I don’t know if I hadn’t rested well enough or maybe it was the fact that I was using earplugs to block all sounds coming from my annoying roommates.  I had fallen asleep, like always, almost at three in the morning and wasn’t expecting to have nothing notable to tell when I woke up. But then, nightmares and dreams happen and apparently my brain is very active these days.

I know I had a very active dream first. I don’t really remember what it was about but I do remember when I woke up, covered in sweat, in the middle of the night. Something had scared me or made me run because I was panting and sweating and trying to breath. But, after all, I was still sleepy so I fell asleep again and that next dream I remember very well.

 It happened in an airport, just after I had arrived from somewhere to Brasilia. I have no idea if it was actually Brasilia. I have never been there myself but in the dream it was pretty clear that was the city I was in. I walked around the airport and remembered walking with one bag and looking at the incredible ceiling of the terminal and thinking that not so many people used the airport. My subconscious didn’t really add that much people to the dream, only some background “extras”. I walked a lot on that airport, watching the stores and just enjoying myself.

 Then, after many corridors, I arrived at what appeared to be a hotel reception. There, there was a woman who checked me in and joined me to my room, which had all curtains and blinds closed. Somehow, I didn’t think it was strange or weird in any way. When she left, I immediately lay down and rested for a while. Then, I noticed that it was actually very early in the day still and that I had to take advantage of whatever time I had in the city so I had thought of getting a taxi to take me downtown.

 But this I only thought of. Apparently, I couldn’t’ move from the bed anymore but I really wanted to. I didn’t want to waste any time of my trip, which was short I guess, but nothing could make my legs move. I could see the sunlight filtering through the curtains and somehow that made me even sleepier than I already was.

 I fell asleep in a dream and woke up a bit later, the orange light of the afternoon entering the room.  Again, I got worried I was wasting my time in Brasilia so this time I was able to stand up and go to the bathroom. There, I washed my face and started thinking that maybe I had no money to pay the hotel fee. I worried as I checked my bag and went around the room. But then I remembered I did have money so it wasn’t a problem. Curiously, I thought of a trip I was going to make in real life, as if the two events had some relation with the other.

 I went back to sitting in bed and thought of buying a low-cost ticket to Rio and check the city there, doing a favela tour and taking lots of pictures. But I never got out of the hotel room; I didn’t seem capable to do so. I woke up slowly, still thinking about the money. I was sweating a bit and my covers were all around the place. The cold wind of the night was freezing my feet and I had to fix it all to lie there more comfortably. It was late and I had cancelled my alarm clock, which I put on everyday to wake up early to write. I didn’t write a word that day.

  That day, a Saturday, I decided to relax completely. I didn’t do my daily workout either and showered after 1 PM. The rest of the day was relaxing, except for the fact that an apparently important football game was going to take place and there was people everywhere, including my apartment, waiting for it to happen.

 Decided to avoid that, I left to have lunch and then wander around. I ended up exercising after all when I had to walk eight kilometers to my house just because I wanted to take a stroll by the ocean, which was covered by greyish clouds and seemed not to be in the right mood for anyone to come close. I had thought the weather would be better but it wasn’t. When I got home, my feet hurt and I was tired. That Saturday I fell asleep pretty late too, even though I was tired. Something always distracts me.

 I ended up having another dream. Or maybe it was a nightmare. It had different stages or levels or whatever you want to call them but they were all related: it was about me and my father and how we couldn’t really communicate with each other. We argued about thing I don’t remember in different locations that had absolutely nothing to do with is. I think one of them was the former house of my grandfather and another one looked like a market but one that I had never seen before.

 The dream was exhausting. Even being in it, I could notice my body wasn’t working correctly. I was breathing heavily and I couldn’t help thinking it was because I seemed to run after my father a lot in the dream. We moved around the scene like it was a theatre stage and it made me dizzy but I went on doing it exactly the same way because, somehow, it made sense that I did it that way.

 He was being very harsh with me. He insulted me in front of other family members and we fought and I wanted him to understand something but I don’t really remember what that was. And he called me a failure I think and then I realized I couldn’t speak. I tried very hard but couldn’t. My face felt drowned and I woke up then.

 But when I did, I strangely still dreaming because I kept talking or, at least, trying to talk. I opened and closed my mouth and reached for something or someone that wasn’t there and all of this happened in my bed. I had my eyes opened and I remember it vividly. I fell asleep right back and then my voice did work and I could speak and tell him what I felt but he didn’t seem to care about what I had to say. He was so mean and harsh that, when I woke up for good, I realized he wasn’t really my father.

 I had to recover myself from that dream, trying to slow down my breathing and walking outside to turn off that damn light the idiots I live with always leave on. When I went back to bed I felt my back being very wet and I wondered if wearing pajama pants had anything to do with that. After all, I normally slept in my underwear and without a t-shirt even and now I was wearing it all. Did that made me dream so much?

 It was 7AM, according to my cellphone. I still had some hours to rest so I decided to try and use them to calm myself down and breathe easily. I tried to think of places filled with nature and calm and I remembered two beautiful parks I had been in Amsterdam. Both day I had been freezing but I always liked to go to places were normal people went instead of the ones filled with tourists only.

 That apparently helped because I fell asleep for three hours but when I woke up, I gave myself some more minutes to relax, to keep my eyes closed and to breath in order to calm myself down.

 Two nights in a row my brain had given me reasons to run around and worry and try to solve problems that weren’t there. Or were they? What did those dreams meant, if they meant anything at all? I’ve never really bought into all of that psychological shit that says that if you dream about flying it means something. I don’t think the brain is that smart But I do think you dream from your memory and it curious why your subconscious uses certain memories to play around.

 Waking up in the middle of the night, or morning, sweaty and tired, is something that hadn’t happened to me in a while. Normally I don’t remember what I dream but this time it was like both times I had actually just been in those places. And maybe they were nightmares but I have no idea of telling because there wasn’t something obviously scary about them.

 I just decided to write it all down because I don’t want to forget anything about it. Maybe those dreams will come in handy one day. Or maybe writing them down will make them go away or at least change. Who knows?