2
For nearly two hours, I had been driving my car in the dark. I had until midnight to deliver a package to a friend who lived on the other side of the mountain.
0
From what could be told by observing the sky, it had ceased to rain at around the time that the sun began to set.
In certain portions, the impenetrable grey above had yielded to red, and in others to yellow; then, as night finally came down, the sky, swallowing the land, dissolved into a navy universe––flecked purple where the fattest clouds roved, black where the forests sat––with the occasional glistening of moonlight on the face of the roads that stayed wet until morning.
My headlights cast a halo of vision over the shimmering ribbon of road passing underneath my car; ten meters at a time, the world could be seen before sinking away again.
Occasionally, the moon or a handful of stars would appear, providing me with a semblance of movement––reminding me that I was not just caught up in a shifting dream.
1
I had to deliver the package before midnight.
About an hour after the sun had set, I pulled over near a cliff and stepped out to stretch.
I initially turned the car off. Hesitating a moment, I looked out the windows at the blackness around me; then I turned the car back on and allowed the headlights to wash over the ground again.
The moment the door was opened, wind whipped in like a crazy thing. I had to push hard to get the door to open completely. With one leg out and the other on its way, my body slipped through before the door slammed shut.
I stood stunned beside the car, unwilling – or perhaps unable – to move.
Looking up, it was impossible to make out the moon or any stars; my body instinctively did not stray far from the car door. There was nothing to look at and only wind to feel. I kicked my legs for a few seconds then struggled with the door to get back into the car.
Once inside, breathing more easily, I threw the gear in reverse and got back on the road.
2
Coming slowly to the end of an overstretched bend, the road straightened before me and the steering wheel grazed my palm in its spin back to centre.
Something foreign caught my gaze at a distance high above my headlights: a small bulb toward the end of the road, or perhaps a bonfire on the other side of the valley––I could not be sure. I slowed the car down and studied the light, but to no avail: it was too far.
Approaching, the light gradually brightened and certain marks began to appear beneath it: flat wooden surfaces, painted steel beams, a flag, even other sources of light.
There was no obvious movement, just these objects floating around and amidst some light bulbs. In time, some vehicles could be seen parked in a row off to the side, but I could not be sure of this fact from that distance.
The closer I got, the slower I drove, until I came to a complete halt about 50 meters away from the lights and things ahead.
Something moved.
My car was still in its place when a few more lights came on ahead. Three or four – or more – people appeared, and one or two of them seemed to be waving at me.
(In retrospect, they might have even been yelling.)
I was unable to take a decision about how best to react; it seemed obvious that they were beckoning me toward them, but complying struck me as a bad idea.
An out of the way portion of my brain shut down most of my body, and I turned off my car, hoping that they would forget me.
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As it happened, I was not easily forgotten.
In a moment a pair of headlights came on, tilting right and left on an axis, before getting onto the road ahead and coming straight for me.
I kept the car turned off while the approaching truck lit up the road ahead.
When it arrived, the truck parked on my side of the road and its window came down bringing forth the face of a uniformed man wearing a helmet.
He spoke but I could not hear him through the glass of my window.
I tried to open it, but I couldn’t because the car was still off.
I considered my options: either I could have signaled to him that I was unable to hear him and then turn on the car in order roll down the window, or I could have turned the car on and rolled down the window before explaining to the man that I was unable to hear him; alternatively, I could have just ignored him and sat there quietly, in the hope that he would lose interest quickly.
As these thoughts clouded my mind, the man in the other car grew visibly impatient.
His door opened and a fat boot stepped out into the wind.
Approaching my door, he continued to speak words I could not hear.
Once at my window, he knocked on the glass.
Then he reached for the handle, but it was locked; again, I would have to turn the car back on to unlock it, but I hesitated about whether to let him know first. The overriding thought in my mind was a desire to evaporate.
The man was now speaking quite loudly to me. I could just make out what he was saying.
“Is anything the matter with your car?”
“No,” I responded. “It’s just off.” Of course, he could not hear me since I did not dare raise my voice at him. I noticed that he was carrying a weapon.
He looked at me with a bewildered expression.
Another person emerged from the truck, also carrying a weapon.
3
Thankfully, the suggestion to turn the car on and open the window came from them.
I complied swiftly, and as the window came down with its noise, and as the wind blasted into the chamber of my car, he asked me a question:
“Why did you stop in the middle of the road? There’s nothing wrong with your car.”
“I know that nothing is wrong with my car,” I responded. “But, I wasn’t sure what that was ahead of me, so I stopped.” I said this while point ahead of my car.
“It’s just a checkpoint, for security; nothing to worry about,” the man said with a smile that made me suspicious.
“A checkpoint?” I didn’t know what that word meant.
“Yeah, a checkpoint.” He repeated, with the same smile, but somehow faded this time. “Just keep driving, you worried us.”
“Keep driving?” I nodded.
––I didn’t know how that was possible with all those things on the road.
4
I closed my window, and the two men got back into their truck. I began to move, slowly at first, gradually picking up speed. They drove behind me.
It occurred to me to hide the package I was to deliver to my friend underneath the seat beside me; I was worried that these people might damage or steal it.
As it happens, this was actually not a good idea.
Approaching the “checkpoint” I began to study it more carefully.
There were a lot of painted metal barriers, several tiny painted wooden houses––perhaps toilets (why would they need so many?), a small corrugated iron shack, and a dozen or so trucks just like the one driving behind me.
There were also some more people dressed like the two men that I had just spoken to, all of which were armed as well. They were standing under the various light bulbs and appeared to be waiting for me.
I couldn’t imagine why.
I was wondering whether they had been expecting me, but I could not understand how that was possible since I had not told anyone about my drive.
Either way, I approached them slowly.
5
I arrived in front of the “checkpoint” and stopped my car. I remember wondering whether to thank them for receiving me, but the expression on the man’s face standing nearest to the car pushed that thought of my head.
Besides, the name “checkpoint” didn’t seem like it would belong to a welcoming place.
He seemed to want me to place my car in a space surrounded by three barriers, one on either side of the car and a third that blocked the road ahead.
I complied swiftly, but I was still trying to figure out what “checkpoint” might have meant.
Once in place – they sidled awkwardly around the car as I moved back and forth trying to adjust my position –, they crowded around me, all uniformed, helmeted and armed.
I looked at them all one by one; they were all looking at me with the same bewildered expression that first man had on his face at the top of the road.
Then a flashlight came on, its beam throwing halos all around my car, first in the backseat then on my legs, my face. One of them knocked on my window. I opened it.
“Papers.”
I didn’t know what he meant by that brief statement, so I assumed it was not directed at me and remained silent.
But then I started thinking: perhaps he wanted a check? I thought about this for a moment, and I grew nervous since I had left my checkbook at home; and also, I was a bit confused as to why he wanted one in the first place––if that’s what he even meant.
He repeated his terse demand, but when I was about to ask him what he meant, another man started banging on the lid of my trunk. I turned to face the man at the trunk but I could only see his belly through the rear window.
“You papers now,” said the man beside me. I turned back to face him.
“What do you mean?” I asked the man at my window. “I haven’t got any checkbooks, and definitely not in the trunk.”
“Official papers, for the car, your identification … What’s the matter with you? Have you never been to checkpoint?”
He said this while laughing, which slightly discouraged me from being honest with him, but I nevertheless went ahead and told him:
“No, this is my first time.”
Before he responded, I reached for the glove compartment, extracting the requested documents. When I handed them to the man – not knowing exactly why I had to do so – I prepared to repeat my question about the man at the trunk.
“Open your trunk, genius.” He said this in a softer tone than he had used before.
“––But I gave you all the papers I have.”
“Open your trunk now, we need to check it,” he said it loudly.
I complied swiftly once more, but I was a little embarrassed by this. After a moment, the man behind the car informed everyone else that there was nothing in the trunk. He closed it and I assumed that the humiliation was over.
6
They next asked me to step out of the car, saying that they needed to check if there was anything inside it.
“What do you mean? Do you think someone put something in my car?”
No one responded to this question, it was as though I did not ask it.
It was cold and windy and I was not happy about having to stand outside, but I didn’t feel that there was anything to be done. I complied.
Suddenly, two dogs were brought out of the shack. They trotted elegantly over to the car, each taking a side. They began to sniff all around, but eventually both of them stopped at the front passenger door.
One dog barked, then the other responded.
It was like one said “I found something” and the other said “No, I did.”
They were endearing, and something in me felt the urge to pet them.
“Come here boy!” I said to the smaller one, but the man next to me let me understand that this was inappropriate; in any case, the dog didn’t respond.
At that moment, it occurred to me to worry about the package that I had placed underneath the seat. I regretted not finding a better place for it.
Some of the uniformed men approached the passenger door and opened it. They extracted their flashlights and began searching inside. In a moment they pulled out the package.
“What do we have here?” one of the men asked.
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I urged them not to open the package, that I did not know what was inside it; I explained that I was expected to deliver it to my friend before midnight, unopened and it in good condition.
I was told not to speak anymore.
A man was suddenly standing behind me, restraining me, while a number of others gathered around the package.
7
At that moment every bloated purple cloud gave way and the rain came down like a hundred drums; the men pulled hoods over their heads and the dogs whimpered.
I was pushed into one of the little houses (it did not have a toilet inside it); it was just a shelter––one that I appreciated at that moment. A hooded man, presumably the one that restrained me and threw me in there, blocked the entrance.
I was trying to see what they were doing with the package, and since I did not know what was inside it, I became curious to see; presumably, they would have opened it by ten.
There was a lot of talk, but it was drowned out by the rain and wind.
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After a few moments, the man at the entrance suddenly turned and started to move me, all but carrying me toward the shack. I saw that many of the men were heading inside as well, presumably to escape the rain and wind.
Once inside, they placed me before a large table over which a solitary light bulb swung, buzzing slightly. The men arranged themselves around the table at the centre of which was the package––unopened.
“Would you like to tell us what is inside it before we open it?”
“I really don’t know,” I responded. “I was just asked to deliver it to a friend who lives on the other side of the mountain.”
The rain beat down on the roof above us like troupe of tap dancers; I began to understand how ridiculous my circumstance was.
A knife appeared above the package, slicing through the tape.
8
When they finished extracting all the objects that were inside the box, they began to arrange the pieces.
At first I was unsure about what I was looking at, but something about the arranged pieces was strikingly familiar.
There were little men carrying weapons standing in different places. There were little barriers set up at different angles. There were a row of trucks, a number of little houses like the one I was thrown into a minute ago; there was even a little corrugated iron shack like the one we were all seated in right now.
The men assembled the pieces with skill without speaking to one another.
They appeared to have finished and were on the verge of breaking from their task when one of the men found a final piece inside the box.
It was a little car, just like mine, the one that was left turned on outside, spewing exhaust into the cold night.
They placed it between three barriers on the table.
When they finished arranging it, making a few last touch ups, one of the men asked me:
“What is this?”
I thought about how I would respond for a moment, but I knew there was nothing else to say, so I took a deep breath and in a steady voice I said:
“A checkpoint”.
A satisfied smile spread across my rain-wet face.
idiotic investigations 