"Someone should fix those stairs." "I'll be damned!" "The landlord." "I presume you know why I'm here." "In the contract you signed clearly states that you must gather 200 frights monthly... otherwise you'll have to leave this mansion." "Fine, man, but who do you want me to scare here?" "It's 14 years since a soul came to this house." "Since they opened the cemetery next door, there's not a mortal who'll come here." "That's your problem, my friend, not mine... and if you haven't scared anyone for all those years... maybe it's because you weren't born...or rather, maybe you didn't die destined to be a ghost." "Why not turn your hand to something else?" "At my age?" "And what do you want me to dedicate myself to?" "~ Union leader..." "~ No." "~ Santa Claus in Ethiopia..." "~ No, not hardly." "But that's your problem." "Contracts are contracts, and the law is the law, for the living and the dead." "Look, I've heard that a family from the city just bought the house,... and next week they'll be moving in here." "I assure you that over the next month I'll pay all the overdue scares I owe you." "Fine, I'll give you that chance." "But if you don't make up all those scares by the end of the month, you'll take your chains onto the street." "Is that clear?" "Thanks, I don't know how to thank you." "Thank you." "Come along, my honeys." "Hey, what do you make of that?" "And this heap is what you spent all our money on?" "You invested every penny of our savings?" "Isn't it great?" "You're demented, that's what you are." "A deranged madman." "To change my lovely and comfortable apartment...into this monstrosity!" "It's what I've been looking for all my life." "Look it over, look it over well." "Isn't it divine?" "It looks like it's about to collapse." "Check out this pantheon,... the dead trees, the yellow grass, the trash,..." "It's perfect, it's just what a writer like me needs." "You're totally nuts, Roberto." "Luisa, Luisa, wait a minute, just a minute, please!" "A moment." "OK." "You know me, right?" "You know who I am:" "I'm a writer,... a writer of horror novels." "Yes, and the worst I've ever met." "None of your books has ever sold more than 20 copies." "Ever." "That's the point!" "Agreed, my novels are bad, bad." "My readers are more likely to die from laughing than from terror... but have you ever wondered why that is?" "Because you're a crappy writer." "You're wrong." "As a writer, I'm good, very good." "When I say good..." "I mean extraordinary!" "It's just that a writer of horror novels... can't write a horror novel living in a 12th story flat... in a building chocked full of kids in a city of 20 million people." "But here...this house is a poem." "It's straight out of an Edgar Allan Poe novel,... like the awesome House of Usher." "Here, in this house,... will be written the best horror novel ever written... and it'll be me who writes it." "All right, all right." "I don't know who's crazier, you or me,... but I once promised to be with you through thick and thin,... even though it seems we're concentrating on the thin." "So it goes." "There, on the shelf." "Well, here we are." "It's going to take me years to clean up all the dust and cobwebs from this house." "Want to start with your office, my love?" "No, no, no, no, no!" "Don't even touch it, leave it just like it is." "Don't touch the dust and cobwebs." "Don't you see that you'd take away the atmosphere?" "As you wish." "If you want to work in this dump, it's up to you... but in the rest of the house, I'm taking away your atmosphere with soap and water." "Do you think I'm crazy, like your mom does?" "No, Dad, how could you think that?" ""It was a dark and stormy night..." Ah, it's so trite!" ""When the ambassador acquired ownership of..."" "What's all this?" "That the start of "The Canterville Ghost"." ""On January 6th, 1482 the good people of Paris woke up..."" "That's the start of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"!" ""When I was six years old I saw..."" "Now what?" "Stupid, that's the start of "The Prince"!" "What's wrong, what's wrong, why doesn't my muse materialize?" "~ Dad!" "~ What!" "Mom says you have to come to dinner, and dinner's ready!" "Dinner, dinner, oh, yeah, dinner." "We must feed the body to exercise the intellect." ""The curse of the spectre will fall upon everyone."" "I'm of two minds." "I don't know which topic to address." "A haunted house, a pantheon of doom,... or a car influenced by the devil." "What's the matter?" "Your famous "atmosphere" isn't working?" "What scares you the most, Carlos?" "Most?" "Most of all?" "Yeah, most of all, what scares you the most?" "Well...going back to school next month!" "No, no, not like that, I'm asking you what scares you more... let's say: a witch or a mummy?" "Or a crazy dude?" "~ A jackal?" "~ Or a vampire." "What scares you the most?" "My math teacher." "I can't talk seriously with you two." "You don't take me seriously, I'm just your plaything." "My child, the comedian." ""My math teacher"." ""The curse of the spectre will fall upon everyone."" "The nonsense you write when you're not concentrating!" "Carlos,... in this house there are 11 bedrooms, two living rooms, a terrace, a kitchen,... an attic, and lots of land." "So why play with a ball in here?" "Goodbye, Carlos." "Carlos!" "Son, would be so kind as to go somewhere else with your music?" "I'm trying to work." "Carlos, son, come and help mow the lawn, please!" "Carlos, leave the piano alone, for fuck's sake!" "This place gives me chills, Balón." "You're sure it's there?" "Sure." "You know before they executed him in the gas chamber... the famous Babyface Carlson,... confessed to his cellmate the exact location... where he'd hidden his money... from his last robbery at the Second National Bank." "And according to this map,... this money must be stashed somewhere in this house." "But that was over 10 years ago, maybe someone's already found the loot." "No, no, no, no, this house was uninhabited for over 15 years." "Really, 15 years?" "And what about the old lady and the kid mowing the lawn?" "What are they, ghosts?" "No." "~ Hi." "~ Hi." "~ What's your name?" "~ Carlos Rivera." "You?" "I've had so many names...but I can't remember them." "You're a ghost, right?" "Well,...yeah." "Yeah, if that's what you want to call me, yeah, I'm a ghost." "You live here, too?" "If you want to call it "live", yes, I "live" here, too." "How old are you?" "10." "You?" "Well, much much older!" "So old that I really don't even remember." "You play the piano well." "Thanks." "You're not too bad, either." "And...you're not scared of ghosts?" "Why not?" "They're the spirits of dead people!" "Doesn't that scare you?" "You're not normal, kid!" "Every kid is the world gets scared when they see a ghost." "Why not you?" "Look, my dad writes horror stories,... and when I was a tyke he read me his novels instead of "Little Red Riding Hood" and the like." "I see." "Talking to you about vampires or werewolves is like chatting about the Seven Dwarves." "Right." "Damn, you happened to be such a bad candidate for me to scare!" "Why do you want to scare me?" "Well...because I have to pay the rent." "Don't you see that if I don't pay up, I'll be chucked out of here?" "Like he said: with my chains into the street." "I don't understand, you rent this house?" "From who?" "Well...a ghost like me, except he's engaged in real estate." "He rents houses to other ghosts." "Oh, I get it: you pay with scares rather than with money." "That's it." "You were my last chance." "I already tried to scare you mom and dad, but they didn't even notice me." "Curse my luck!" "Why didn't ordinary mortals buy the house?" "When do you have to pay the landlord?" "At the end of the month." "If you want I can help you scare my parents." "And...why would you do that?" "There's nothing to do here." "My dad works all day and never wants to play with me." "My mom says she has too much to do." "You're just a lonely little guy, just like me." "Right?" "And what comes to your mind I can give them a good scare?" "First you've got to take off those rags and chains." "OK, but what's wrong with my rags and chains?" "They're just too old-fashioned." "No ghosts wear them now!" "Hey, how come they don't wear these anymore, if I've been wearing them all my life?" "Oh, look, you better shut up!" "Ta-da!" "What, you don't like your new image?" "Now you're a ghost of the 21st century!" "Carlos, I know you mean well,.... and I know I'm an old-fashioned ghost, if you put it that way, but... it's also true that antiques have their own personality, charm, savor." "And this..." "It's just something to get used to, don't you think?" "Well...if you say so..." "Your parents?" "No, my parents are asleep!" "Maybe it's another ghost, or a burglar." "A burglar, here?" "Let's go check it out, OK?" "No, no, no." "Oh, why not?" "No, it'll upset me for them to see me like this." "~ Oh, for fuck's sake!" "~ What?" "I can't see very well, you go first." "Right." "Oh, a spider!" "What, did it bite you?" "No, but it's staring so insistently at me..." "We can't see anything." "The noises are coming from the office." "Go down and see." "Oh, yes, poor you!" "But why me?" "Because you're older, and if he takes a shot at you nothing will happen, since you're already dead." "Sure, but weapons still scare me." "Go on, don't be a stick-in-the-mud!" "I'm going, I'm going, don't push!" "Make yourself invisible." "Oh, yeah, right." "Let's go." "Quit crowding me!" "I'm scared of being alone." "This marks off seven paces ahead." "1, 2, 3, 4,... 5." "Two more to the front." "It should be here." "Two more to the front." "Who?" "What who?" "Quit making that noise with your teeth." "I'm not making any noise." "~ Then it's your knees!" "~ Not them, either!" "~ Then what is it?" "~ I don't know." "Balón, the typewriter." "The typewriter is writing by itself." "~ What?" "~ The typewriter, by itself." "Shut up, man." "It must be an electric one, that's why." "Some key must have gotten stuck." "Go unplug it." "Balón, Balón, Balón, look at what the machine wrote by itself!" "Read it!" "Read it!" "~ You read it." "~ All right." ""Leave this house at once, or the curse of the spectre..."" "Curse, my foot!" "The explanation is that a writer of mystery novels lives in this house." "For God's sake, they're awful!" "They don't frighten anybody!" "~ Get the pry bar." "~ What for?" "~ I have to shift these boards..." "~ Don't say bad words." "I meant planks." "Go get the pry bar, since I'm losing my patience." "~ But I..." "~ Go on!" "Shut up, imbecile, enough of this messing around!" "Come on, the pry bar!" "Just look at..." "I already told you, cigarette ends are meant to be saved when we're done with them." "~ Go on." "~ What?" "Besides the pry bar, bring me the axe." "~ The axe?" "~ No, the trowel, man!" "~ The trowel?" "~ Yeah, the trowel!" "~ By myself?" "~ By yourself!" "Go on!" "Balón..." "Balón!" "The tr-tr, the tr-tr...!" "What tro...?" "It's not dinner time, man." "~ No, the tr-tr...trowel..." "~ Give me the trowel, for fuck's sake!" "~ It was right there." "~ Where?" "~ There." "~ Where?" "Exactly there!" "Look, you wanted to kill me to keep all the money, right?" "Look, pull another trick like that on me and I'll make another cut on your face." "They'll start calling you "Scarface 2"." "~ Give me some light." "~ How much do you need?" "The flashlight, idiot!" "~ Here it is." "~ Give it to me." "Can you see anything?" "I see something like the bags they use to carry money into banks." "~ Hold this, hold this." "~ Here, take it." "Take it out." "It's very heavy." "Help me!" "~ I'm helping you, I'm helping you." "~ Help me." "Don't push." "Carlos, what are you doing there?" "Nothing, Dad, nothing." "What do you mean, "nothing"?" "What was that racket I heard?" "Nothing, Dad, nothing." "I clearly heard the screams of two men." "What could have been going on here?" "Well, two burglars came in." "Two burglars?" "Yes, yes, but who knows what scared them and made them run off." "~ Oh, they left already?" "~ Yeah." "Oh, good!" "Ah, well, let's see what's missing." "There's a web missing here." "What they were looking for was in this cabinet." "Let's just see." "They made a hole." "OK, hold this." "This looks like a lump here." "It's like...it's a bag." "This must have been buried here for years." "It's full of...money." "We're rich!" "I'll pay my bills!" "Your tuition's due, a new car..." "We're rich!" "We'll have to restore the balustrade, lift most of the floors,... some walls are cracked like the hideous tiles in the bathrooms." "Let's get rid of all that stuff!" "Do you agree?" "Sounds OK to me, why not?" "Then don't waste my time, I have to fix that stuff." "By your leave." "Boys!" "Boys, come on, hurry up, boys, don't be lazy!" "Guys, come on, you have to work fast." "~ What do you think?" "~ It's beautiful!" "~ And my truck?" "~ They'll deliver it next week." "I'm very happy --- how about you?" "Very happy." "And why not?" "Our problems are over." "We've paid off our debts and we're both getting new cars." "Well, not you, yet..." "So I went to see the editor." "And you know why?" "Why?" "To throw that miserable contract in his face." "You know what I told him?" "I said: "If you're going to publish something of mine, it'll be on my own terms." What do you think?" "I don't know...after all, that money won't last a lifetime." "I think you should keep writing, don't you?" "Yeah, yeah, I'll go on writing, but I'm not going to write horror stories." "Now I'm going to write a romantic novel,... the history of this house, this marvelous house." "At first I hated it --- but now it's like part of the family,... along with everything inside it." "Where's Carlos?" "Playing in the attic...with all the toys you brought him." "~ I invite you to take a drive." "~ Good." "~ I won, I won!" "~ Yeah!" "~ You know something?" "~ What?" "I love you a lot!" "Good, and I...and I've also come to love you a lot, too." "Can I call you "Uncle"?" ""Uncle"? "Uncle", why?" "~ It's a mark of affection!" "~ Oh, sure you can call me "Uncle"!" "~ How about if we play Blue Lightning?" "~ Lightning..." "Blue Lightning?" "~ Yeah." "~ Which is Blue Lightning?" "These helicopters, look, these." "Look, here." "~ I have news for you." "~ What?" "~ Yesterday the landlord came by." "~ And what happened?" "Well, nothing, after that scare we gave the burglars the other night... everything was fine and more than enough to pay the rent." "~ So they won't throw you out?" "~ Not now!" "Great!" "I have a problem:" "I need to keep scaring people, because the landlord'll come back every month." "No matter, my dad says he's going to hire a gardener and a cook,... with those clients you should meet your quota comfortably." "~ Yeah." "Well, with them?" "~ Yeah." "Slow down, son." "Don't drink so fast, love, you're going to choke." "Son, you know something?" "I think you're spending too many hours locked up on the attic." "What are you up to up there?" "Playing." "Oh." "What do you play with?" "With my buddy...with the toys dad bought me!" "Fine, but can't you play with your toys in the garden, where you can get some fresh air into your lungs?" "'Cause my uncle...because it's more comfortable to do it in the attic, Mom." "I have an idea:" "let's go to town and I'll take you to the movies." "It's a deal, great!" "If you want..." "What, you don't want to go to the cinema?" "You chose the movie." "Fine, I think you two should have a man-to-man talk." "At the moment I'm superfluous." "What's the matter, son?" "You seem very changed." "Have you got a problem?" "Then what's up?" "Why don't you want to hang out with your mom and me?" "You don't love us anymore?" "Sure, Dad, I love you heaps!" "It's just that... ~ It's..." "~ You're not going to believe me." "Why wouldn't I believe you?" "If you tell me the truth I'd have no choice but to believe you." "~ It's..." "~ Come on, let's hear it." "I've got a friend, Dad." "That's your secret?" "Fine, and tell me, who's your friend?" "I don't know, but I call him "Uncle"." "Good, that makes sense." "When I was a kid I used to give my friends all sorts of nicknames." "I had ones called "The Grandfather", "The Bear", "The crazy baby"." "He was a great drooler!" "Dad, the problem is this friend isn't like us." "What's he like, then?" "Explain yourself." "Yeah, he's not like you or me." "Oh, I get it, he's an animal." "Tell me, what type of animal is he?" "A white rat, or a rabbit, maybe?" "What is your friend?" "No, Dad, he's a ghost." "A what?" "Really, a ghost, a spirit, like in your books!" "Oh my God!" "It's all my fault, I guess, for having put all this rubbish into your head since you were a tyke." "Forgive me, little angel." "You don't believe me, do you, Dad?" "He really is a ghost." "He lives right here in this house,... and another ghost rents the place to him, the other ghost is a real estate agent for ghosts." "What an imagination!" "You ought to be the writer, son." "You don't believe me, do you, Dad!" "Why do you never believe me?" "Carlos..." "A ghost...who rents the house from another ghost...who rents out houses." "This plot isn't bad." "Original." "What's the matter, Carlos?" "Why are you crying?" "Easy, easy...whatever it was it's already over." "Why not tell your uncle what happened with you?" "My dad asked me why I don't play with them anymore,... or go out with them, and I told him the truth, that I've been playing with you, and that..." "I see --- he didn't believe you..." "It's hard for grownups, and even more so in this epoch, to believe certain things." "You understand?" "People of this era only believe what they read in the papers or see on TV." "We ghosts are just passé." "We're part of a long-forgotten legend." "Nobody believes in us anymore,... that's why life...excuse me, I mean, death... has become so hard for us spirits." "Do you understand now?" "But you're real, Uncle." "Isn't that right?" "Of course I'm real!" "And I'll stay that way as long as you believe in me,... but the day you stop believing in me,... the day you lose that beautiful innocence,... or the day that they bless this house, I'll have to go,..." "I'll disappear forever from your life." "Yeah, Uncle, but I'll never stop believing in you." "You swear you're not going to go?" "You swear you're not going to leave me here?" "No, of course not." "Of course not." "How about that!" "I always believed that we ghosts couldn't cry tears." "Every day I learn something new." "My dad doesn't believe you exist because I don't know anything about you to tell him." "Maybe he'll believe me if you can tell me who you were when you were alive and stuff." "Well, maybe, but...it was so long ago!" "And my memory isn't what it was." "Besides, there have been so many lives..." "Many?" "What, have you been alive lots of times?" "Sure!" "What, haven't you ever come across reincarnation?" "The soul is immortal, Carlos." "This spirit you see has occupied many bodies throughout history,... in many epochs, to be sure." "Tell me, tell me, who were you in your first life?" "What did you work at?" "What was I?" "Oh, I was an inventor!" "Yes, an inventor!" "I remember that time outside my cave..." "I had just invented the wheel, and..." "You invented the wheel, Uncle?" "That, among many other things: the plow, the bow and arrow,..." "And then what happened?" "Since those were glaciation times we used to suffer a lot from cold those days,... and then I was on the point of discovering...guess what?" "Fire!" "Exactly, I was on the brink of discovering fire." "What happened?" "What happened is something we can call...an industrial accident." "And then where were you born again?" "In Egypt." "I certainly remember that well." "I was an architect, a great architect." "The best of the time." "And what did you build, pyramids?" "Exactly." "The biggest and most beautiful in the world,... and I know some of them are still standing to this day." "The pyramids were meant to preserve the remains of the great pharaohs." "I remember very well the day...when the pharaoh Tutankhamen died." "The sarcophagus of the pharaoh was taken to the mortuary." "My duty was to see that the coffin was placed in the appropriate place by all his belongings,... which were to make his trip to the afterlife more comfortable." "Great!" "And what happened next?" "I was taking care of the last details." "The burial chamber had to be sealed completely." "And then?" "Then, well...nothing!" "The air exhausted itself and that was the end of my second life." "And your third life, Uncle?" "Ah, my third life!" "My third life was wonderful, full of magic, enchantment." "You were a magician?" "Yes, the best in the world." "What was your name?" "Merlin." "Merlin was my name." "Merlin?" "Merlin the Magician, like with King Arthur?" "The very one." "And you lived in Camelot, along with the king?" "With the king and his queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot,... and all the Knights of the Round Table, Carlos." "Holy crap!" "What did you do?" "Well, I cast all sorts of potions and spells,... concoctions, and the things that a magician makes." "Or an alchemist, which is what they called us at the time." "And how did you die this time, Uncle?" "I was preparing a potion that the king had asked me for,... a concoction which would give him incredible strength." "Like superman?" "More or less." "As I was saying:" "I was preparing a potion composed of sulfur,... various nitrates, salty earth, a little carbon and glycerin, and..." "And?" "And?" "I invented nitroglycerine." "Holy crap!" "Not even a trace remained of King Arthur, the Round Table, or me --- all gone!" "That was a bit unlucky, Uncle!" "Risks of the trade, risks of the trade." "And in your fourth life, what happened?" "You had a fourth life, right?" "Well, yeah, but it's hardly worth mentioning." "I reincarnated as an eskimo." "But...a lifetime hunting seals for food, with a cold!" "God help me!" "And I ended up in the belly of a polar bear." "But my fifth life, my fifth life..." "Adventures, fights, assaults on ships, wonderful, duels!" "But what happened?" "Tell me, tell me, I've got to know!" "What happened?" "Well, I was dedicating myself to..." "let's see if you can guess!" "I wore a patch on my eye and a parrot on my shoulder." "You were a pirate!" "No, no, no, no, no, buccaneer." "Buccaneer was the word." "The hurricane had taken us by surprise near the coast of Turtle Island in the Caribbean Sea... and although my companions fought valiantly against this fearsome hurricane... finally the forces of nature prevailed." "Our galleon was swallowed by the huge waves in the end." "When I awoke, I was plunged into the most terrible despair." "I knew I was the only survivor of the shipwreck." "I didn't know where I was, whether there were natives or not, or even if they were hostile or friendly." "Holy crap!" "And what happened next?" "Imagine my surprise when I chanced upon five beautiful native girls... who were watching me from the jungle." "Come on!" "With some effort I could understand that the five beautiful women... were inviting me to visit their village." "That same night they would prepare a delicious dinner to celebrate my arrival... on this island of dreams." "Great!" "The only problem was that I was the delicious dinner." "They were cannibals, Uncle?" "Man eaters, or rather "parrot eaters"... they had my loyal buddy for dinner, too." "And so ended my days of travel and wonderful treasures." "And your other life, Uncle, where did you spent it?" "My last life, my sixth and most recent life:..." "I was born in a village in Arizona, in the United States." "In the old west." "Well, that's what they call it now." "At the time it wasn't old, it was the cutting edge." "And what happened there, Uncle?" "Nothing, I grew up like any child of settlers,... between battles with the Indians and with wagon trains headed west." "Great!" "And then?" "Well, I got to join up --- unfortunately for me --- with a band of outlaws." "Holy crap!" "Why'd you do that, Uncle?" "Because at that time there were only three professions:... joining the cavalry, gold prospecting, and banditry." "What would you do?" "I chose being an outlaw." "In a short time, I'd achieved an enviable reputation... until I decided to start working on my own." "Hardly had I reached the age of 25... and I was already known as one of the fastest guns in the West." "Like Billy the Kid?" "Many thought I was better than him." "Holy crap!" "And this time, what finished you off?" "By presumption, by bragging, by pride." "After my last assault on the Santa Fe Railroad..." "I paused a moment in the town of Thompson, to quench my thirst." "When I entered the bar, I began to spot some very familiar faces." "Wyatt Earp, the James brothers, Roy Bean, Bat Masterson,..." "Doc Holliday, William Bonney --- the selfsame Billy the Kid --- ... they were all there that day." "Cool!" "That's what I thought at first." "This was the great opportunity that I'd been waiting all my life." "Opportunity for what, Uncle?" "Well...to prove I was the fastest gun in the west." "So I finished my drink, looked at the rest, and shouted:..." ""Anyone who think they're faster than me, let's draw!"" "Wow...and what happened?" "What happened?" "I left looking like a colander." "They all drew me down." "And since I'd chosen the bad path in that life, I wasn't allowed to reincarnate again..." "I was condemned to wander the world as a soul in torment... until the pardon comes to me from Heaven to let me to rest in peace, finally... and thus enjoy that wonderful place that is the Glory." "I know who my uncle's ghost is, I know who my uncle's ghost is." "You can say who your uncle was in life?" "Yeah, he was lots of people." "Look, first he was one of the Flintstones." "Then he built the pyramids of Egypt." "Then he was Merlin the Magician." "Then he says he was an eskimo, but he didn't like that very much." "Then a pirate, and last, he was a gunslinger in the old west." "So your uncle was an eskimo, a pirate, and all that other stuff." "Yeah, he told me all about it last night." "And his deaths in those lives were pretty gruesome." "You know what, Carlos?" "I think it's better if you go play for a while." "Can I go play with my buddy in the attic?" "Of course, dear, go play with him or with whoever you might want." "Go on." "I want to talk with your father, alone." "I think you're right: this could get dangerously out of hand." "I'll call Dr. Velasco to recommend a good child psychiatrist for him." "I told my parents what you said yesterday." "And what did they say?" "That it was OK, I could keep on playing with you." "I won, Pal, I won!" "Shall we have another go?" "Holy crap!" "That's right, Doctor." "Yes, yes, a fork to the left." "Then a bit farther on, our house is to the right, next to the cemetery." "Yes, cemetery, cemetery, for dead people." "Yes." "Yes, Doctor." "I don't know how to thank you." "Of course, we'll be expecting you." "Yes, and thanks again, Doctor." "Until then." "What's up?" "~ Carlos!" "~ Now, now, calm down." "He's talking to himself in the attic." "I'm very worried, Roberto." "Relax, take it easy, I talked with the doctor." "He recommended a child psychiatrist who he says is fabulous, and he's coming here." "Don't worry, everything will be fine." "Carlos, son!" "Where are you, my love?" "Here, Mom, brushing my teeth." "Come here." "Your dad and I want you to come downstairs for a minute." "A friend's visiting us who we want you to meet... so you can talk with him for a while." "OK?" "Now don't drag your feet." "We'll wait for you in the office." "OK." "This is my favorite place, Doctor." "Here's where I write." "Such atmosphere, right?" "So come in, if you please." "Have a seat, have a seat." "Sit." "What worries us the most --- sit with confidence, you're in your house --- ..." "What concerns us most, especially my wife,... is that day after day, this spectre becomes more and more real to our Carlos." "Do you understand me?" "Yes, yes, yes, perfectly, yes." "We're very worried, Doctor, really very worried." "Look, Mr. Rivera, I understand your concern perfectly,... but I want to say that the problem with your son Carlos... isn't nearly as serious as you imagine." "Moreover, I can assure you one or two sessions will be enough to finally dismiss... the problem of a ghost from his mind." "Here's the youngster in question." "Carlos, I want to present to you a very good friend, Doctor Mejía." "Doctor, my son Carlos." "The doctor wants to chat with you for a while, son." "What for?" "What for...what for...so you can share points of view, so you become good friends." "Fine, we'll leave you alone for a while." "~ Yes, by your leave." "~ Come with me to the kitchen, my dear." "Well, yeah..." "Well, no." "Carlos, your parents have told me a lot about this buddy you've got." "The ghost?" "The ghost." "And --- you know?" " I'd like you to tell me about him." "What do you want to know?" "Well...for example...how is he, where did you meet him, what time does he usually to show up, that sort of thing." "Do you believe in ghosts?" "Well, it all depends." "Depends on what?" "Well...it depends on...on things." "What sort of things?" "Well...things...things that...you know, things, things,... for example, what he was like in life." "Do you believe in reincarnation?" "Huh?" "In reincarnation?" "Well, the point is not whether to believe in reincarnation or not,... because when you have to believe in something you have to start from the grammatical point of view... because the grammar at that time allows no Greek roots for "reincarnation"... because "reincarnation" comes after "getting flesh again"... so if I still have my own flesh at the moment, why should I be interested in getting new flesh?" "Fair enough, to reincarnate is, then, is to not really believe in something that hasn't really... ever been proven." "You see?" "You don't believe in all that stuff at all." "So why do you want to talk about my buddy?" "Look, Carlos, I am a psychiatrist." "Your parents have hired me because they said that... you have a pal who's a ghost, and that he reincarnates in this ghost,... so, I really have to gen something up for your parents, because I make my living out of this." "Like this, freeing children from their ghosts." "And if you don't help me, I don't know what else I can do." "So there's nothing wrong with Carlos?" "I guarantee it to you, Ma'am." "But then the ghost and the hallucinations..." "It's all child's play." "He's having fun with you." "But there must be something abnormal in him, otherwise..." "That child is as much abnormal as I'm a boxer." "On top of that, his IQ is as high as any scientist at NASA." "Then that stuff about his buddy and all his former lives, it's all a game?" "That's it." "For my part, I'll say goodbye." "I'll send you a bill." "By your leave." "Good night." "Sure, go on." "Carlos!" "Roberto, wait!" "What are you doing, where are you going?" "To give that child a spanking." "~ No, come here!" "~ Why not?" "~ Why a spanking?" "~ He can still play standing up." "~ No way, he's a child." "~ He's not a child, he's a monster." ""Poor Carlos, should it happen that he becomes nuts!"" "And now you don't want me to give him a good spanking." "How'll it help to clobber the poor kid?" ""Poor kid"?" "He's a dwarf, psychotic, degenerate, whimsical, like his mother." "So, a chip off the old block, is it!" "?" "Besides, you were the one who said, "It's a phase, he'll get over it."" "Yes, he'll get over it, but I won't get over it until I give him a spanking." "I'm going." "What do you want?" "Hi, son, I'm here to...but I think this isn't the right time, right?" "Father Silvestre, we apologize." "Please come." "Come in, Father." "Come in, have a seat, Father." "Roberto, you remember Father Silvestre?" "It was him who married us, remember?" "How could I forget!" "Father, can I offer you some coffee?" "A tea with some cookies?" "Remember that the father loves his tots." "And Carlos?" "Where might that enchanting angel be?" "Thinking about how to torture his parents." "Excuse me?" "No, never mind, Father." "He ought to be up playing in the attic." "I'll call him to come see you, OK?" "You won't recognize him since the last time you saw him." "He's grown tremendously." "I imagine, daughter, I imagine." "Offer something to Father Silvestre, dear." "Yes, Dear." "You'd like something stronger, am I right?" "Well, since you insist, a small one." "Double Scotch on the rocks, please." "I just found them, man." "Now, do you think we could throw a baseball?" "You pitch to me and I......" "What's wrong, Uncle?" "Are you sick?" "I don't know, it's something that I've never felt before, it's like a sense of fear." "Carlos, comb your hair and come down." "Father Silvestre is here and wants to say hello." "A priest." "Sure, there's a priest in the house." "I knew this moment would have to come." "I knew it!" "I've been expecting it for years, but I thought I was ready." "Now what's going to happen to me?" "What are you talking about, Uncle?" "I told you once:" "I'd be out of your life if you ever stopped believing in me,... or if the house was blessed, why do you think this guy came here?" "Carlos will be down in a minute, Father." "If it suits you we can start right away." "Whenever you want, my daughter." "What is it that you want to start right away?" "Father Silvestre is going to bless our house, my love." "I told you that!" "Oh, right." "In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti." "Amen." ""And Jesus told them: 'All of you will be driven to stumble, since it is written:" ""'I will strike the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered...'"" "No!" "What's the matter, son?" "If you bless this house my buddy will leave, he'll leave forever!" "Enough of the fantasies." "We're fed up with your buddy the ghost and your hallucinations!" "I don't want him to leave, I want him to stay here with me!" "Don't talk nonsense, son, get over it, ghosts don't exist." "Ghosts don't exist, it's your imagination." "Ghosts don't exist!" "That's not true, that's not true, my buddy exists, he exists!" "And you hate him, you hate him!" "You hate him, you hate him!" "Buddy, don't go, stay with me, Uncle!" "Uncle!" "Uncle!" "Uncle!" "I gave him two tranks so he can sleep." "My son's really worrying me." "You don't think he worries me?" "You think...you think it doesn't break my heart to see my child suddenly go mad?" "The reason is this house, this damned house!" "Uncle...don't leave me alone, Uncle." "Take me with you, Uncle." "Please come back." "Come back here, man." "No, there's definitely nothing wrong with Carlos's brain." "All the tests are negative." "Then what's wrong with my son, Doctor?" "What's with him?" "He's lost a lot in the past few days." "My son's sick, Doctor, I swear he's sick." "Of course he's sick, Roberto, there's no doubt." "The question is, sick from what?" "You're the doctor, you're the expert, you tell me." "Relax." "Excuse me, this is taking far too long." "It's not easy seeing a child get consumed like a candle going out." "Because my son IS being consumed, Doctor, he's dying." "Please, please, help us, for God's sake." "In all my years of neurology I've never seen anything like this." "I've performed every possible test on Carlos and the result is uniformly the same: nothing." "There's only one explanation for the malady that has gripped the child." "What's that?" "Roberto, I think Carlos has lost the will to live." "Carlos doesn't want to go on living?" "It's a possibility, remote but feasible." "People lose the will to live... when they've lost something very dear to them,... when they have lost a loved one and want to rejoin him in the afterlife." "It's possible he wasn't lying, that the business with his friend and him was true." "Excuse me, I can't hear you." "Never mind." "Thanks." "Thanks for everything." "~ Let's go." "~ Shh, he just got to sleep." "Listen to me, and listen well: it's possible that the boy wasn't lying." "It's possible that this ghost really exists." "What are you saying?" "Don't ask me how, I just said it's possible,... and if we took it away, we can bring it back." "But what are you talking about?" "Are you crazy?" "Yes, yes, I might be insane, but if it'll help my son, I'm trying it." "I'll try." "I'm going home." "Roberto, wait." "Hey, you, whatever your name is!" "I know you exist." "I know you're real." "Show yourself." "Carlos, my son, is dying." "He's about to die in a hospital." "I know he loves you a lot, and you probably love him, too." "What's the matter?" "Maybe you don't care about this child's life?" "My life in exchange for his!" "Why don't you say something?" "Why don't you appear, Sceptre?" "May you be damned, damned, damned!" "Yes, talk to me." "Mr. and Mrs. Rivera, I suppose." "Yes." "What can we do for you?" "Permit me to introduce myself, my name is Madam Pratts." "By chance I learned of the clinical case about your sun, and I've come to offer my services." "And what sort of services could we require from you, Madam?" "I'm a medium, Ma'am." "The best around." "A medium?" "Why would we possibly want a medium?" "The thing is --- my dear sir --- I can contact your son's friend." "I might seem like a fraud to you,... but I'm not, I take my business very seriously." "And you think you can do something for Carlos?" "~ It depends." "~ On what?" "If you're fully prepared to help that child,... the first thing you have to do for him is to believe in him,... believe in his friend, and believe in me." "OK, we believe." "We believe, right?" "~ Yeah, sure." "~ We believe." "Very well, then you have to follow my instructions to the letter." "Whatever you say." "The boy should be brought to his own home." "Tomorrow evening we'll hold a séance to establish contact." "Understood?" "~ Yes." "~ Yes." "Very well, until tomorrow, then." "Great, this will do." "Perfect." "Be seated." "Hands over the table." "The boy's, too, please." "Blessed are the pure in spirit... for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." "What is it that you wish, son?" "I want my pal to come back." "I want him to stay here with me." "And why do you wish that?" "Because...because I love him a lot, and he loves me." "What, you don't know he's already been forgiven?" "Now he's enjoying the happiness he longed for for so long." "You really want him to renounce the Glory of Heaven to wander as a lonely spirit?" "Well, no, if he's with You, it's better that he's with You than with me, right?" "Right." "I said it because I never had a friend like him, and I miss him, miss him very much." "He misses you, too, son, but now he's happy, his sufferings are over." "Aren't you glad he's no longer in pain?" "Yeah, yeah, I'm glad." "Such are real friends,... those who share their happiness mutually... no matter how far apart they are." "Can I ask a favor?" "Whatever you want." "Kiss him for me, and...tell him I love him very much, I'll always love him very much." "He's heard you, son." "Thank you." "Madam Pratts?" "Where is she?" "Does it matter?" "Maybe she was never here." "Thank you, God." "Thank you." "¤ Always friends, really true... ¤ always talking about our brotherhood." "¤ You helped me and I helped you,... ¤ I gave you my hand, counting on me." "¤ Fate brought us together here,... ¤ distrust disappeared." "¤ I thank you for your understanding,... ¤ for your company, for everything." "¤ The sadness simply turned into the past,... ¤ joy has just arrived." "¤ Swear that you'll never leave,... ¤ that you'll never forget me." "¤ Fate brought us together here,.." "¤ distrust disappeared." "¤ I thank you for your understanding,... ¤ for your company, for everything. ¤"