We Are the End

by Gonzalo Garcia

  ‘Hey, could you help me put this on top here?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She gives him the empty flowerpot and gets a chair to stand on. Tomás looks at her long thin legs and he wonders why there aren’t more people with long thin legs like hers, and maybe she’s a dancer and if she is, he’d like to see her dance.

  ‘OK, give it to me,’ she says, and Tomás hands her the pot and she puts it next to old tin boxes on top of the shelf.

  ‘You come here often?’ he asks her as she steps down from the chair.

  ‘Yeah, most days.’

  ‘You preparing for a trip too?’

  ‘I guess you could say that.’

  ‘I’m going to Antarctica.’

  ‘Ah, so you’re the one Lucas and Jesús talk about. The roof guy.’

  ‘Oh…’

  ‘I’m Matilde.’ She shakes his hand and he wishes he wasn’t wearing the gloves. ‘Call me Maty. I hate my name.’

  ‘Tomás.’ He now hates his name too, but there’s nothing he can do about it.

  ‘Lucas told me you write stories.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Are you published?’

  ‘One of them, sort of.’

  ‘I write too, but I always hate what I write,’ she says, looking up at the flowerpot.

  ‘That’s common.’

  She nods and then there’s silence. Abdul turns the radio on and it’s Caravana playing that song he doesn’t know the end of, and he wishes he could either meet women who talked nonstop or hated all conversation just so he didn’t have to hate silences so much and didn’t have to listen to the ending of a song he doesn’t want to know because…

  ‘So why do you come here so often?’ he asks.

  ‘I work here. He’s my dad,’ she says, looking at Abdul who’s humming the tune.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t—’

  ‘You’re sorry? Believe me, you’re not the only one,’ she says.

  ‘No, I didn’t mean—’

  ‘Here’s your axe, man,’ Jesús says behind him. Matilde laughs so Lucas laughs too.

  ‘I thought you wrote stories,’ she says, smiling.

  ‘I really get into character,’ he answers with a smile, wishing again that he were dead, that he could shove the axe into his mouth and just end it all.

  ‘It’s for his trip,’ Lucas says.

  ‘Well, good luck,’ she says, turning and walking to Abdul.

  Jesús and Lucas are both smiling at him and Tomás hears the end of the song. He’s disappointed to find that it ends on a fade-out of the chorus just looping over and over because it means the band love their song so much they couldn’t or didn’t want to decide on an ending. And as Yiyo says, that’s just douchy as hell.

  ‘She’s amazing, isn’t she?’ Lucas says.

  ‘You’re obsessed,’ Jesús starts. ‘There are way more important things to think about,’ he says, giving Tomás the axe.

  ‘Like The End Of The World?’ Lucas asks.

  ‘For example,’ Jesús answers.

  ‘Jesús, come here and take this crap out of my desk!’ Abdul shouts.

  ‘Again?’ Lucas sighs at Jesús. Tomás looks at them. ‘The pamphlets for the gig tonight,’ he tells Tomás, ‘they actually think Satan will turn up.’

  ‘Hey, I’m just trying to raise money,’ Jesús says.

  ‘Idiots,’ Lucas says, shaking his head. Jesús just shrugs and goes to Abdul’s desk.

  ‘Hey, you’re good with girls, right?’ Lucas asks Tomás.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you were talking to Maty. And you’ve had girlfriends before, right?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Well, it’s just that Jesús is the worst wingman on Earth. I tell you, him and his Satanist group always talk about lust and bondage, but I’m not sure how because they’re always single and anyway, it gets all a bit sour.’

  ‘I don’t think—’

  ‘Wait. I just wanted to ask you if you could come to the gig tonight and put in a good word for me with Maty.’

  ‘I don’t know, why don’t you just talk to her yourself? I hardly know any of you.’

  ‘Are you crazy? I have nothing to say.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘Bullshit. You’re a writer.’

  ‘For videogames.’

  ‘Same thing.’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘It is, come on. And tell you what, you help me and I’ll gather up anything in the shop that could be useful for your trip.’

  ‘Not sure this is a good idea, man.’

  ‘Come on, show some commitment.’

  Tomás looks at the axe and his gloves and then at Lucas’s zombie face and he doesn’t know what to say. Lucas is right, he should accept, but isn’t this meant to be his own trip, all done in his own time and with his own effort and his own money? Why must he involve himself in the stories of others? Are people really that scared of being alone, that they ask others to join them just so that if they fail and lose it all they can still claim to have gained something, someone?

  Still, Tomás did not bring any money with him and he should really be taking back home anything useful he can find here.

  ‘Where’s the gig?’ Tomás asks.

  ‘Amazing.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘It’s in Bar Loreto, have you heard of it? It’s in Bellavista.’

  ‘Wait, Yiyo, I mean, are Fármacos playing?’

  ‘Yeah, they’re amazing, huh?’

  ‘Yeah, they are… Alright, could I take this then and pay for it later?’

  ‘Yeah, just try not to let Abdul see you.’

  ‘Cool, thanks.’

  Jesús and Matilde walk up to them with a box full of old Minolta cameras.

  ‘He’s coming to the gig, dude,’ Lucas tells Jesús.

  ‘Great. It’ll be good. Just remember the money, it’s for a bad cause,’ he laughs.

  ‘OK,’ Tomás answers.

  ‘See you there,’ Matilde says taking two cameras to the shelves.

  Tomás nods and puts the axe and the gloves in his bag. Part of the blade is still showing so he puts his scarf on top of it.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll distract him. See you tonight,’ Lucas says.

  ‘See you.’

  ‘Hey Abdul, you coming to the gig too?’ Lucas asks him.

  ‘With those clowns you call your friends? No. Children, all of you are nothing but fucking children.’

  Tomás walks out and it’s still raining and he opens his mouth to the sky and catches a few drops. They feel cold and lucky because with all the fog, the skyscrapers disappear and the sky is infinite, enveloping the road and its people, all in grey and all of it, all of it coming down in drops. Tomás lights up an unfiltered cigarette and wraps his scarf round his neck just to see the end of the axe as he walks towards the metro. There are less zombies now and it’s quiet and if the world ended tonight, the rain would fall in single drops and he’d be there to taste it next to Eva, just as he is right now, like always.

  12

  ↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B + A + START

  In the Antarctic ship, Eva and Tomás are doing the Titanic joke. Eva spreads her arms and shakes her hair off her forehead. It is stupid, Tomás thinks, that he is taking so much pleasure in something so stupid. Does that make him… And then Eva turns to hug him and kiss him and then tells him that it’s his turn. And so, whatever, he does it because she asked him to, and he opens his arms wide and he’s surprised to see that from where he stands, his arms cover the whole expanse, the total width of the ocean.

  ‘Shout something,’ Eva says.

  ‘Like what?’ he asks, turning over to look at her.

  ‘Anything, something nice… No, something honest. Whatever you’re feeling right now.’

  He has no idea how he feels right now. If you stand in front of an ocean, and there’s nothing to see but water and foam and the occasional porpoise and whale, then all you
can say is OCEAN.

  He takes a deep breath, opens his arms again and closes his eyes…

  ‘Come on,’ she says, ‘just shout it out already.’

  ‘GAS HOBS!’ he shouts.

  ‘More!’ she presses him on the ribs.

  ‘BILLS! GAS BILLS!’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘CHEWING GUM CONSTELLATIONS!’

  ‘Wow!’

  ‘I HATE FUCKING HIPPIES!’

  ‘Me too! We have so much in…’

  ‘I MISS YOU! WHY DID YOU…’

  But now he turns between breaths and Eva isn’t holding him anymore. She almost let him fall into the water, he could have drowned and disappeared and she would have never known where to look for him (would she have looked for him?), though she does understand aquatic life beyond simple waves so there is that, maybe she…

  He notices that Eva is talking French to one of the crewmembers. He’s wearing a beret and a striped black and white fitted shirt. His jeans are rolled up to ankle length and he’s not wearing any socks under his brown leather moccasins. He talks in a low deep voice with a cigarette hanging off the side of his mouth and fuck, Tomás is truly fucked this time, because it’s Serge Gainsbourg.

  ‘Oui, oui, eh bah… J’sais pas, quoi. Tu sais, avec tout ce vent, on ne sait jamais.’

  ‘Ah, oui! C’est trop vrai,’ Eva says with a big smile.

  ‘What’s up?’ Tomás asks. Eva turns to him and loses the smile.

  ‘Serge here was just telling me that he’s not sure where the wind will lead us.’

  He looks at Serge calmly smoking his cigarette that never even drops any ash.

  ‘But isn’t that, like, his job? Isn’t it dangerous?’ Tomás asks, and Eva and Serge do a little giggle. ‘What?’ he asks with a frown.

  ‘That’s half the trip,’ she says, ‘half of it is in the discovery, in not knowing where you’re really going.’

  ‘Oui,’ Serge says, ‘ça.’

  ‘And what’s the other half?’ Tomás asks.

  A whale appears right below them, spraying the side of the ship and making a tiny rainbow, which lasts only until the whale decides to dive back down into the water.

  ‘So what’s the other half then? Tomás asks again.

  ‘It’s what you do when you get there,’ she says.

  ‘Oui,’ Serge the total cunt adds, ‘ça.’

  Tomás takes Eva’s hand and leads her into a bedroom downstairs that looks exactly like their bedroom did back in their flat in Santiago. Her mother’s mediocre attempts at still life painting line the walls. There are French books about French cooking on the shelves that she made him pick up from a hip little bookshop in Barrio Italia. There’s an umbrella pot, an art nouveau vase with a transparent umbrella inside that’s big enough for two. And then there are pictures of their one intense holiday to the South of France where they’re picking grapes at a local vineyard and putting on life-vests on each other before daring to go down a river whilst on an old lorry tire, which did not go so well because they got stuck on a… Now there’s a photo of them stuck on that pebble island, where they looked around and then at each other and she took off her life-vest and then his, and then her top and then his, and they had sex to the foam of the rapids and now…

  They’re having sex on a bed that she built as soon as she got on the ship and Serge is watching them, still smoking the same cigarette, and he smiles at her whenever she tenses up out of pain or pleasure or both and she invites Serge over as Tomás fucks her from behind, which he knows is not her favourite way to fuck but now it’s too late, she’s going down on Serge and now she’s moaning, now she looks back at Tomás with someone else’s cock in her hands and she smiles, she smiles at God knows what and Serge smiles too, and he looks at Tomás right in the eyes.

  ‘Oui,’ he says, ‘ça.’

  And Tomás just keeps it going. Why? Why? WHY? But he does, and the worst part is they both come at the same time, Tomás and Serge, and then Eva is fully clothed and watching both men making out, Serge somehow still holding the cigarette on the side of his mouth and she leaves them both in her room to kiss in kisses that leave ash trails on the lips.

  ‘Look!’ Eva shouts from upstairs. ‘Come up and look!’

  Tomás runs up to see her and she’s holding an antique telescope to her face.

  ‘Look,’ she says, passing it to him.

  ‘It’s an island,’ he says. ‘We found an island.’

  ‘Oui,’ Serge adds, still naked, hugging them both from behind, ‘ça.’

  From the magnified circle of the telescope, Tomás can see a house by the beach and he knows, and knows that she knows too, that this is where their search will end.

  • • •

  He’s on the bus on his way to Baquedano again and from there he’ll walk on to Bellavista. The streets are covered in protest banners creased with rain. He rubs the window to look outside because he doesn’t want to miss his stop, even though he knows the road and the time it takes to reach it by heart.

  The bus driver’s listening to a cumbia about people having sex in different Kama Sutra positions in a kitchen, and he’s singing along real loud because he’s old and fat as hell and really needs to consider the exercise, though the kitchen is probably the worst place for… But Tomás is young and Lucas even thinks he’s good with girls (what does that even mean?) and so he turns on his iPod and listens to Amusement Parks on Fire’s debut album, ‘Amusement Parks on Fire’, and there’s this song on it called ‘Venus in Cancer’, and he has no idea what it’s really about (it can’t be about cancer) but at least, unlike Bob Dylan, the guy can really sing and it’s all about the sad textures behind the voice, overlapping and disappearing, just like the fog condensing on the bus windows.

  When he had got home after Abdul’s shop, he received an email from Facebook telling him Lucas had added him as a friend. He had kept away from Facebook since the breakup because Eva hadn’t deleted him from her Friends list, and so he was still getting the music she was sharing. Although he enjoyed discovering new bands like Amusement Parks on Fire, he hated having to imagine what moods she was in and who she was really sharing music with. He hadn’t even been able to go through the options to disable his account in case a photograph of her, or a name he couldn’t recognise, or a mood he didn’t suspect, came up on his Homescreen or Wall. But maybe he was wrong. Maybe the Wall is there to show that despite the little you’ve done and grown, you are still there, that there is no distance further removed than the Wall. It’s your lowest point, and he is still there on her Wall. And so he decided to log in and accept Lucas, and he quickly clicked on Lucas’s profile to avoid his own Wall and to look at his pictures. You can tell who’s single on Facebook because single people never appear on any pictures, and it’s all mostly landscapes or their non-single friends having non-single fun (because single people are always the ones holding the camera), or black and white pictures of their own feet or a celebrity they like, because they have so little worth sharing, so little anyone would ever want, that they have to convince themselves that it’s their choice, that they belong to the open spaces, to the fields and the volcanoes and their friends, and that they can even find beauty in their shoes, and that they’re alone not because no one loves them, but because no one else would understand that they belong to the open spaces and…

  Lucas’s profile pic is a geyser exploding into a stream of water surrounded by thick steam clouds pierced by sunlight. His cover pic is a set of black and white Converse. Most other pics are of Abdul’s shop. Tomás Googled ‘Antarctica’ and downloaded a photograph of a hill all in white with the sun coming down at the peak. He put it as both his profile and cover photo, because not only is he still single (and he wants Eva to know that he is), but he’s also an exception to his own rule. His pictures, unlike the dead landscapes and shoe stills, show intent, they show desire, and he doesn’t belong to the Antarctic or his friends, but her. And she would know that and contact him, and he’d tell
her that he’s no longer boring and that he’d be arriving back to her soon and she’ll say that she knew it, and he’ll say he knew it too, that it was all just meant to happen, that it wasn’t a mistake.

  A guy with a guitar gets into the bus and Tomás takes one earphone off to listen. It’s the same bus singer as last time and he starts playing Victor Jara’s ‘Canción Del Arbol del Olvido’ again, but this time it’s as if Bob Dylan was covering it because he really can’t sing and he’s wearing dark sunglasses. Everyone just looks at him in silence. When he’s done with the song, people still give him money and Tomás remembers what his sister told him about the artists she once interviewed at work. She said that most of them are douchebags and their work often sucks real bad, but they suck with such conviction that every criticism justifies their egos and their stories and their dark sunglasses even when it rains, and he must remember this, that his loss is nothing compared to what he’s about to gain, and all of this is just part of an ending he… His whole situation sucks. But it sucks with conviction.

  He gives money to the singer and gets off the bus. He walks past the bridge over the Mapocho River and towards Bellavista. Despite the rain, it’s as busy as always and it’s full of people eating and drinking and shouting and listening to music. If the world ended, Bellavista would still be there, unchanged, with ceviche restaurants and expensive ponchos for gringos, red, yellow and orange walls filled with graffiti and cheap attempts at poetry, retro music nightclubs and signposts to Neruda’s house by the San Cristóbal Hill.

  He walks past people selling cigarettes on carpets, and around gringo couples eating ceviche on open terraces, and past waiters waving at him to their restaurants, and some old dude wearing a poncho and hair beads playing the accordion with one foot strapped to a bass drum to keep the beat and look impressive despite his age, and some people clapping around him, and then Tomás finally gets to Bar Loreto. He decides to get a coffee and watch the accordion player finish his song first. He opens his IDEAS book.

  • • •

  IDEAS BOOK P. 45:

  Another game. A relationship simulator, like the ones in Japan, like that one game where you’re a pigeon (literally) trying to get hot schoolgirls to go out with you. So how will this one be any different? If a pigeon can date, then maybe the dating simulator format has already doomed itself to bargain bins around the world. There are, after all, very finite ways to play a relationship. And like all games, you win and it’s over, or you lose and try again.