We Are the End

by Gonzalo Garcia

  But no, this dating simulator won’t be about love or even making people like you. The game will be quite the opposite. You’ll be a guy or a girl in high school, and the objective will be to cheat on as many partners as you possibly can without any of them ever finding out. It will have to be an indie game so that its sheer immorality can pass up as social commentary.

  You will start on the first day of school. It’s still hot from the summer you’ve just left behind. You’ve been in the hospital and you’ve no recollection of who you are, the things you like and those you don’t, and it’s here that you create your avatar, which will either be a hotter version of yourself or the person (or pigeon) you’d like to one day get to fuck.

  So you arrive and the girl on the desk next to yours asks you if you’d like to go to her birthday party. You say yes, but only because you’ve no idea who anyone in your class is yet, and you think that making friends will let you find out who you really are, what really happened to you.

  And so you go to this birthday party (which is in a mansion), and you go to the girl who invited you.

  ‘You’re so rich,’ you say. ‘Nice house.’

  ‘I inherited the world,’ the hot douchebag says, and then kisses you on the lips.

  Suddenly you remember that you like kissing, no, you love it, and will speedily press L and R, alternating them until your thumbs go numb just so you can wiggle your tongue a little.

  She takes you to a room upstairs. A private room. And she talks to you but you don’t give a shit. Please shut up. L,R,L,R,L,R and so on until…

  You fuck, in real time, with strategy, and you get points every time you make her flinch out of pleasure. She says oui, oh oui, continue, plus fort and L,R,L,R,L,R, oui, là, comme ça, continue and then you remember there’s a party, a whole world out there and you can do better, you always can, but you don’t say it. You count the points, you rest your thumbs, and you get dressed in silence.

  Outside, by the white stone water fountain, there’s a multitude of couples (they have to be already coupled so as to stimulate competition) and you will interrupt their conversations.

  ‘Nice shoes,’ you say.

  ‘I bought them myself. I am the independent type,’ a new girl answers.

  And you will love that. You will almost have an orgasm out of hearing such an infinitely freeing possibility. IN-DE-PEN-DENT you say to yourself, unsure of which syllable sounds the sexiest.

  And then, the same room again. But this girl fucks different. Now it’s A and B. They like it slow and deep. They like dirty talk. Dialogue options come up onscreen, options you’re sure you’ve never had before. Take me hard. Fuck me like you own me. I want it to hurt. Choke me. Finger my ass. And then, then it’s oui, oh oui, encore, comme ća, continue, and you rest your thumbs, maybe even blow on them a little, and dress in silence, gaining extra points for guilt.

  Back out at the water fountain you spot someone in a couple that look like they’re from another planet. They have orange mohawks and their jeans are filled with rips and tears and chains. You’re now bored of talking about money and shoes. You want deep conversations about real issues, like, what got you into the hospital and made you lose your memory. This couple is at the very edge of the patio and you interrupt their conversation.

  ‘Who am I? What happened to me?’ you ask.

  ‘Let me show you. I’m the kind of person who hates everyone because I can see right through their bullshit. I can help you.’

  FINAL STAGE: The Room. This girl fucks harder than anyone in the world. She doesn’t have time for varying positions or dirty talk: all of it a waste of time. You remember that you were also the kind of person who hated wasting time, and so you fuck harder than you ever have X,X,X,X,X,X,X, you are still fully clothed, there’s no time X,X,X,X,X,X,X, you hurt her and they hurt you, you know you’re both doing it too hard but who gives a shit? Points for guilt and points for strength and speed and violence and blood, bonus blood X,X,X,X,X,X,X, she comes, you come, she goes down on you, you go down on her, you both come again, and then you want to talk but she has nothing new to tell you. You press X and – nothing. L and R – nothing. A and B just in case but nope, nothing works. You see yourself going over the old cheat codes: ↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B + A + START and you remember how invincible you used to feel playing a game. Now the game plays you. When did this happen?

  Now a cut scene shows you that all the characters you fucked were actually friends and they had planned out everything. They fucked YOU. You hear them laughing, and their laughter reminds you that before any of this happened, they had fucked you so hard and all at the same time, oh oui, encore, oh non! that they had to take you to hospital in a wheelchair.

  And so back at the fountain you make it your objective to fuck them all, to screw with their heads, their friendships and families, but before you can even make a move, a couple interrupts you.

  ‘Bonjour,’ they both say. ‘We love your shoes.’

  Suddenly you notice a line of pigeons looking down on you from the tiled rooft ops.

  ‘Oui,’ you say, staring at the birds, ‘I bought them myself.’

  • • •

  Outside the club there’s a group of guys all in black, all of them smoking. They all have beards and long hair and T-shirts of obscure bands with fonts that Tomás can’t decipher. He can hear electro playing inside and when he gets closer to the door he sees a poster:

  He pays at the door and gets his hand stamped with a sad smiley in black before walking past the cloakroom, where there’s a girl with four lip piercings tidying coats.

  He shows the stamp to a bald bouncer and he opens a door with a glass circle for a window by turning a hard metal wheel, like in a submarine. Inside it’s pitch black, but streams of bright neon greens and reds move along silhouettes all dancing and shouting and standing in the dark. Tomás goes straight to the bar and asks for a coffee, but the bar guy tells him they don’t have any mugs and asks him if a normal glass is OK. Tomás says that it is and gets a straw from the counter.

  He turns to look for Yiyo and Lucas and goes to the tables on the edges of the club. All the goths are in couples and Tomás thinks that it must be great to have fewer options to settle for but he could never invest so much effort in growing his hair and buying black clothes with obscure band names just to create a version of himself that excludes all other versions and their outcomes and… Still, the thought that all these dudes are getting laid tonight, unlike him, despite being total freaks, really gets to him and he forgets his coffee’s still too hot and burns his tongue.

  He finds Lucas and Jesús and Matilde sitting around a table full of empty Corona bottles. He waves at them but no one sees him and so he pretends to comb his hair and takes another sip of coffee despite the heat.

  ‘Hi,’ Tomás says, putting down the glass on their table.

  ‘Dude, you made it!’ Lucas says.

  ‘Hey man, thanks for coming,’ Jesús says.

  ‘Hi,’ Matilde says.

  The only free chair is by Matilde so he moves it away from her and sits down.

  ‘Kamel Toe just finished,’ Lucas says.

  ‘They were amazing. And Dr. PingPong, man, you should have seen him, like, what a voice! He’s mental. He looped a burp for a whole song and somehow made it beautiful,’ Jesús says with a smile.

  ‘I’m sorry I missed that,’ Tomás says.

  Matilde laughs and so Lucas laughs too.

  ‘It’s pretty packed in here,’ Tomás says. ‘Must be good money.’

  ‘Yeah. I mean, I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but a few more of these fundraisers and we’ll have a new End Of The World to look forward to. Maybe in the next few years, who knows? We’re paying a gringo astronomer up in Vicuña to find out.’

  ‘About what?’ Tomás asks, and Matilde shakes her head smiling.

  ‘Well, apparently there’s a 1% chance a comet will hit us in 2018.’

  ‘And that would end the world?’<
br />
  ‘That’s the thing, we hope so, but at the moment all we know is that it would wipe out civilisation… But the planet would still stand. So we’re hoping to confirm that it all goes to hell.’

  ‘But isn’t it the same?’

  ‘Well, not really. We’re hoping that there isn’t a chance life could ever return.’

  ‘It’s 1%, it’s not going to happen and you know it,’ Lucas says, looking at Matilde, shaking his head just like her.

  ‘Might be so, but we need to know so we can prepare for it if it happens.’

  ‘It’s stupid, you’d die either way,’ Lucas says.

  ‘Well, I hope so. But the three years before it will be the best years of my life. And then, when it hits, I’ll knock on your door and say I told you so.’

  Tomás drinks his coffee, lights up a cigarette and hides it under the table between puffs. He looks at the stage where people in black are setting up a drum kit and tuning guitars for Fármacos. He sees Yiyo talking to a metalhead nearby and Tomás waves at him and Yiyo waves back and comes to their table.

  ‘Hey dude, I thought you weren’t coming,’ he tells Tomás.

  ‘Well, my plans fell through so…’

  ‘But you never have any plans,’ Yiyo laughs and Matilde laughs too.

  ‘Work plans, I mean. I’m done, finally.’

  ‘You’re done with your game?’

  ‘Yeah, so done, with the story at least.’

  ‘Oh, dude, so glad. Congratulations. Thought you’d never finish.’

  ‘Yeah, me neither.’

  ‘Well, we’ll celebrate tonight then. I’ll dedicate a song for you.’

  ‘Wait, you’re the guitarist from Fármacos?’ Matilde asks him. ‘You’re the crazy guy from that meme with the monkey and the—’

  ‘Yeah, I’m Yiyo, what’s your name?’

  ‘Matilde,’ she answers, tidying her hair behind her ears.

  ‘Tell you what,’ he tells Tomás, ‘you and your friend could come backstage and grab a beer or something if you want.’

  ‘Sounds great,’ Lucas says, smiling at Tomás.

  ‘Not sure man, I—’

  ‘Let’s go!’ Matilde says.

  ‘Go,’ Lucas says too, and Jesús just shakes his head.

  ‘Alright, let’s go.’

  He gets up and Yiyo leads the way with Matilde behind him and Tomás wonders how the hell Yiyo does it, how he can say anything, do anything, and always have girls follow him. And he DOESN’T GIVE A SHIT. He’s thin as hell and dresses like a teenager but somehow that never matters. Maybe girls feel young around him too, or maybe they feel they can change him, like he’s a project or something, like when hippies on TV clean up and become hot normal people. Or were those homeless people? Whatever it is, it makes Tomás want to still be in Fármacos. Not that it would really change the fact that Eva left him, but wouldn’t it make him feel younger too? Maybe he could be a hot normal… Wouldn’t holding a guitar and playing songs about Santiago at night make it easier for him (and her) to believe that maybe it’s… No, no, even better, wouldn’t it show her that there is still so much future left for him to give?

  They walk past the crowd and get to a door by the stage and Yiyo waves at the bouncer and he lets them through. They climb a narrow staircase and the walls are filled with graffiti of band names and dates and Che Guevara and upside down USA flags and pictures of dicks and insults against Piñera. None of them say a thing as they climb up the stairs, where suddenly the club’s music becomes a vibration on the steps and a hum on the walls. When they get to the top, they go through another door that says ‘Artists’ on a scratched golden star.

  Inside is a small square room with a fridge, a sofa, graffitied walls and a sink. Yiyo takes three beers from the fridge and opens two of them WITH HIS FUCKING LIGHTER and another AGAINST THE BLOODY TABLE because it’s what cool people do, and he gives one to Tomás and Matilde.

  ‘To your game,’ Yiyo says, raising his bottle.

  ‘Thanks,’ Tomás says, and they drink and then Tomás sits on the sofa while Yiyo and Matilde talk. He looks at the graffiti, all those bands who at least for one night knew that they were artists, that whatever they didn’t do at work, or how many people screwed them over, it was all worth it for a name on the wall. But most names are written on top of other names. Tomás tries to think what it’d be like trying to find your own band name 20 years later. Fucking impossible. And so while they might not forget that their fuckups were worth it, everyone else will because no single wall can hold that many memories and no one can make their own name timeless in such… But does it matter? If it disappears behind other names, does it make it less present? Plus, with enough layers it would become random lines and scribbles and anyone would be able to see their own name somewhere, even the names of bands that don’t yet exist.

  Tomás takes a pen from his pocket and writes his name on the wall because it will last forever, just like Bellavista, overwritten by time, but impossible to erase in his own memory.

  ‘Hey, no use writing your name there, dude. Didn’t you hear? The world will end in 2018. No one will be here to remember any of us,’ Yiyo says laughing and so Matilde laughs too.

  Tomás smiles and has a sip of beer.

  ‘They’re nuts,’ Tomás says, but when Yiyo turns back to Matilde he crosses out his name.

  ‘Hey huevones, I have to go play. They must be waiting for me. Stay here for as long as you want. Beer’s in the fridge,’ Yiyo says, winking at Tomás.

  Matilde nods and watches Yiyo stretch his arms up over his head and then touch his feet. He’s SO FLEXIBLE, of course he’s bloody flexible. He must remind women about themselves and how they’d like to be too, or just how they think they are. But who knows? Maybe it’s something else, something without any rational explanation.

  ‘Good luck man,’ he tells Yiyo.

  ‘I’ll fuck up as always, I’m sure,’ Yiyo says with a shrug. ‘I just hope they don’t notice.’

  He says ‘they’, as if we’re all so fucking…

  ‘Don’t worry, no one will remember,’ Tomás says smiling.

  Yiyo laughs and so does Matilde, and he leaves them both in the room and the hum of the club gets louder. She sits by Tomás on the sofa and he thinks she’s looking at him so he takes a big gulp of his beer but then, when he turns to her, she’s looking at the graffiti all over the ceiling.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re friends with the people from Fármacos. That’s so cool,’ she says.

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Well, I thought you were pretty lame at first, what with the gardening gloves and all.’

  ‘No,’ he sighs, ‘I meant, how come you like Fármacos so much?’

  ‘Oh… Sorry. I don’t know. Their music is just beautiful. I don’t really like the guy’s voice but it’s all about the lyrics. They remind me of being young in Santiago.’

  ‘I know what you mean.’

  The music downstairs goes quiet. They can hear people clapping and it sounds like raindrops and Tomás wishes he could just stay here looking over the names of people he doesn’t know because, like rain, crowds are only beautiful at a distance, when you don’t have to be in the middle of it all.

  ‘So, your trip… Is it for your writing?’ she asks him.

  She’s facing him but she’s looking over him, and he wants to tell her that it’s OK not to talk to him, that when he was younger, silence made him uncomfortable too, and that at her age he enjoyed the rain.

  ‘Sort of, why?’

  ‘Well, I want to be a writer too.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘I applied to do a Masters in Creative Writing at NYU. I’ve only ever written short stories though. I’d love to try out a novel. I’ve been going to this workshop in Providencia which—’

  ‘Sounds good.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll get it in the MA though. I haven’t published anything like you.’

  ‘Well, good luck.’

  She looks
at him and they share the raindrops and the crowds with all their forgotten names dispersed across the ceiling. They drink and he looks at her dress, at her shoulders and her neck and when does it happen? When do bodies stop standing so straight? When does skin suddenly decide to let go of its perfect shoulder? When do dreams stop becoming plans and instead turn into impossibilities, into stories? He wants her to wish him luck too, because it would mean that, like her, he has something to fail at, something to lose. He wants to know that, unlike the names on the wall, these things haven’t happened yet and so their consequences (in his life, on Eva’s life) can still be infinite and timeless.

  A beat starts downstairs and people cheer.

  ‘Aren’t you going to wish me luck too?’ he asks her.

  ‘On your trip?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Things don’t just happen. I don’t believe in luck,’ she says. ‘You can prepare for stuff, you can look for opportunities and then succeed or fail. It’s never just luck. You’re doing both so you’ll be fine.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  The singer from Fármacos starts the verse to ‘Abril’ and people cheer.

  ‘I love this song. You want to come with me?’ she asks him.

  ‘Sure. Hey… I forgot to ask you…’ She turns at the door and doesn’t open it.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I think Lucas has a crush on you.’

  ‘I know, poor dude, we’re friends though, you know?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Let’s just go. This is a short song.’

  He nods and they go down the stairs in the dark. He imagines her breathing in synch with her heels, letting herself drop farther and farther down in perfect balance. She doesn’t believe in luck because she doesn’t yet believe that some things are just impossible. And even when you can trace every single one of your choices to a particular moment and desire, no one really shares them with you. We’re all listening in for signs, watching graffitied walls and believing we’re special for picking out single details. We’re hearing each others’ heels tapping on the steps of a staircase in the dark, at a concert hall full of music drowned out by rain. He spends so much time trying to come up with a story for a game for others to play, but he knows everyone just wants to play their own stories and not even… They want to play their own mechanics.