We Are the End

by Gonzalo Garcia

  So Tomás doesn’t wait to ask and Matilde doesn’t stop to answer.

  • • •

  IDEAS BOOK P. 86:

  Another game. Though this time it’s a RHYTHM game. Like all of these types of games, it will have you quickly react to an animated screen, which varies according to a soundtrack or rhythmic setting, and you have to press a button or a sequence of buttons in perfect timing in order to win.

  Guitar Hero is probably the most popular example, and it became the best-selling one for a reason. It completely took you off the controller and gave you a guitar-shaped input, a toy, so that you really fucking felt awesome clicking the colours of a fret board along with those on the screen. When you rocked out in Guitar Hero, when you were winning, the crowd would go mental, clapping and cheering as you shook your plastic fake guitar. When you were losing, the amp feedbacked and the crowd booed you and became restless. And so the design behind Guitar Hero isn’t to simulate playing an actual guitar (unless you’re a total retard you would never compare the two), but to simulate the high you get out of giving the masses exactly what they want, at the precise moment in which they want it. That’s what true pop stars do.

  So our version, which will be ‘free’ on mobile platforms (though every song will be halved and you’ll have to pay to unlock them whole), will need you to touch the screen in time with the music. We’ll also sell you a plastic guitar to play it while you ride the bus We won’t be able to simulate rock and roll stardom or anything involving a stage. Jaime just won’t be able to do it. In fact, it will involve the opposite. You will listen to your protagonist’s own music, and you will tap your finger to the rhythm of frustration, self-doubt, suicidal tendencies, alcohol abuse, drug addiction, dentist appointments, doctor’s appointments, plastic surgery, photo shoots, dairy allergies, more photo shoots, memories of when you were NOBODY, photos, memories of when you decided NOBODY was just not good enough, pics, memories of your now dead parents, snap snap, then of the girl you fancied at school, and meeting said girl in the present and finding her the ugliest person alive, and shopping for guns, learning to shoot guns, playing Russian roulette on your own open mouth, and laughing at your luck, and then getting on cabs with nowhere to go, and going to expensive clubs and buying others drinks because they recognised you, and then getting another cab and the crowd cheers when you come out of it, and you’re unsure of just how much money you left the driver, and then entering the concert hall, and more cheering, more photo shoots, and the game ends with one last tap of the screen, just as you enter the stage, which if Jaime could program it, would have beams of green light across clouds of smoke which fade to black as the song also ends.

  But that only happens if you get a Perfect Score, if you have a perfect sense of rhythm, and you’re playing on Hard Mode (Hard Mode will be sold separately as Downloadable Content: DLC).

  • • •

  He receives a text message on his phone and his head still aches. To his side, Matilde is still asleep and he sighs. They’re inside the tent inside his flat on the sleeping bag and she has her head on his chest. She’s not naked at least and they were very drunk. Isn’t that why people get drunk anyway, to do things that they can count or discard when needed? Yes, oh my God, he doesn’t remember a thing… Jesus, man. And she’ll probably say that too and it will be as if they had disappeared from any moment they shared, leaving them still alone and silent and wishing to leave this fucking city.

  He looks at his phone trying not to move too much and Matilde turns to sleep facing the other way and starts snoring, so he sits up to read the text. It’s from Yiyo and it says:

  Hey, I need to talk to you. It’s important, so important.

  Come to the guitar shop as soon as possible.

  Love you dude. X!

  What could this be about? Even stranger, what could it be if Yiyo, the coolest and most apathetic human being he’s ever met, thinks it’s ‘so’ important?

  His band Fármacos were on the radio so maybe they finally did it, they got signed without him and he will never be able to play with them again because anything he does in comparison will be just another amateur attempt, another hobby that cannot be taken seriously. He should have never left. But what really bothers him is the fact that anything he’s not a part of, any story he leaves behind, suddenly becomes successful. Shit, that’s the thing that gets to him. Things end well without him. But Eva is different. After all, he never chose to leave her and he’s always been present despite what she may have once thought… And the trip will only prove that and then she’ll know that everything can end well with him because…

  ‘Hey,’ Matilde says, turning to him yawning.

  ‘Hey,’ he says, sliding away from her. ‘Hey, we didn’t…’

  ‘Yeah, it was awesome, I needed that.’

  ‘What?’ he says, unzipping the tent flap.

  ‘Only messing with you, man. You just fell asleep when we were just… I don’t remember much either.’

  ‘Yeah. I don’t remember anything at all.’

  He gets out of the tent and changes his T-shirt. He hates sleeping with his clothes on because no matter how much he sleeps in the next morning, it always feels like he hasn’t slept at all. He puts some water in the kettle but then remembers he has no electricity so he just stares at it instead.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Matilde asks, appearing behind him and touching the edges of the broken piece of his ceiling on the living room desk.

  ‘The kettle doesn’t work,’ he says, hoping she doesn’t try to turn on anything else.

  ‘Don’t you have a pot or something? Put it on the hob.’

  ‘Oh,’ he says, taking out his one pan and pouring the water from the kettle in it. Then, he places the pan on one of the two electric hobs and, well, just stares at it.

  They wait by the hobs and she looks around his kitchen. She moves the stack of pizza boxes by the bin with her foot and lets out a quiet laugh.

  ‘So, is it ready?’ she asks. ‘I could really do with a cup of coffee right now. Let me get the mugs.’

  ‘It’s not working for some reason. Damn electric hobs, you know?’

  ‘That’s OK, I’ll wait.’

  And just as she starts to check the pan and the hobs, his computer under his desk starts to ring and his mum’s picture, the one with all the beige furniture, appears on the screen.

  ‘I really need to take this,’ he says.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Would you mind staying here and not coming out?’

  ‘Um, OK?’

  ‘Thanks.’ He goes under his desk and answers.

  ‘Hello,’ his mum says. ‘How’re you?’

  ‘I’m busy Mum, as always. How’s India?’

  ‘I won’t bother you for too long.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Just called to see how you were. You never call me, you never e-mail.’

  ‘Sorry, I’m just very busy.’

  ‘After your dad died, I don’t have anyone to talk to.’

  ‘Sorry Mum. But how’s Angela and Alejandro?’

  ‘They’re fine. Though I think they’re insane. They gave their shoes away to the poor. I bought them new pairs. And they did it again! Can you imagine? Where are you? You look like shit. Have you been eating well?’

  ‘Yes, everything’s fine.’

  ‘Are you under a table?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ah… How’s Eva? Is she back from her trip yet? Is she feeding you well?’

  ‘Mum, I don’t need feeding and—’

  ‘Well, that’s not what I see.’

  ‘I’m fine. Eva’s fine. We went to the San Cristóbal Hill on the weekend and now she’s cooking.’

  ‘Something French? Always so sophisticated…’

  ‘Yeah, something called a cassoulet or something.’

  ‘Like casuela? I can make you casuela when I get back.’

  ‘No Mum, it’s French.’

  ‘Well, can’t she come and say
hello? It’d be so nice to see her.’

  ‘Mum, she wouldn’t go to India. And hey, you know how she gets with the whole cooking thing. I’m not even allowed to go into the kitchen.’

  And then Matilde comes out holding the frozen chicken and laughing.

  ‘What the fuck is this?’ she asks.

  Tomás waves her off but she just stands there.

  ‘Is that Eva?’ his mum starts. ‘Hi Eva!’

  Matilde looks at him with a frown.

  ‘Hello, how are you?’ she says at the computer.

  ‘Your voice has changed so much! You should stop smoking!’ his mum shouts and then Tomás closes the laptop and looks at Matilde from under the desk.

  ‘She still thinks you live with your ex… That’s healthy…’ Matilde says, rolling her eyes.

  ‘Hey, my dad died very recently. She couldn’t take any more bad news.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘The coffee’s ready,’ she adds, pointing at the kitchen table with the frozen chicken on it by the microwave.

  ‘How did you make it work?’ he asks.

  ‘I don’t know. It just did.’

  Even hobs work better when he isn’t around. He sighs and they go back into the kitchen and he gets two straws and then…

  ‘Should we wait for the coffee to brew?’

  ‘It all tastes the same to me,’ she says, putting the frozen chicken back in the freezer, which is the only part of the kitchen that somehow still works.

  ‘Alright,’ he says, and presses the coffee down before fitting in the straws.

  They walk to his room and they sit leaning on the windowsill and he lights a cigarette. They take turns on the coffee.

  ‘How come you don’t have a bed?’

  ‘I haven’t had time to build it. I only just moved here.’

  ‘Oh, well, I can help you build it if you want.’

  ‘It’s OK, I’m fine with the tent. I figured if I’m going to the Antarctic, I—’

  ‘You do know they probably have housing over there with full heating and all.’

  ‘I’m preparing for the worst.’

  They look outside and it’s raining hard.

  ‘Do you think spring will ever come?’ she asks.

  ‘I don’t know. But you’re leaving soon so what does it matter if it doesn’t?’

  ‘I guess you’re right, nothing really matters until I’m gone,’ she says, passing him the cafetière.

  ‘Yeah, exactly,’ he says. But can that be true? Can she expect nothing here (can’t she?) just because she chose to leave? And could anyone just stop living in the present in one place because they have the promise of a life somewhere else? And if that were true, then when do people really start leaving, and when do they arrive? Maybe, like him, she’s already on her way.

  They face each other in silence until they finish the coffee.

  ‘What are you doing today?’

  ‘I have to go empty my office.’

  ‘Rough.’

  ‘And then I’m going to go see Yiyo.’

  ‘The Fármacos guitarist, right?’

  ‘Yeah, him,’ he says, getting up.

  ‘Can I come? I can help you carry your stuff back.’

  ‘I guess that would be fine. It’s near Plaza Italia anyway.’

  ‘We’ll go on my bike.’

  ‘Alright, let’s go.’

  They get on the bike together and Tomás notices that the other mirror’s now gone too.

  ‘Should you be driving at all? What happened to the other mirror?’ he asks, putting on his pink helmet.

  ‘Fucking cars, you know?’ she says, starting the engine.

  They drive up the Kennedy Avenue again. Santiago is a different place in the daytime. But it’s not just the lights or the amount of people or cars. No, it’s something else, like the difference between having a shower in the day or at night, or how cold pizza is better in the morning. It’s the pace, it’s what it makes you be to keep up with it, it’s what it makes you think and feel. In that sense, Santiago is you and right now it is him too.

  ‘Where do I turn?’ she shouts.

  ‘It’s near Blue Peace.’

  ‘And where’s that?’

  ‘Over there! By the protesters.’

  She turns into the smaller street and gets on the pavement and avoids people with signs still showing floods with photographs of children in their school uniforms with water up to their bellies.

  ‘It’s here,’ he says.

  She stops and they take their helmets off. She locks her bike by a lamppost and shakes it to see if it holds.

  ‘Will my stuff get stolen here?’ she asks.

  ‘They’re hippies. They don’t ride motorcycles,’ he says.

  A woman with a military jacket (even though she must be in her mid-fifties) is shouting about the rain through a megaphone in front of them, and a guy who looks just like John Lennon gives them banners. Matilde shakes her head while Tomás takes one.

  ‘Just take one. They won’t leave you alone if you don’t,’ he tells her.

  She sighs and takes a banner. John Lennon gives them a fist salute and moves on and they walk past the crowd and into the office building. The elevator’s finally working but Tomás doesn’t notice it. He takes the stairs and Matilde follows him until they reach the door that leads to the university lobby.

  ‘When we get in, run to the corridor to the left. Don’t stop running,’ he tells her with one hand on the doorknob.

  ‘Why? I’m pretty sure they’ll understand that you’re coming to pick your stuff up.’

  ‘No… Listen to me. I know these people. Just run.’

  He opens the door and he starts running but Anna isn’t at the front desk anymore. He stops and walks up to the new receptionist. Matilde turns back and leans on the reception counter.

  ‘Where’s Anna?’ he asks the much younger and thinner receptionist.

  ‘Who’s asking?’

  ‘An old friend.’

  ‘Oh, well, she had her baby, she’s on maternity leave.’

  ‘Oh.’ He taps the counter twice and then turns to his old corridor. ‘Thank you anyway,’ he says and starts walking.

  ‘Shouldn’t we run?’ Matilde asks laughing.

  ‘No, not anymore,’ he answers with a sigh. But as soon as they cross the door that leads into the corridor he hears steps behind them.

  ‘Hey, you can’t just come in here.’

  ‘Run!’ Matilde says, and they both start running down the corridor.

  ‘You don’t have an appointment!’ the receptionist shouts, trying to walk quickly on her heels.

  ‘Which one, which one?!’ Matilde asks.

  ‘Four hundred and five.’

  ‘Here,’ she says. ‘What’s the code?’

  ‘Four zeroes. Quick!’ he says, looking at the receptionist waving her arms at them.

  ‘Done.’

  They stumble in and Tomás locks the door from inside.

  ‘I’m calling the cops if you don’t come out!’ the receptionist shouts from outside.

  Tomás thinks of an answ… But Matilde covers his mouth with her hand, her whole hand, and they stay like that, quiet and catching their breaths as they hear the footsteps outside moving away.

  ‘Right then,’ she says, laughing and rubbing her now wet palm on her coat. ‘We better hurry.’

  ‘They won’t call the cops.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  They leave the banners by the door. He opens the window and the noise of all the people outside protesting fills the room.

  ‘The cops never come here when the hippies are out,’ he says, looking down at them all.

  He checks around the office for things he may have left, and is too embarrassed to admit that apart from a pencil Eva had given him (that’s right, not even a pen) with a metallic figurine of the Eiffel tower at one end, and a plastic Space Invaders folder (as empty as Eva had bought it), he had forgotten that there is nothing e
lse here that is his.

  Instead of picking up his stuff, he crouches down and lies under the desk. He waits for Matilde to ask, to tell him he’s completely lost the plot now, but she doesn’t say a thing. She kneels down and lies besides him and they both look up at the bottom of the table. But there are no constellations, no chewing gum, nothing.

  ‘You OK?’ she asks.

  ‘There used to be chewing gum here.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There was a lot of chewing gum under the desk.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So nothing… There just was, and now there isn’t any. I used to spend hours looking at it.’

  She laughs.

  ‘Don’t laugh, it’s true,’ he says, noticing that the troll doll’s back on the shelf facing the desk. This time it has clothes on.

  ‘Fine, fine.’ Then she breathes out and a few minutes pass and she reaches down to her pocket. ‘Gum?’ she asks holding out a wrapped piece of gum towards him. They smile at each other and they both have one.

  ‘Hey, I never asked you. What’s your writing about? What’s your story about?’

  ‘To be honest, really honest, I have no fucking clue,’ she says.

  ‘So how did you get accepted into NYU?’

  ‘I wrote a story about Pinochet and magical children. Gringos go crazy for shit like that.’

  ‘Oh, fair enough.’

  ‘Yeah, but I have no clue what to write about now. I hate most of what I write.’

  ‘Me too,’ he says with a sigh. ‘You’ll be fine.’

  ‘Doesn’t it scare you to leave?’

  ‘No, not really… Actually, I don’t know. How about you?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s not so much the leaving as it is the coming back. I’m afraid everyone will be different, that everyone just move on without me and that my friends won’t need me.’

  ‘I think Lucas and Jesús will manage to end the world just fine by themselves.’