We Are the End
Page 32
He turns around and it’s Matilde and Abdul.
‘Hey, I need to talk to you,’ he says.
‘What about?’
‘Your message. About how to end your story, about the characters on the San Cristóbal Hill.’
Matilde sighs and looks at her dad.
‘I’m not leaving. I have to wear a baseball cap now, after you cut my hair and stole my keys because of him. And just look at him, dressed like a gay,’ Abdul says, pointing at the troll doll on his T-shirt.
‘Dad,’ Matilde says with a sigh.
‘Alright, alright, I’m just fucking with you. I’ll be at the bar.’
Abdul leaves and it’s just Tomás and Matilde in the lobby.
‘Should we go to your room? Or somewhere private?’
She lets out a quiet laugh. ‘I’m fine here.’
‘OK.’
‘You were such a douche to me.’
‘I know, I’m sorry.’
‘Do you know though?’
‘I think so, yes—’
‘You think,’ she says, turning away from him.
‘Wait,’ he says. ‘About your message, I agree, you shouldn’t change it.’
‘Why?’
‘Because if they don’t stay on top of the hill your story wouldn’t make sense. They need to feel small and the city’s the largest place they know.’
‘And you came here to tell me that? To talk about plot points?’
They walk out of the hotel and cross over to the park to look at the river.
‘When are you leaving?’ he asks.
‘Tomorrow morning,’ she says.
Tomás looks down and it’s so dark the river appears still, frozen, and nothing in the world would be able to break it.
‘Why are you wearing such a stupid T-shirt?’ she asks, not looking at him.
‘You know, I have one for you as well. Tonight, I found out when the world will end. It’s in 2018,’ he says, giving her a shirt.
‘What?’
‘It will end in three years.’
‘But how? How can you know something like that?’
‘I just do, OK? And it ends just like this, at night under the rain, the river standing still and everyone saying goodbye.’
She smiles at him and holds his hand.
‘I might never see you again.’
‘I know.’
‘It’s starting to snow.’
‘I think it’s just rain.’
They stay looking down at the frozen river and the plastic windmill salesman walks by pulling the old trolley. They see him sit down and write graffiti on the nearest bench. When he notices them watching him, he offers them a windmill by blowing on it but they both apologise, they say they’re sorry for not wanting anything, nothing at all, and they try to spot the stars but it’s all fog and even the largest cities can disappear behind passing clouds but that’s fine, that doesn’t matter. They look up to Santiago, to its blurred streets, to the invisible corners they know will reappear tomorrow all changed and new, and they wish the river would for once just stop.
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Copyright
First published in 2017
by Galley Beggar Press Limited
37 Dover Street,
Norwich,
NR2 3LG
All rights reserved
© Gonzalo C Garcia, 2017
The right of Gonzalo C Garcia to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
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A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
Paper ISBN: 978–1–910296–79–0
This ebook ISBN: 978–1–910296–85–1
Original typeset by Tetragon, London
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