IDEAS BOOK P. 28:
The game starts off with a rocket launching into space. As Vince (an astronaut) is carried into space with nothing more than a robot companion (that can only talk if it’s answering a question), we get the backstory in captions and translucent stills.
The stars and the moon and the sun have all disappeared. It was all very sudden, all without cause. People took days to notice. In fact, No one noticed until the tides, with no moon to calm them, came out in waves to drown out the coasts. Everyone’s afraid now. Riots break out for supplies, people kill each other for canned food. They kill each other over bomb shelters to wait out the darkness. Activists appear on news channels happy and smiling because now everyone listens to them. A Blue Peace hippie frees caged animals from the zoo, others make peace with those they spent a lifetime hating. And others pray for the Rapture, head into the streets to preach the end of everything. The chosen ones, the chosen ones will make it, it’s too late now and the unchosen people (pretty much the whole world according to the chosen) should get ready for something far worse than darkness.
Then there’s a still of the NASA headquarters. Scientists have lost control of their satellites. The International Space Station doesn’t answer calls or gives signs of life. Other astronauts in short secret supply missions have their families notified of their disappearances. No one wants to go out into space to check what’s happened. That’s when they call Vince, the only guy who was still sending CVs over to NASA (had been refused so many times before) even after the blackout, because he understood this disaster as an opening, an opportunity to have less competition over a job he really wanted. He said he’d do anything to see space, and then he got the job, which to his annoyance had no title because there was no clear mission. But even if it meant seeing nothing, moving through plain black, it was worth it just to get out of Earth for a while, and probably forever.
When he breaks out of the stratosphere it’s like being submerged under water the engine lulls into silence, and the white LEDs of the ship turn on. There’s nothing out in space and Earth looks like a shadow. Suddenly the ship malfunctions. One of the Rapture preachers worked at NASA too, and he had loosened engine parts to make his predictions come true. That’s when Vince puts on his astronaut suit, ties himself to the ship and comes out into space. It’s warmer than he thought it would be He looks at the metal plates, the engines and the different latches of all sizes… And who is he kidding? He has no idea what he’s doing. He should have never got the job. That’s when he takes his helmet off, and realises that nothing happens, that everyone just lied about space being dangerous. Now he’s better than an astronaut, and he doesn’t give a fuck about tidal waves on Earth.
That’s when the gameplay starts. After a day of floating about in space, you notice a strange faraway light. The stars are all dead, and you have to give life back to them by solving puzzles and becoming friends with them. Each star values different things: some of them are very private and want to be left alone, some of them want to know that if they die, others will die with them. And so you have to choose the right dialogue options until there are enough stars to make up constellations, and each one you form lights up the Earth just a little more.
The last star is the sun, but it only speaks French and Vince can’t understand a thing, which means they can’t be friends. It gets so pissed off with your lack of understanding that it decides to live just to burn you out of space. On Earth, no one remembers Vince anymore, but they’re glad the sun is back, sad that the Rapture didn’t happen, and they’re scared for the future of stars.
• • •
‘Was it good?’
‘Why you ask this?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Ah.’
‘What?’
‘Guys always think the dicks so different. My must be better dick. I be so large, so special,’ she laughs. ‘Most dick same, you know? They sometime flop, sometime hard, sometime not work, bend right, bend left… But still same dick, even taste same.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. Men worry very much about stupid dick, get sad if no speech about the dick. Like it only dick in the world. Build dick monument, you know? All should very worry about is hands, the face, the arms, the body, you know? The body, yourself, your body. Dick is smallest part, too small. Even ear more important.’
Fran takes his crown off and puts it on. They had sex four times yesterday. When she had asked him if he was enjoying his day off he agreed and told her she should stay for another night. This means the bed frame still hasn’t been made, and so they’ve had to fuck all around the flat: against the kitchen counter, by the WELCOME rug under the door, in the shower without the German curtains, against his desk. She said his flat was just what she expected it to be. Though she didn’t find it funny when a drop from the leak in the ceiling landed on her back. She told him this was a 70s building and that it was designed by European architects; it would remain intact forever.
‘I miss Germany,’ she says, putting her bra back on, her back against him.
‘Must be great.’
‘No. But better than here um, to be honestly. People more open, you know?’
‘That’s not too hard. Why come here anyway?’
‘You have brother or sister?’ she asks, stretching a pair of tights.
He quiet, he don’t know, he wish. Truth is, he and his sister Angela used to be friends. She was addicted to online games and she always asked him how he was doing at university, play-testing his games and reviewing his early builds (she tested the Bimbo alpha and beta and told him it was the worst thing she ever played, which only made him like her more). Then one day, after seeing a therapist, she decided she needed to change. She went off to India to find herself and became someone else – which is pretty much what finding yourself means. The friends she went with, a bunch of new-age asswipes who changed their names depending on the season (Winter, whose real name was Oswald, was his sister’s boyfriend at the time), convinced her that if you’re dumb and go to India, you come back smart. They all came back the same though, except they now wear weird loose shapeless Nepalese pants that stink of incense. They hate technology, have permanently erased their Facebook profiles (after lengthy Facebook declarations of intent filled with the word ‘society’ and ‘human nature’ and so many fucking ‘journeys’) and now collect typewriters and take pictures of sunsets and their feet. One of these asswipes was the son of a major news editor in town, and Angela got a job interviewing famous asswipes who always hate being famous and having money and everything they buy with it. Her feature articles all have a signature statement at the end: ‘and this was today’s morsel of society’. This got her a column called Morsels of Society, which has a picture of her sitting on a pillow and wearing an orange scarf. Every fucking artist she interviews talks about journeys and talent and money and capitalism and start-ups and business and racism and violence and stop the war and holidays and childhood and Guantanamo and depression and sex and magic and follow me I’m a fucking @socialmedia guru because I rant about shitty current TV shows and I want people to know that they can connect with me and still know I have an attitude problem, but man, keep writing, man, because #EveryoneCanMakeItIfTheyReallyWantIt and if you don’t you’re an asshole since I made it and I had nothing but my ass in my mouth and now I own everything so I can’t sympathise with the former unless it’s about to become the latter, man, you know, man, the journey, the ass in the mouth and… Does Tomás have a sister? When Bimbo failed, Angela told Tomás he needed a change too, and bought him and Eva tickets to India. He never told Eva about it. He was trying to come up with a new game. This time, a huge one. He couldn’t just take off to buy colourful Nepalese trousers. And his sister hasn’t spoken to him ever since she found out he didn’t take the plane. He does however follow her on Twitter @MorselsOfSociety.
‘No,’ he says. ‘I don’t. You?’
‘Yes. But they terrible people. Too religion. They think videogame is drug addiction, like meth. I needed to get out so I can make game in peace. Got exchange offer from aunt who work in university in the South. Had to take. But aunt now teach religion, is very fucking crazy family. I just would want to work in my game.’
‘I know what you mean. What are you working on at the moment?’
‘I want make game that is important you know? A game people remember. I want to make game about deep thing. But I like adventure game. Very hard to make deep in adventure game. Always too happy, too hope, jumping around, finding thing. I want adventure game that feel like depression, you know? A game that depress so much people with true adventure. I have good gameplay now in pre-alpha build. I need good story, so I take your class. But all adventure too happy. Sadly, you too happy too.’
‘All adventure too happy,’ he repeats.
The mall workers are passing by in their white-lit bus. One of them points at the sky from the window and makes eye contact with Tomás. The sky appears to be falling, streaming down, the cracked grey city ceiling letting only the faintest light to cut through, dropping in two pillars so low Tomás could touch them if he opened the window. The icy drizzle swallows the edges of the streets, the walls dividing houses, the watercoloured cars driving nowhere – a pre-alpha build of Santiago. The clouds are getting swallowed up at the edges of the now peakless mountains made of fog, and birds are flying lower than ever because he can now hear them whistle and sing that the world’s turning all wrong. They’re tired, they sing, tired of migrating. Eva used to say that birds must love the city because they’re safe, that even the tallest buildings or the fastest cars can’t get them. She was sure some of them overstayed their seasons. Even we need to settle, they sing.
‘Hey, you know, I could fuck again. You want fuck again? I want come again. I don’t feel like getting dress, you know? But not under ceiling waterfall, cool? Too cold for water.’
‘It’s really not that big a deal. Just a few drops here and there.’
‘No water because cold.’
‘Sure, whatever.’
‘Much thank you!’ she says.
She puts the crown on him again. She takes off his underwear and rubs his dick with one hand while she snaps her bra off with the other. She tilts her head to one side.
‘You see, same dick as all in universe,’ she says with a smile. ‘Don’t worry, is OK, is OK.’
His back hurts against the carpet. He should really build that bed frame. She puts his dick in her mouth.
‘Wh– Who is– Pictu– Picture at entrance?’ she asks after a minute or so, taking a break.
‘What?’ he asks, folding the crown over his ears.
‘Girl. Photograph at entry of flat. She very pretty.’
‘No one.’
‘Oh. Is OK, is OK,’ she says.
He takes off her underwear and she sits on him. Her hips are large, the bones sticking out in triangles at the ends. She moves her ass back and forth, her eyes closed, her hands on his chest.
‘Ya, ya, ya,’ she starts with a smile, like the German pornos he knows too well. Then again, all sex sounds the same.
‘Ya, ya, ya,’ he says too.
‘Jesus, ya. Jesus, ya, sure is OK if I pray to Jesus?’
‘Yes.’
‘Much thank you!’
Eva used to fuck him in French whenever she’d cooked a French dinner. Once, after a killer ratatouille she asked him if he liked it, and he said he did so she started saying more stuff than just Oui. The accent was great and all but he can’t remember the last months of sex because he could never work out what she was going on about. He even downloaded a voice recording app and left it on the coffee table so he could Google-translate it at work, but all he got from the twenty-something minute recording was oh putain which at times even sounded angry. He kept the recordings, but he still can’t translate them. It isn’t the strange words or noises or tenses that make it impossible, it’s not knowing where any of them begin or end.
Fran turns and uses his black suit as a blanket.
‘Sleep time, yes?’
‘OK.’
‘Much thanks.’
‘No problem.’
‘Girl at entrance very pretty. I hope you OK.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Maybe after all, maybe after all you teach good adventure game. Is OK,’ she says with a yawn, patting him on the back. ‘Is OK, good night.’
Tomás waits on the floor until he can hear her sleep-breathe. He gets up, goes to the kitchen and turns on the kettle. He looks out the window and the sky’s still dropping. It’s still snowing and he looks down to see if it has gathered but it hasn’t. It’s the first time he’s seen snow fall but the excitement wears off fast because all he can think about is the Antarctic and how much more impressive snowfall must be there, and how expensive his heating bill will be because of it and…
He waits five minutes and presses the coffee down and puts in a straw. He turns on the radio and sits at his desk and opens his IDEAS book.
Do you love your home?
Do you love turning boring (BOOORIIIING) rooms into palaces?
Then come to El Huaso’s
Ta-ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-tum
Two-for-one on any hammer you need:
Ball-pein hammers, claw hammers,
Shingling hatchets, drywall hatchets, rubber mallets,
Carpenter hammers and brick hammers.
All with the ease of double injection (Double Injectioooon!)
grip technology.
Come to El Huaso’s and tear that nail apart-art-art-art
SubjectToLimitedStockTermsAndConditionsApply.
He finishes writing the ad, lights up a cigarette and lies under his desk where there are no changing chewing gum constellations. Would it be fucked up to go and find her there? What would she say? It would make him the least boring person in the world. Two electric hobs or even the Trans-Siberian train would be no match for him. He’d go down South to Punta Arenas and look for a boat by asking the locals, backpack on, beard on its way, and he’d find a merchant navy boat, nothing fancy, even rough, and he’d make friends on-board, whom he’d introduce her to later by their first names and she’d be there when he arrives, standing on ice, telling him she can’t believe it, that she thought he didn’t have it in him, that she’s glad he knows what she really wants, what she’s always wanted. But that’s the problem. That’s his problem. In his IDEAS book she’s always waiting for him.
Is your dog suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder?
Meow!
Is your best friend now your WORST NIGHTMARE?
Your mother sucks woofs! in hell-ell-ell!
Speak to Papa Dino, dog psychologist, animal wizard, philanthropist.
Hi, I’m Papa Dino and I love your dogs.
But most of all, I love Jesus Christ-ist-ist
If you like God, call me 927138210
He turns the page. He needs something that Jaime can’t fuck up, something without variables, something simple, and he needs it fast. But who can ever guess any of Jaime’s mistakes before they happen? So he closes the book and decides to wait and see what Jaime’s working on. He stays looking up at his desk and he can hear the hum of the boiler and the water pipes above his ceiling and Fran’s breathing and he closes his eyes and sees absolutely nothing and then it’s just snow, so much snow, and the remains of the shrinking sky that he can now touch if he stretches on his toes, and points his hands like TV ballet dancers do, and he could even pretend to fly while the birds just settle with all the white powder below him, now turning to ice.
• • •
Tomás and Eva are lighting fireworks from the wine bottles they just drank. In the movies fireworks always make domes of colour, light half-faces in sparks, a build up of strings climaxing as the whole sky just blows up. But here it’s only smoke, the invisible screeching travel of a rocket gone missing, the shadow of a trail that gets lost within seconds, the disappointed laughter when no one manages to create rainbows with explosions. The San Cristóbal Hill that overlooks Santiago is made of ice. There are people slipping on it because of all the noise making the Earth shake in reds and greens.
‘Do you think lights can freeze in the sky? Do you think colour could take over nights forever?’ Eva asks him.
He nods because it already happened. In our frozen cities nothing can be dark again.
‘Let’s look for it. Right now, let’s look for it,’ she says.
‘For what?’ he asks, failing to light the firework in the frozen bottle.
‘The hole in the ice, the tunnel. I bet it runs through Santiago and I have to know where it ends.’
They walk slowly down the hill so as not to slip. She looks at the ground after every step and even touches some of the icy cracks. Despite Tomás knowing that this is useless, that you can’t find anything by keeping surfaces intact, he follows her down, for what seems like hours.
When they reach the foot of the hill, Eva turns to him and they face the sky and the now frozen explosions and then the people watching them. Everyone’s still: kids unable to finish a jump, the tense faces before laughter, the moment in a clap that looks like prayer, stuffed birds in life-like poses, and the river, the Mapocho adrift in chunks of ice which will never carry anything for anyone again.
They cross the useless bridge and the windmill salesman selling to multiple customers at a time. When he sees Tomás he calls to him.
‘The wind, man! The Antarctic wind! Just look how they turn!’
He gives Tomás a windmill that won’t stop turning. Maybe he needs the wind to make a good videogame too. Maybe he’ll write about this, the fireworks, the lacking laws of physics. It would be Jaime’s masterpiece too.
When he turns he sees Eva looking for cracks again and when he asks her if she wants the windmill, she takes it to look for the wind’s direction.
‘If you can read the wind, then you know the currents of the ocean, the shapes of the world beneath us,’ she says.
He nods. ‘We should really pay for that windmill,’ he says, ‘if we intend to keep it,’ and the reds and greens of the sky slide down Eva’s face and people clap and laugh and the jumping children touch floor and dogs bark again and pigeons resurrect, but only until the next rocket freezes everything up again.
‘Come on, nous devons partir,’ Eva says, ‘we won’t find anything by just standing around!’
She walks too fast. It’s not like they even know where they’re going. She says the tides lead the way. ‘Just be patient and read the water, pay attention to the waves, the currents, you’ll see,’ she says, and with a smirk, ‘tu va voire, we’ll find it.’
They’re looking for the boat she bought. She put their apartment up for rent after watching a show about alternative lifestyles, which really just means dirty and uncomfortable lifestyles, or just plain stupid. There was a young guy with a beard on it who liked climbing trees. He had no shirt on but still had braces over both shoulders, aviator sunglasses, trousers high enough for everyone to see that he had no socks on as he jumped this way and that and down from avocado tree branches, like a chimp with a suit. Anyway, he said that if you were really into adventure and all that stuff, then living on the ground just wasn’t for you. He had a canal boat that he shared with his wife (who read wooden fortune runes to tourists). Eva went online and looked up the forms as soon as the show ended. ‘We’ll live on a boat. Can you even imagine?’ she asked. He said that he couldn’t and she said that this was exactly why it was necessary.
The fireworks they’d set alight at the San Cristóbal Hill are still going. Even all the way South they can see them explode over the Andes, everything still freezing with the blasts: instant photographs that last a second, the stillness of forest fires, the death of frozen birds lasting just a moment longer. And then the pinks and greens that shine on their faces melt from the sky, and the peaks appear black, and their faces are black, and the forest fires burn acres to soot, and the volcano in front of them is a shadow, its smoke invisible.
They arrived in Puerto Varas yesterday because Eva says that the boat she’s looking for is in Lake Llanquihue. That’s how they’ll find it, she said, the hole in the ice, in the ocean. They will live on a boat and search for it every day. She has to know… ‘We have to know, and we have to be there first,’ she said, because whatever they find inside will never be untouched again.
They walk past empty pebble beaches, empty German chalets filled with alpaca sweaters, wooden wind chimes, and plastic windmills turning in between the explosions in the sky. And then she finds it, the boat, anchored by the empty hotel on the cliff.
‘Don’t you like it?’
‘I don’t know how to sail.’
‘We’ll learn. The guy on TV said it wasn’t hard.’
‘But it’s a lake. How will we get to the ocean from here?’
They get on the boat. It’s light and wooden, like a movie prop, and he wonders if it isn’t just part of the harbour. Whatever it is, it’s still larger than any flat they could ever afford.
‘We’ll find a way,’ she says, untying some rope from a wooden pole.
That’s when he notices that they’re on ice and that ice caps are hitting the boat from the sides. Eva takes his hand, and he follows her down a ladder to walk on them.
‘Keep looking down. This place is full of cracks.’
And it is full of them. Every time he takes a step a new one appears. Eva looks at them and takes notes in her IDEAS book. She says something about ice cracking in the direction of the currents underneath, but he’s sure it’s his own steps and the blasts from the fireworks, and so he stops walking and lets her carry on by herself.
‘You alright?’ she asks, bent over the ice.
‘I don’t think there’s anything here,’ he tells her, looking at a pelican falling to a stop-motion-neon-coloured death right in front of them.
‘Then there isn’t,’ she says, her face a silhouette again. ‘Let’s get this boat out of here!’
• • •
He wakes up with a loud BANG and Fran shouts out his name and he hears her running in and out of his room. He doesn’t get up. He doesn’t get up because there’s water coming down on his left from the table on top of him and it doesn’t stop and there are still no chewing gum constellations.
‘Up! Up! Quickly yes?!’
‘What? What happened?’
‘The house sky! The house, part above, roofs, fuck, I don’t know how to say! Get up!’ she shouts, pointing up. ‘It all falling!’
He gets up from under the desk and looks at a large square piece of his ceiling that fell right on his desk. There’s water coming down from the boiler and Fran is running naked between the bedroom and the hole in the roof.
‘You have, plastic container yes?! Fuck! Like a bin, or rubbish. Something! Have a bucket or something?!’
‘Nope. But try to calm down, it’s really not a huge deal. It’s probably some safety mechanism because water was, I don’t know, maybe there was too much pressure in a pipe and…’
‘You think? You think too much pressure and this safety? The rubbish, use thing for rubbish. Oh my God, Tomás!’
She looks at him holding her head with both hands but he’s staring at the piece of ceiling, at his most likely dying computer, at the waterfall that splits on his desk, at the cheap cream-coloured carpet that now looks like moss. She opens the cupboard under the sink and takes the bin out. She turns it upside down and all his paper plates and straws and coffee packets land on Fran’s feet.
‘Oh my God, Jesus, Jesus.’
‘I don’t know how to cook,’ he explains, pointing at the pile of trash.
‘No, I don’t care. And wait, you don’t know recycle?! Fuck, put here, put here.’
‘It’s really—’
But she doesn’t wait for him to answer and puts the bin on the piece of his ceiling on the desk. It starts to fill up and he looks up at the hole and sees black, nothing more, and he smiles because it reminds him of Jaime’s coding, the way a waterfall can come out of nothing, ready for Tomás to have to justify with a story and the also…
‘Your flat going smell to crazy bad.’
‘I know, but it’s OK. We can just light a candle or something.’
‘You have will to throw this water the window down. If pour it down sink it all block with the dry paint.’
‘Yeah, it’s OK, I’ll get it fixed tomorrow.’
‘I scared,’ she says, coming closer to him. ‘I see you on floor and I think you dead, Jesus. Then I feel bad for talking of funeral at party, is very bad taste.’
She kisses him and he hugs her and he touches her chest. He does it all because it’s what he’s meant to do, to let her see that he enjoys her despite the accidents. He wishes roofs fell more often and then Eva would have known it too.
He takes the bin to his smoking window and pours the water down and it splashes heavy with an echo on the parking spots downstairs. He lights a cigarette and Fran joins him to watch the snow.
‘Crazy,’ he says.
‘What is?’
‘The snow, at this time of year.’
‘Yeah. I like. It like magic, it make city quieter, you know?’
‘Yeah.’
He flicks the cigarette out and sees Fran looking from side to side, hugging herself.
‘You probably should get a bed.’
‘You know, I was just thinking about that. I’ll do it tomorrow.’
He goes to his desk and puts the bin on it again. The water falling from the ceiling is slowing down and the stream becomes single drops and the rug’s now a puddle of fur. Eva would have made a huge fucking scene. She would have told him that this was an example of why couples should sleep in separate beds, live in different rooms, even different houses, just like she read people do in France. His sister would have agreed, but would have clarified that it is just not the case in India. Angela once said Eva was more progressive than him because Eva hadn’t laughed when Angela asked her whether or not it was possible for pet canaries to be gay. She asked this because her favourite male canary was trying to fuck another male and he was shouting so much and all, but she didn’t want to break true love and when Tomás laughed and told her to shut up, Angela left saying Eva deserved better, someone who could understand the plight of women, the plight of birds and love, or at least the imbecility of men. Turns out the canaries ate each other. They really hated that dry feed. Eva could not stop laughing. But Eva would have given him hell for the hole in the ceiling.
He lies down on the sofa and smokes, but then he hears a paper slide in under his front door. He gets up and picks it up.
Are you OK? We heard some shouting and a lot of noise. If you need help let me know.
Also, if anything in the house is broken, it might be a good chance for you to check out Abdul’s vintage shop madness this weekend.
Thanks!
Your neighbours,
Lucas and Jesús.
Tomás opens the door but there’s no one there so he goes back to the couch and finishes his cigarette. He falls asleep and dreams about flying a small plane over the ocean. He sees a white island made of ice and tries to speed the plane up but he can’t. He looks behind him and Jaime and his dad are smiling. His dad tells him he needs to get a flying license and starts singing the national anthem. In every pause he adds ‘fuck them Argentines and shoot them good’ and his teeth are shining. Jaime tells him that he’s in a Flight Simulator videogame and apologises because he messed up the physics engine again, so it’s impossible to land and his dad laughs and Jaime asks ‘Can you write it in a story? Can you make us fly forever?’ and they fly over the ice island and his dad shouts ‘Finally! That’s Argentina! Start shooting!’ and then the chorus, O la tuuumba seraaa de los liiibres, and Tomás wakes up and it’s Fran holding the French press.
‘Eh, good morning.’
‘Hi.’
‘Where mugs, for coffee, you know? I can’t find.’
‘I just use straws,’ he says miming using a straw with his fingertips. She frowns. ‘Cupboard above the sink,’ he adds. She stays looking at him so he sighs and gets up and grabs two straws. He lets her have the first drink. He looks at her, still naked, and he sees two red lines he hadn’t noticed before on her left thigh.
‘What’s that? Did you get hurt yesterday? Did something fall on you? I’m sorry about that.’
‘No, it’s not worry. Not that. It nothing.’ She turns her back to him and looks at the bin still filling up with water.
‘No really, what is it? I’ll pay for your doctor if you need it. I guess the ceiling is kind of my fault.’
‘No, no. I mean. Yes, your place, um, fucking shit, you know? But no. Is just, OK. I tell. After sex, I get nervous.’
‘Did you fall or something?’
‘Eh, no. Is just I think Jesus watch me. Like God is angry. Hard to say. Don’t know how to say.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Like, if he watch me fuck, is very bad. I cut myself, you know? Like with knife. Cut make me calm down, pay for mistake, for you. Feel good, you know?’
‘Oh.’ If there was one other thing Eva left behind, it was a stack of Japanese knives that can cut through anything.
‘Anyway, what you have to do, um, today?’
‘Well, I think I’ll—’
His phone rings and a beige couch appears on the screen. He looks at Fran and hugs her and walks her to the kitchen and then he takes the key from the inside.
‘Sorry, I’m so sorry. I’ll just be a few minutes.’
‘Eh, what you doing?’
‘Sorry, it’ll be only a few minutes, I promise.’
He closes the kitchen door and locks her in.
‘Eh, fuck! What you doing? Is cold! Come on!’
He takes Eva’s photograph from under the piece of ceiling on his desk. The frame’s cracked and he puts it on the coffee table next to the sofa before grabbing a T-shirt.
‘Hey, I want to be out!’
‘Two seconds. I’ll just be two seconds.’
He answers the call and his mum and dad appear on the screen.
‘Hello! Oh my God you look pale. Eat some vegetables. You know, I went to Aunt Marta’s today. She’s on a broccoli diet. She looks amazing.
I’ll tell her to call you, making a note of it right… now.’
‘Hi. Please don’t tell Aunt Marta to call.’
‘Oh well, if you want to die young I suppose it’s your call. How are you?’
‘What’s up? Why are you calling?’
‘Just wanted to let you know I’m flying over Pichilemu beach tomorrow. Wondered if you wanted to come along,’ his dad says behind his mum.
‘Sorry Dad, I’m real busy right now, I really have to go.’
‘I found chicken?!’ Fran shouts from the kitchen. ‘The head! Still has head! I scare now!’
‘Who’s that?’ his mum asks. ‘Is someone shouting? Is your flat safe? I knew you shouldn’t have moved out there. Why not come back with us, save some money and move somewhere nicer later? Let me at least pay some metal bars for your windows. Santiago is really not what it used to be. Are you sure you’re OK?’
‘I’m OK. It’s probably someone downstairs. I’m working on a new game. I think it’s the best thing Jaime and I have ever done. I’m checking the sound at the moment.’
‘Oh, well, it sounds very realistic,’ his mum says.
‘How’s Eva?’ his dad asks.
‘She’s good, real busy as always.’
‘Yes we did,’ his mum says with a clap.
‘How? When?’
‘She was on the news. How come you didn’t tell us she’s finally off on her trip? Isn’t that what she always wanted?’
‘Well, I wanted to keep it a surprise.’
‘It’s amazing, isn’t it? She’s so clever,’ his mum says.
‘Yeah, she is.’
‘Did you see her too? On TV?’
‘No. I’ll make sure I get one.’
‘Well, are you coming to fly with me? Come on, we’ll fly over to Argentina, piss them off a little at the border.’
‘I can’t. I really have to go now. But have fun out there, I guess.’
‘But you know you’ll have to learn some day. Your grandfather, he—’
‘Sorry, have to go. Bye.’ He hangs up and opens the kitchen door. Fran is holding the frozen chicken wrapped in cling film from feet to head, and its eyes are wide open just like Fran’s as they both look at him.
‘What hell? Eh, fuck you, man,’ she says pushing him.
‘Sorry, sorry.’
‘I thought you no cook,’ she says, holding up the chicken.
‘I try.’
She sighs and drops the chicken on the pile of trash and walks past him. He puts it back in the freezer. He goes to the bedroom and she’s getting dressed real quick and he wishes she could stay for longer so that he won’t have to shave for himself and try to work. But he doesn’t say anything and she doesn’t either, until they’re at the front door and she’s ready to leave. She kisses him and then smiles.
‘I don’t want see you again, we no fuck ever again in the world, OK?’ she says, and he nods and his face feels hot and she leaves the door open. He can hear her take the stairs down and he hopes she’ll be there in his next class because they’re now ready to write the kind of adventure games people will remember.
He shuts the door, takes the French press and turns on the radio. He lights a cigarette by the smoking window.
(COUGH) (COUGH)
Tired of tissues that keep tearing when you blow your nose?
(Yes)
Tired of nosebleeds that just won’t stop?
(Oh, God yes)
Well don’t let them tell you that accidents just happen-ppen-ppen
Don’t you know—
There’s no snow but there are crowds and buses and noise and he smiles because his roof might fall, and his flat might flood, and Fran might hate him, and Eva might be far (so far) away and on TV, which makes her seem even further, but the sounds of the city always come back. Every day, they just appear right where they were before dark, the real accidents, the things no one understands at a distance, pure tone, bouncing aimless in echoes between mountains, between streets and tunnels, the creaking of an old house, their old house, its breathing, her breathing, the whole damn sky dropping in one cosmic sigh filled with rain, sometimes snow, just to be touched once more before it reaches the floor and becomes one of us, one of nothing. And no one, not a single person in a passing car or the white-lit crowd of mall workers driving past, can keep it from happening. Eva could not stop laughing about the dead birds that day. The noise woke him up that night. When he said it wasn’t that funny, she stopped, turned to him and told him that people are stupid if they expect animals to act all normal and happy after putting them in cages. ‘Accidents only happen to people because they believe in them,’ she said.
He missed her on TV. He gets up, heads to the bathroom and starts to shave. He missed her and it’s not his fault. He just doesn’t have the space.