by Haidji
Inside the water…’
(And some candidates trembled, because they still saw dirty water and danger, even after many days of meditation…)
‘The water is clean, believe in me.
Repeat to yourself, the water is clean,
The water is clean, the water is clean,
Water is the symbol of life
Water is the symbol of life
Water is the symbol of life
The world is what I want it to be,
The world is what I want it to be,
The world is what I want it to be,
Human beings have the gift of creation, and you create the reality you live in,
Create your own world. Jump into it…
Because reality is an illusion, the truth, the real truth is your wish, and you can change the world around you, with a simple jump into your dreams. JUMP!
The lake is deep and there is peace and happiness.
And only if you jump into the lake of your fears, you can survive.
Be focused, and concentrate, pay attention.
And when the bell rings…it is time to jump for your life!
10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1!
JUMP!’
And they all jumped into a swimming pool inside the meditation room. Dressed with their sports outfits. The water was warm and wasn’t deep.
As they came out of the pool, the models were there.
Like angels dressed in blue, bringing with them breakfast trays, towels, fresh clothes and drinks.
And they felt great enjoying their breakfast.
As they were there, feeling great, they could hear the bell again and a voice whispering…
‘Jump! 10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1
Jump! Jump!’
Like an echo…Jump…Jump…Jump, inside their minds.
Then it was time for meditation on the grass, and then another seminar.
The day passed by very fast, because all that they did was already turned into routine, a routine they made every day since the first day in the condominium. Before leaving to go to the stadium.
But this was the day off, so instead of one seminar in the early morning, they had three. And then the last one, after dinner.
And they were all, more or less, confident; and all them were ready for the second step of the game.
Chapter 16
The Gravedigger
He was small, not skinny, not fat, but small and his face was even ruder than his hands. Antonio was a Gravedigger in southern Spain, like his father had been, and his grandfather too. It was a kind of family business. The funeral agency belonged to his brother and his aunties were often hired as ‘carpideiras’, professional women to cry in a funeral.
But after years working (not officially) with a friend in the Alentejo region in Portugal, his family discovered that apart of being an honored gravedigger, he was involved in a scandal selling defunct bodies from Portuguese cemeteries to Spanish wizards for black magic.
If there would be a single Spanish skeleton involved, he would be found in one of the graves he was preparing for the next funeral, inside a black coffin.
But after a family meeting, with the ‘carpideiras’ crying and screaming—even without payment—his family, considering that all skeletons he sold were just Portuguese, decided to take him out of the business. A cousin was now working as an usher in the Suicide Game, and contacted him for a new opportunity.
They did not need more ushers, but he got the job to spend the night taking care of the gloves and wires, in a depositary room.
He spent the night there, bored already on his first work night.
The gloves were organized inside of shelves, with the wires already attached to them, in different heights on the shelving.
With his 1.45m height, the Gravedigger could only reach more or less half of the gloves and wires in the room.
Walking bored around the room, he found a toolbox; maybe one of the workers forgot it there.
He started to play with a hammer, making sounds and noise, playing with the hammer on the walls and floor.
But then he saw the orange wire cutter.
A sparkle went through his eyes, an evil sparkle.
He took the first glove, as would he cut the wire.
He couldn’t cut it, but this made it fragile and for sure, this wire would break by the jump.
He took each one of the gloves and wires he could reach, and spent his nights damaging the wires.
On the fourth night, the night before the fourth day of the first step of the game, he was so fast that one hour before the end of his work shift, he had already damaged all wires he could reach.
He started to be bored again…and was trying to reach more gloves. He used the chair he was sitting in. He stood over the chair. And kept playing with the wire cutter, until the sound of the shift alarm, which told him that his work was done for this night.
Chapter 17
Alphabot opened the conference room’s door. Six cups of coffee were already on the table. White, Yellow, Red, Blue. Green, Purple and Black entered the room, sitting down at their fixed places, one after another.
The council held another meeting about the 3640 candidates. And now…? They would divide them through the four days and live with this issue, but someone needed to see what was going on with the Gravedigger—this kind of mistake could not happen again.
Was there not a security camera in the room where they deposited the gloves and wires?
Yes, there was, but no one has ever seen the images.
They saw the images and discovered what happened.
The Gravedigger damaged more wires than the ones he was supposed to damage.
They needed to make the gloves higher again. And find a solution for the problem.
There should be 1000/day to jump.
The better way to not have broken numbers, would then be to make 1000 on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd days, and 640 on the last day, suggested Purple.
But then Yellow suggested that it should be 640 on the first day, because there was also the new song, and other new things.
Green suggested that 640 should jump on the second day, just to suggest something.
‘We’ll vote about it…now’, said Black.
But after voting four times, for which day should be the day with the lesser number of candidates, they decided it would be for day 3.
It was resolved: on the third day of the second step, they would have only 640 candidates. The third day was always the day with the least number of bets. It was therefore the best day for the fewer candidates.
Green wasn’t happy, because his vote was ‘no’ for the third day. But he needed to live with the fact that the Gods never were on his side and seemed to be always on the side of the other members.
White and Black’s answers seemed to be many times the accepted ones.
The Gods were always on the side of the same Council member; their chosen member, who practically chose himself, was not even sitting close to White on the round table; nor was he White himself. He touched his own metal sphere for a second.
The meeting was long, and finally, all decisions were made for this day.
Black, Purple, Green, Blue, Red, Yellow and White left the conference room in the Stadium, and Alphabot too, as the candidates were making their last meditation session for the day.
And it was in the ‘laps of the gods’, or better said, inside one of the metal spheres, and no more in the Gravedigger’s hands, about how many of them would survive in this first day of the second step of the Game.
A white Labrador Retriever dog walked around outside the Stadium, between the vendors, public, Hare Krishnas and kid’s parties’ makeup artists.
Food trucks were there, selling all kind of fast or slow food, and the dog was hunting for real food, in a world where they had habituated him to dry pet food.
Smelling something different, the dog entered the Stadium and found the way to the gray s
andy ground, and started to dig, searching for meat or bones.
Demir, the Usher chief, saw him and sent him away. Trying to escape from Demir, the dog ran around the elevator in circles and then went towards the outside of the grounds. And ended up in front of the room where the girl was living with the baby.
The baby was holding around itself, training to make its first steps…and suddenly started to walk alone into the dog’s direction; as it saw the dog, speaking to the dog in baby language… ‘Waw…waw…. waw.’
Now we have a dog, thought Alessandra; some days ago there was no money for the rent and now she had for some days a baby, a kind of small house with a little garden, and now a dog. Sometimes she felt happy and forgot the Stadium and the game around her, taking care of her small new family.
She embraced the dog, giving him some real food.
Alessandra called the baby Dawn.
And the dog Wow; because Dawn pointed to the dog saying ‘waw waw’, she decided to call it Wow. Because it was a really good surprise in her life, Dawn and Wow.
Her new small family.
Alessandra was teaching Dawn to say ‘Wow’, instead of ‘waw’, as Cassandra passed by to have a tea with her, after work.
Chapter 18
Tim was between gigs, working at Starbucks, and often saw Tom and Clare, usual clients, coming to choose their morning coffee.
One morning Tom was drinking his coffee with Clare and, like many times over the last two years, he asked her again:
‘Clare, why not? Why we don’t try? You are single, me too, we are friends since years. Just one time, to see how it works, maybe I can surprise you, Clare.’
Clare laughed and answered:
‘Tom, yes we’ve been friends for more or less two years, but I never felt attracted to you that way. And this will not change just because my ex-boyfriend recently married my ex-best friend.
For these two years we’ve been drinking coffee together sometimes in the morning, and I have to say that I’ve noticed, we never order the same coffee. Never. Never ever.
We don’t even order each other’s coffee on days when one of us gets here first. You are Mr. Venti Latte. Standard latte.
I could order for you without to speak, even Tim knows what you want; or why do you think that he smiles every time that you take 5 seconds to make your order, reading the list as would you chose, and then order always the same thing?
But you couldn’t order for me even if you wanted to. Sometimes I want something straight up, like a Grande Americano. Sometimes I want something decadent like a Venti triple shot Caramel Macchiato, with extra whip. And sometimes I just leave it in the laps of the gods. I tell Tim to pick something and all I need to tell him is what cup size and my name, and he surprises me.
And we never even eat the same type of cake.
I think you should stop trying with me, and go have a cold shower and search for someone else to make your hormonal update.’
‘Update Clare? You call it update?’
And she laughed. ‘Yes Tom, update!’
‘Search for someone else for your hormonal update Tom, I can be single now, but I am not available.’
And so, drinking his venti latte, Tom went from frustrated and upset, to happy. He had an idea for a new business. Based on Clare’s words to him.
Update…Update!
Just around the corner, he opened his new business.
He invited Tim to the opening, and Clare too, of course.
Clare wasn’t interested, but Tim filled in the Update forms.
And Tim, a hidden romantic guy, a little bit too shy to show his real personality, fell in love on his first ‘update’ some days after. He never called a woman ‘princess’ before, maybe it was her perfume? No, it wasn’t; he knew it was her presence.
After 3 updates, he was completely out of his mind.
But after 3 updates, he would not have money for a next update, until the end of the month; it was expensive for him. He needed a second job. Urgently, since two weeks ago he couldn’t go to Update. What if she would never be there again? What if she would change her preferences? Find another lover? Why had he not the courage to ask for her name? Phone number? The Update rules said, ‘don’t ask for personal details’, but were rules not there to be broken? Now, he was paying the price for being such a nice guy.
His cousin, John, was working as a makeup artist at the Stadium for the Suicide Game. He told Tim they needed more makeup artists for the second and third game steps. Due the urgency of Tim’s problem, John gave him some tips and general lessons. In exchange, Tim introduced John to another Starbucks employee, Jack, asking him to be the model for his makeup lessons.
John and Jack came closer.
Tim got the job, and started to work as makeup artist at the Suicide Game on the first day of the second step of the game, counting the days to be able to go to Update again and meet his princess.
It wasn’t a 100% chance to see her again, but in his heart, this did not make a difference. He would do the possible and impossible. Tim had also tried to steal the database from the Update website, but his friend Louis, a computer hacker, was still in jail, so he couldn’t do that for him.
Counting the days of future work, praying inside that she would meet him again, Tim started his job at the Suicide Game.
Chapter 19
Step 2 - Day 1
The Hostess walked over the platform again with her beautiful red dress; her voice and image came everywhere inside and outside the Stadium.
‘Do you want something that lasts forever? Something like Love?
Do you already love your candidate? You made your bet; you were always on his or her side. But sometimes life takes things we love away from us.
But also sometimes there is still a chance, so small it is, to have our loved ones in a certain way forever present in our lives.
I have a present for you. A new chance to not lose your candidate forever.
To have him or her always with you.’
While she spoke, models entered the platform carrying a big model, wrapped in white shiny tissue.
The tissue burst into big flames of fire while she said:
‘Just when you think that things are gone, a new chance comes.’
And the spotlight fell over the model.
Shiny. A big crystal model, a diamond.
‘You were here, or at home, or in the Stadium; no matter where, you were already here with us on the first Step. Suffering for your candidate. Afraid by every jump, and relieved or happy after it. Winning or losing your bet, wining or losing your wish.’
The Hostess walked to the diamond.
‘Now you don’t need to break inside when your candidate dies, because you have a chance to be with him or her, until the end of your life, if you win the raffle.
And get…a Diamond.
Made from the ashes of your candidate, especially for you. To be worn on your finger, around your neck, or on your head as a tiara.
We have the best goldsmiths in the world working for us, if you need support to create your jewelry.
All you need to do, to have your candidate forever with you, is to…
Buy a raffle today. Because if he dies not today, tomorrow the raffle is more expensive.
And there can be only one diamond made for each candidate. Run into it.
In case your candidate survives and is the winner of the Game, and if you haven’t won the raffle, don’t feel sad. He will give you in person a real diamond, and a signed poster of himself, at the end of the Game.
To say thanks for your love and support of him, wanting him next to you, for your lifetime.’
The Stadium’s spotlight fell again over the diamond model, while all the rest was dark.
The public had their lighters on, the SG kit was selling a lot, persons were wearing the T-shirts and fitness wear; and some even had the Game symbol on their foreheads, made by kid’s parties makeup artists that used to work at kid’s birthday p
arties. They came to the idea of having a spot in front of the Stadium and painting persons’ foreheads like the candidates.
The Hostess announced also that in this second game step they would have five jumps per day. Two in the morning, two after lunchtime, and one in the evening.
Cassandra, John and Tim were in the same team of makeup artists. The number of candidates for each team to prepare was about the same, and there was more time between the jumps.
Five jumps a day, but the makeup took longer now; the Council ordered them to be more accurate.
There were complaints about somebody who saw a scar on a candidate’s face on the first step. Good that they hired more personnel. Each team had more time to make the makeup of their candidates.
Only one makeup artists’ team would work on the last game step, and the competition for that was getting harder. One of the teams was accused of attempting to destroy or hide another team’s work tools. That team would be fired the next time that something would disappear, not only one of them, but the whole team. This solved the problem, for a while; no team wanted to be fired, they all wanted to stay there until the Game’s end.
Cassandra was thinking about her last night’s work in the kitchen. She had noticed that candidate number 3507…was allergic to the sauce; the sauce wasn’t in his food.
And Candidate 2252 seemed to not notice her presence.
Watching candidate 3507, she noticed that sometimes he didn’t seem to be so lifeless, like the other candidates.
He left the room one time, and his dinner also maybe wasn’t usual.
She saw him picking up his mobile phone from his pocket, something really not usual for a game candidate.
Cassandra decided to take some of the sauce with her to see the allergic components. She was afraid that 2252 could also be allergic to something. Just for safety, she had written a line under the notice about the allergic candidate, saying that candidate 2252 was allergic to the sauce too.
