by Haidji
Because she couldn’t take the sauce with her, or even food, she dropped some sauce on her bra and brought the bra to a laboratory, in the next morning before work started.
The results would be forthcoming at lunchtime.
With Tim as the new element in their crew, they started to work.
The Hostess announced a new game day.
The platform went down to pick up the first candidates, and take away the diamond model.
And the first group, of this second step of the game, entered the platform.
Two hundred candidates in this first group in the first day of Step Two of the game.
But they started from the end of the row of candidates.
Unexpectedly, candidate number 0001 wasn’t there.
Number 8000 was on the platform; the platform that was now, even though the public couldn’t notice the change, fifty-one meters high, because of the two new rows of chairs. Candidate 0001 would jump on the last day of the second step of the Game; now they started with the last ones from the first step.
The countdown started at 50, while the Hostess, in her beautiful red Femme Fatale dress, announced:
‘And now, live from the Night Stadium, especially for you,
SUICIDE GAME!
The new game
The new mania
8000 candidates at the beginning Only 3640 left,
Only one will survive
Only one can win!
Live from the Night Stadium
Nothing compares to what you'll see here
Nothing compares to what you'll watch
You have already chosen your candidate,
You have Made your bet
To be part of a
New and unexpected game
Now it’s time to let all be in the laps of the gods
And when the bell rings…it is time to jump for your life!
10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1!
And the jump bell rang out loudly
JUMP! ‘
Candidate 8000 died in the jump of this first group of the first day of the second step of the Game.
The public did not expect that change in the numbers. Only one girl had a raffle for his number…she would win a diamond! She was excited about it, screaming, jumping out of her seat.
While the survivors were celebrating with champagne glasses, the girl was in the audience looking at her finger, happy about it, that she would have a diamond…a diamond for her finger, without remembering that someone died for that.
The term blood diamond received a second meaning, in the second step of the Suicide Game. By cutting the diamond made from his ashes, part of her chosen candidate would go down the drain into the dirty sewer…but this was just a detail. Blinded by the diamond shine, she did not see that.
The second and the third groups to jump also created more happy faces in the audience. The fact that the girl had bought only one raffle ticket, and had won, increased the sales in an unexpected way; they sold more raffles for diamonds than betting tickets for survivors. And the yellow dressed bet sellers had more than double work to do, selling so many raffles for the diamonds. Because now, as the excited and happy face of the first winner was on all screens, diamonds were seen as the real deal inside the Stadium. Everybody wanted to be so happy like she was, keeping the shining part of the candidate around a finger, while the rest could go down the drain into the dirty sewer.
Cassandra couldn’t wait for lunchtime.
In one of her short breaks she called the laboratory. She told them that she went to a party and a friend dropped something onto her by mistake. She thought it might be drugs. She was worried about the friend and wanted to know what it was. ‘It was vinegar’, the voice on the phone said. And she breathed a sigh of relief.
But then the voice on the phone continued, ‘vinegar, vinegar mixed with propofol…a drug also known as milk of amnesia’.
Cassandra was desperate, but needed to stay there and keep working until the end of her Stadium workday. Watching candidates jumping from the platform. Remembering and seeing the face of 2252, in each one of them.
At noon, seven persons from the crowd went, at the same time, to seven different washrooms. After 18 minutes, they went back to their seats.
This happened in the middle of a jump; disturbing the view of the persons they walked in front of, while leaving their seats, who complained loudly, screaming at them.
They did not liked to miss the jump, but they had to accomplish their obligation.
At the end of this day:
From 1000, only 432 candidates survived the day. And 568 persons went home happy about winning a diamond, which would be delivered to their home in a few months.
Chapter 20
Cassandra arrived at her work in the condominium a little bit earlier than usual. Her notice about the allergy to the sauce for 2252 had already been copied and posted in other places inside the kitchen. It was difficult to get a good job; persons didn’t want to lose it.
She helped in the kitchen but was nervous and worried, letting things fall. As the candidates arrived for dinner, candidate 2252 was among them, but very awake. And he looked to Cassandra, as would he know her from somewhere.
She walked into him. He remembered her like out of a dream somewhere. Some red hair, a touch of a hand, and white, black and orange colors.
And nothing more.
She couldn’t speak to him there. Like in a bar, she asked him to go to the male washroom. Meet her there. And there, in the middle of a washroom, he told her his story.
His name was Luca. Italian. He entered the game because he was upset and sad. More than sad and upset; his fiancée decided to marry his best friend Stefano. And this, after six years together.
He came back one day from a business trip and she told him. He did not find them together making love (which would be acceptable for his defense, in case he would murder the asshole).
No, she just told him, as casually as she would say, ‘I’m going to the supermarket to buy some coffee, but instead of Lavazza, I prefer Segafredo’. As if it was so simple, like that.
‘I will marry, but not you; now I prefer to marry Stefano’.
He started a discussion with her, and as the words finished falling out of his mouth like angry tears, he figured out that he couldn’t hurt a woman. Then he started to scream and fight with Stefano, and from that fight he had the scar on his face. But…Lavazza or Segafredo were both Italian, so he wished both of them happiness in hell, and he decided to enter the Game…and die, because he was a coward, or maybe a good friend, because even angry, he couldn’t kill his friend. But of course, Stefano got a scar too.
Luca’s honor was broken. His heart too, equal to his honor.
To speak to Cassandra was for him like to wake up from a long dream. As would the pain about Chiara and Stefano be gone away.
No fiancée, no best friend anymore; now his stronger memory was some red hair and colors and now, she was there in front of him, and he asked her…Who are you?
Cassandra told him how they met.
And they made all the pieces together, about the Game.
Madonna Mia!!! Tomorrow…tomorrow he would jump again, and he doesn’t want to die anymore…No! No! No!
He didn’t want to die, or even jump.
Padre Pio!!!! His faith to Padre Pio would help him.
He needed to go back to the dining room, and they agreed to find a solution, to take him out of the condominium.
He called Cassandra, ‘Il Mio Angelo di fuoco’ and, as a good Italian guy, kissed her passionately before they left the washroom. And he promised to not eat anything that would taste like bitter vinegar, and to pretend to be lifeless like the other candidates.
Luca went out of the dining room, to the last seminar of the day, that was more like a dance class, hearing something like ‘we all gonna die someday’, in groups of two hundred, in circles dancing to the rhythm of the song.
Cassandra went home
with her face more red than her hair, because of the kiss, and terrified because Luca would jump on the next day.
She did not know who Padre Pio was, or Madonna Mia, but she searched on the Internet; she saw all movies about Padre Pio’s life and, if this would help, she would pray for him. While she was searching, and lighting candles, she had an idea to take Luca out of the game and out of the condominium.
She called John and asked him to bring some of his clothes to work the next day; for an unexpected visitor she would have at home, family stuff, someone was visiting her and missed the flight back, and needed something to dress for a day, while she could wash the dirty stuff… ‘You know John, they come and think you run a hotel…a family hotel with Sheraton service…’
‘Something else that your family visitor needs? Or just clothes…?’
‘Just clothes, John’, and Cassandra laughed. John was funny, and this made her relax for a while.
Chapter 21
Step 2 - Day 2
We all gonna die
Someday
Some way
We all gonna die
Someway
Someday
One day on the subway
A man comes with a gun
He shoots you for your money
And then you’re really done
And we all say goodbye
We all gonna die
Someday
Someway
We all gonna die
Someway
Someday
One day on the beach
You wanna make a swim
But a shark comes too fast
And in peace you need to rest
And we all say good-bye
We all gonna die
Some day
Some way
We all gonna die
Some way
Some day
Don’t wait for the day
Take your life, make your way
Jump into your destiny
And be part of history
And we all say good-bye
We all gonna die
Some day
Some way
We all gonna die
Some way
Some day
No matter how you die
Or what action you take
Since you’re born
Life is just a Suicide Game…
The public was out of their minds, with the performance of Life in a Wire.
One of the members of the group, three guys and one girl, had just turned 18 years old on this day, almost under-aged to be in the Suicide Game. It was also a good reason to wait until the second day in the second step, for their performance.
It was a group with different ages and styles, united by the love of music. Mike, an unemployed guy around 50; his son Gabe, who turned 18 this day; a girl Nathaly, almost 30; and David, a 40 year old ex-broker, were the components of Life in a Wire. They created their first song as a joke for the Facebook contest, but they had played together for years, every evening, in Mike’s garage. Sending their CDs around the world, never getting an answer, they decided to make a video wearing the Suicide Game uniform, for the teenagers’ competition. And there they were…as Winners.
While the group Life in a Wire was performing, the candidates were part of the live performance.
The candidates moved on the platform according to the beat of the song, in slow moves to the left and to the right. Then going on their knees at the last phrase of the song. Standing up as the song finished completely.
As Life in a Wire left the platform through the elevator, the candidates were like statues, waiting for the jump.
Two hundred candidates were ready to Jump.
Luca was one of the candidates.
Cassandra cried making Luca’s makeup, in silence, tears sliding over her face, while Luca said to her:
‘Mio Angelo di Fuoco, trust me, trust Padre Pio. I will not die, and if, and if I do, I will come back from the dead and pick you up to be with me, Angelo Mio. I will stand from the sandy grounds of the Stadium and fly into your arms. No wire will be between you and me.’
John and Tim did not notice what was going on, because they were busy with the makeup of their own candidates. Tim thinking about his princess, and John was in love, sending an SMS text to Jack in every possible break; none of them really awake to the situation around them.
Tim was doing the makeup of another candidate. It was a woman. As he saw her, she seemed so familiar that he trembled for an instant, as he touched her face for the first time; she looked at him, as would she be so far away but yet so familiar, so close to him.
Time stopped for a while…for Tim.
She was exactly as he would imagine his princess, if he could see her face out of Update. So beautiful, so kind, so fragile, and with a certain coldness as he saw her, coldness that disappeared as he touched her face. Like a layer of thin ice that breaks when you walk over it, suddenly.
With only a few minutes to finish his work, he tried to not imagine things; he was creating illusions, trying to find her everywhere, for sure she wasn’t in this game.
And maybe she wasn’t even in love with him.
But, who cares? He would go back to Update, until he found her again.
The voice of the Hostess announced the jump:
‘SUICIDE GAME!
The new game
The new mania
8000 candidates at the beginning
Only one will survive
Only one can win!
Live from the Night Stadium
Nothing compares to what you'll see here
Nothing compares to what you'll watch
You have already chosen your candidate,
You have Made your bet
To be part of a
New and unexpected game
Now it’s time to leave it all in the laps of the gods
And when the bell rings…it is time to jump…for your life!
10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1!
JUMP!’
Luca tried to seem lifeless. He tried to be like a statue. He tried as hard as he could. But it wasn’t hard enough. Luca screamed as he jumped.
Cassandra watched him in silence, screaming inside of herself, too. Luca’s loud scream was like an echo in the whole Stadium. Hanging on the wire, screaming and laughing because he survived. As the platform touched the sandy ground, he realized that he should have been quieter.
Luca walked like a drunk to the celebration, walking over another surviving candidate. Thinking fast and moving his hands very quickly, while pretending to stumble and walk slow, Luca took his bracelet off and exchanged it with the other candidate’s one.
Now, he was Candidate number 5508. Back in the condominium, he spent his day without eating, because everything tasted like bitter vinegar, and thanking Madonna Mia, Padre Pio and all saints, and even the Pope, for his good luck…for sending him his ‘Angelo di Fuoco’.
323 candidates survived this second day, and Luca was one of them.
At the end of the day, the group Life in a Wire came back to sing again their ‘Suicide Game’ song…but without the candidates, who were already out of the game, or back in the condominium.
Chapter 22
John was cranky. He wanted perfection.
But so many hours working, painting faces of strangers, with a kind of counter and scheduled time to do it.
He did not know the name of the persons, or more about them, it was like a marathon.
Where was his idealism? He felt sometimes like a doctor saving human lives, making the beauty of them come to shine, as would life be no more than an inside and outside beauty contest.
There was a time when he knew the name and story of each person he worked with.
But these apathetic candidates? Were like dolls, like puppets hanging on wires.
He wanted to be the perfect makeup artist! The best of all of them.
He spoke to the candidates, no w
ords back.
He learned how to read their non-expressive faces, also with no words.
He learned to see in their expression marks, if they were happy or sad persons.
And he learned to read the words they spoke through the silence of their voices.
Speaking with the surface of their skin.
He started to speak to them with his makeup colors.
Became better than he could ever be before, while the small talk was part of his life.
With the silence of the candidates, painting his puppets (how he started to call them, in an affectionate way), John learned more than in all his life before. And became the master of all makeup artists.
By every jump he saw his puppets falling, wishing they would still be so beautiful, when they go to the sky.
It was their choice to jump and die. All that John could do was to make them beautiful, for the last moment in their lives.
Still working on his puppets, he told Cassandra that the bag with the clothes for her family problem was ready; she could take it with her. Oh My God!
Now he understood why she was late to work sometimes; family do sometimes think that we run a hotel with full service, just because we live in a real big city. Not even Bed and Breakfast, they expect full service, if she needs more than some clothes?
Cassandra said thanks for the clothes, and no, she did not need more, and she would bring the clothes back soon.
John did not need the clothes back, they were from last year’s fashion, he wanted to give them away anyway, her parents could keep them.
‘Out of fashion, out of his wardrobe’, was one of his life rules; no unnecessary things at home, he did not have much space and needed to make more. ‘Who knows? Maybe Jack would move in one day? You never know my dear, when loves comes and changes your life…’
Cassandra knew about Jack, but preferred to not speak about it, just smiled; and smiling, Cassandra took a decision. Not one day longer for Luca in the Game or condominium. She had an idea that could be done on this night.
