Patagonia

Content Note: grief, memory loss, and death.

After Isabel, Carlos thought that he’d never love again, and that he would die of sadness. 

He lived to an old age and he loved many things, like the music of the Beatles and science fiction books. Of course, loving a person is not the same as loving a thing. A person, unlike a science fiction book, can love you back.  

After all the years, the music of the Beatles still reminded him of her.

He sat alone in the bar they’d gone to on their first date. A cover of Eleanor Rigby was playing.

“I’ll have a 1664.” 

“Oh… I think you mean Kronenbourg,” said the memory of Isabel. 

“Sorry, I haven’t been studying my beer names.”

He looked like he could be her grandpa. In his imagination, she was still twenty-three.

“I think it’s cute that you’re not a beer drinker.”

“Actually I’m very familiar with beer.”

“Really? That’s a really common beer you didn’t know the name of.”

Carlos laughed it off.

“What’s your favourite?” he asked.

“My favourite beer? It’s called…euh… “

“It started with a T… or maybe a D.”

“It was two words, right?” 

The day had come. He had started forgetting things about her. 

His Kronenbourg arrived. The bartender observed Carlos. He thought the same thing Isabel had thought that evening.

“You seem like a really serious person,” she said. 

"I don't mean to be." 

"Well, it’s not a bad thing. I like a bit of seriousness." 

"I’m glad to hear that. I like that you're not, though, that you're not so serious."

 "What do you mean I'm not serious?" 

“You know how to have fun. You don’t take life too seriously.”

“Then, what was it I said after that?”

He took a sip from his Kronenbourg. The taste was familiar, but it did little to anchor him in the present. He was trying to remember what she had said next. He couldn’t. The more he searched for the rest of their exchange, the more it seemed to slip away, leaving only the vaguest traces behind. He only remembered fragments of the conversation, like the part about the fortune teller.

“Do you believe in psychics?” asked Isabel.

“Not really.”

“So, my mom took me to a fortune teller when I was a kid. She wasn’t crazy or anything, it was like something in a fun fair, for jokes.” 

“Right.”

“She said I’d soon meet a charming man who was going to sweep me off my feet, and I’d fall in love, that we’d get married and have all these kids.”

“And how did you react?”

“I said that was disgusting, I didn’t want to have kids, I was eleven!”

Carlos smiled, staring down at the half-empty bottle.

“You know, I can read your fortune in the palm of your hand,” he said.

“No way.” 

“I swear, here let me see yours.”

He remembered how he'd held her hand.

“So this is your love line, and this is your life line, and this is the thin line that separates cleverness from insanity… and yours is really thin.”

Isabel laughed.

“Maybe you’re not so serious after all.”

“I miss you,” said Carlos.

There was no reply. He became aware of his surroundings as the bartender was announcing the last orders.

The faint hum of the bar’s dying chatter blurred into the melody of his memories. He leaned back in his seat, the weight of years pressing down on him as he tried to hold on to every detail. He was still bothered about forgetting Isabel’s favourite beer.

“Favourite animal?” 

“Dog,” said Carlos. “You?”

“The iguana.”

“Have you ever seen one in real life?”

“No, but I really want to. Favourite food?”

“Pizza. You?”

“It was definitely something weird.”

“I mean, it changed a lot as well. I don’t know what you might have said at the time.”

“Do you remember my favourite movie?”

“Yes. Hmm… what was it?… it was with Jim Carrey.” 

“Yes…”

“I don’t remember the name right now, it’ll come to me.”

“Do you remember what I was wearing? Cause it wasn’t this white dress.”

“But you look great in it.”

“Do you remember what you told me before you kissed me?”

“Of course I remember… there was an awkward silence, the bar was about to close, I leaned forward and I said…”

“Yes?”

“I said… God, it was such a long time ago.”

“You don’t remember?”

“I don’t remember…” 

“How could you forget it?”

“It’s not my fault. I’m getting old.”

The lights at the bar started dimming. The music faded out. Isabel faded away. The waiters collected the last dirty glasses from the tables. The bar itself started dissolving - the wood panels, the leather seats, it all vanished. Carlos remained where he was, floating in space. 

Piles of cardboard boxes appeared around him. 

“And this is the last one! Another one full of your books,” said Isabel 

“I’ll take that to the bedroom,” said Carlos, almost ironically.

The bedroom was also the living room and the kitchen. He just meant he’d move the box to the coroner where the bed was going to be. Their new apartment was the size of a shoebox.

“I’m going to cover this wall with posters and collages,” said Isabel.

“We need to get a drying rack for dishes,” Carlos noticed.

“Look, this is where the coffee table will be.”

“We ended up putting it on the other side”

“Look at this box, we never unpacked it, it just stayed under the bed.”

“Most of these went back to your parents’ house, we really overestimated how much we could fit in here.”

“Help me move this one, it’s kitchen stuff.”

“I’ll get it,” said Carlos, lifting the box by himself.

“My boyfriend is strong!”

“Oh god.” Carlos looked petrified as he looked out the window.

“What is it?”

“The view, I don’t remember the view.”

Isabel stood next to him.

“It’s just a brick wall now,” she noted.

“We’d gotten this place over the other one for the view. Because you liked to look at the sky before sleeping.”

“Or was it right after waking up?”

They held hands in silence for a bit.

“Don’t forget about me, Carlos.”

She faded away along with the flat. Carlos suddenly found himself in his old car.

They were parked outside their friend’s house, they were supposed to go to a party, or perhaps coming back from one.

“I was really mad at you that evening!” cried Isabel.

“And I was mad at you! But what were we fighting about?!” 

“How can you not remember!?”

“It was probably the same thing as always! I was always working and didn’t have time for you!”

“That couldn’t be it cause I was extremely understanding!”

“Yes, you were!”

“Then what was it we were fighting about?! We almost never screamed at each other like this! You need to stop screaming; it's scaring me.”

“It was after you came back from Copenhagen. I remember you said you should have stayed in Copenhagen.”

“I should have stayed in Copenhagen!”

“I wish you would have!”

Isabel left the car and banged the door. 

“No, don’t!”

Old Carlos chased her down the street, his knees aching and his hips popping, but the streetlights began to dim. He stumbled a little, trying to catch up, but the shadows of the city seemed to stretch endlessly ahead, as if pulling them further apart. 

He called her name, but his voice felt muffled, swallowed by the night.

“Isabel!” he shouted, but the words barely reached his own ears.

He was walking in the void.

Then, he heard the autumn leaves crackling under his feet.

He’d gotten to Hampstead Heath.

It was a tradition to go there for a walk every autumn. 

“I’m tired,” said Isabel.

Carlos realised this was the memory of the last time they’d been there together.

They sat on a bench for Isabel to rest.

“Look at the squirrel,” said Carlos.

“Do you think it ever finds all the acorns it hides?” 

“Probably not all of them. Some get forgotten, and that’s how new trees grow.”

“Is that true, or did you just make that up?” 

“It’s true,” he said, smirking. “Nature’s accidental gardeners.”

“Imagine forgetting your snack and accidentally starting a forest.”

They sat in silence for a moment. The crisp autumn air carried the faint smell of damp leaves and earth.

“Carlos?”

“Yes?”

“I want to go to Patagonia.”

She could barely make it across the park. 

“Then we’ll go to Patagonia!”

“There’s a sign there that says: this is where the world ends. On the tip of Argentina. My mother was there when she was younger. I want to go and take a photo next to the freakin’ sign.”

“It’s decided, our next trip is to Argentina.“

She rested her head on his shoulder, her breathing soft and uneven. 

“Promise me you’ll go.”

“I promise.”

The world faded away again.

Carlos was sitting, not on a bench in Hampstead Heath but in a waiting room at the hospital.

A nurse came out to call him. She was awake. It could very well be the last time.

“I don’t want to remember this day.”

“Carlos,” Isabel whispered, her voice fragile.

“Hey,” he said, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice. He sat beside her.

“Why do you put yourself through this?”

“I’m sorry we didn’t get to do all the things you wanted.”

“I’ve had a wonderful life.”

“I thought you died with regrets, when you said…”

“I wish I had more time.”

“And I said you had done so much, but then you said…”

“I wish I had more time with you.”

“I know I wasn’t around all the time, I should have been more present, we should have enjoyed those last years more, we should have gone to Patagonia. I’m sorry, I-”

“What’s my favourite beer, Carlos?”

“What?”

An autumn leaf fell on her chest.

Carlos got up. He went to call the nurse, but when he stepped out into the corridor, he found himself in Hampstead again.

“So, my mom took me to a fortune teller when I was a kid. She wasn’t crazy or anything, it was like something in a fun fair, for jokes,” said Isabel. 

“What’s going on?”

“She said I’d soon meet a charming man who was going to sweep me off my feet, and I’d fall in love, that we’d get married and have all these kids”

“That’s not what you said that day, that’s from our first date.”

“Are you sure?”

“I think so…I…I gotta get back to the hospital…I need to call the nurse… "

The park was foggier this time.

“There she is!”

“Last orders!” announced the nurse.

“I’ll have a… I’ll have a 1664” said Carlos, teleported back to the bar.

“Oh… I think you mean Kronenbourg,” said Isabel

“Yes… a Kronenbourg…that’s my favourite, what’s your favourite?”

“The iguana.”

“Have you ever seen one in real life?”

“There’s one under the bed, we never unpacked it.”

“Under the bed?”

They were at the hospital again, but this time, it was Carlos who lay there, pale and skinny, while Isabel sat beside him.

“That’s right…” said Carlos softly.

“You’re getting very confused.”

“I think I should call the nurse.”

“You’ve called her.”

His chest rose and fell with each shallow breath, and the weight of the air seemed to press down on him. The room was still, the beeps of machines a reminder of the time that was slipping away. The harsh light above made everything feel too bright, too clear, as if nothing could be hidden. The air was thick, heavy, each second dragging by slower than the last.

“Is it terrifying, dying?”

“You won’t even know what’s happening.”

There is a little café in Patagonia next to the sign of the end of the world. An old woman sits drinking a can of Tennent’s Lager. She’s waiting for someone. 

There are many others like her. They never get on the boats to go see the glaciers. They never go anywhere. A waiter polishes glasses and wonders where do they all come from? Where do they all belong? 

She won’t be waiting much longer.