Tabula Rasa

It was an annual tradition, a game for a niche but dedicated sub-community of gamers dotted across the country. The aim of the game had always been incredibly simple - take a seat and remain the last one seated, no matter what happens. Whatever shit comes your way, you keep yourself planted to that chair until everybody else has gone. Every year was the same - a small crowd kicks off, and one by one they chicken out, or get hungry, or their boyfriends or girlfriends threaten to leave them if they don’t get their act together and grow the fuck up. Every year was the same - eventually, it was the three of us sat in one straight line, staring out across the street. One of us three would walk away the winner, once more. You, Erin, some kind of paralegal clerk from the south (we never held that against you), with a fierce tenacity that was rare in this day and age. Over the years I discovered you came from a wildly religious family, and when life took you in one direction, that family chose not to come on the adventure with you. I wonder what it must have felt like to be that alone, and understand why you are here. Him, René, handsome and foolish. Never committed to anything for long, except this game, the only thing that ever feels natural to him. Jobs, never held them down. Men, women, never held them down either. Yet year upon year he returns to this one road, his one seat. A life’s work upon four rusty legs. And me, Joseph, average in all the ways you can think of. Eternally seeking something that exists just outside of my periphery, a periphery of my own making. Held back by demons that nobody else can see. My solace is this place, these two days, these two people. A sudden trickle of deep nostalgia. A tinge of mourning that I hadn’t been aware of before. “Remember 2003?” “That summer was the fucking worst - we sat in that downpour for hours.” “I lost the feeling in my toes for weeks after that one.” “Yeah, it was rough.” “Nowhere near as rough as the heat wave in 2015.” “Yeah, right. Hot, wet, cold - we’ve kind of seen it all together.” “Hey, the others cleared out pretty early this year, don’t you think?” “There weren’t that many to begin with.” “No, you’re right. Way less this year.” “Thinking about it, last year thinned out quick as well.” As the realisation of age, of purpose, of the passage of time settled gently in their weary bones, the three looked at one another in turn. What they saw in each other’s faces was not decades of competition, some lifelong obsession, but the faces of friends. Without fear, without disappointment, they understood that this would be the final game of its existence. They stood in unison, shook hands, and turned in their own direction, homeward bound.